Fitbit Charge 6 overestimating calories

glassyo · May 6

I feel like I've been here before.

I just got a fitbit charge 6 and, like all the non original fitbits before it, it's overestimating exercise calories. There's just no way in hell my tdee is 2900 with the exercise I do even if I rarely stop moving as opposed to my garmin which came in at 2400ish.

My fitbit stats are correct and so is the time zone. It's on my non dominant hand and I have that as a setting too (the garmin lives on my ankle because most of my walking is indoors now while playing on my tablets or working). My meal plan is set as sedentary.

It does well with counting steps. Fitbit was 46,000 and garmin was 98,000.

I have it set to automatically calculate stride length and I take a lot of teeny tiny steps because of the walking dvds I do.

I don't have it syncing with mfp since I still have my garmin syncing so I'm adding my eaten calories with fitbit manually.

Any tips or ideas? I have until May 17th to return it.

As always, please and thank you.

tomcustombuilder · May 6

All those calorie counting/burning toys are just educated guesses at best. If your weekly exercise program and weekly non exercise activities are fairly consistent just use the TDEE method where you decide what your TDEE is and stick to that number for a month and then review and adjust your calorie amounts. You’ll get pretty close and stop relying on inaccurate readings from fitbits, etc and make your life a lot easier.

AnnPT77 · May 6

@glassyo, I know you're a long-timer here so you know the basics.

The only thing I can think of is to ask whether these are both heart rate measuring devices, and if so whether there's a difference there in how your heart rate range is set, or how the devices measure it? (I'm particularly wondering about the Garmin on your ankle since I'm assuming it doesn't know it's on your ankle . . . at least my Garmin model doesn't have a setting for that AFAIK.)

I'm interpreting you as saying you've checked all the profile settings for typos, too. A difference in something like the bodyweight setting could make a difference, of course.

Have you already tried asking in the Fitbit group here? (https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users) Sometimes they have a bit more specialized insight. I'm a Garmin gal, but don't even sync mine to MFP because I know it's far off in its all-day calorie estimates for me (way low) based on logging experience.

cmriverside · May 6

Yeah, I'd send it back.

You know what to do, and both Tom and Ann have covered the basics.

Full disclosure, I only used an old-school Polar HRM for a few months and found it ridiculously over-estimating. All I need is a guesstimate on "Activity Level" and another (self) guesstimate on purposeful exercise and then - Time.

Be free from devices! It's not only possible, but in my opinion - preferable.

You know how to log food and step on the body weight scale. That's all ya need. :flowerforyou:

tomcustombuilder · May 6

cmriverside wrote: »

Yeah, I'd send it back.

You know what to do, and both Tom and Ann have covered the basics.

Full disclosure, I only used an old-school Polar HRM for a few months and found it ridiculously over-estimating. All I need is a guesstimate on "Activity Level" and another (self) guesstimate on purposeful exercise and then - Time.

Be free from devices! It's not only possible, but in my opinion - preferable.

You know how to log food and step on the body weight scale. That's all ya need. :flowerforyou:

Free from devices….

That’s a good way to put it.

I’m old school and we didn’t have all those gizmos to confuse us. We relied on listening to
our bodies taking measurements while keeping an eye on the mirror and adjusting as needed and were very successful and to this day I still am.

The simpler you make things the better.

The gizmo business is a multi billion dollar industry.

yirara · May 6

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

The simpler you make things the better.

But numbers are cool! We love numbers!
well, if they work out half ok. My fitbit numbers from way back were crazy. I guess Garmin works better for me, also for most exercises. Walking though is still grossly overstated.

tomcustombuilder · May 6

yirara wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

The simpler you make things the better.

But numbers are cool! We love numbers!
well, if they work out half ok. My fitbit numbers from way back were crazy. I guess Garmin works better for me, also for most exercises. Walking though is still grossly overstated.

lol, yes numbers ARE cool however your body doesn’t know math so the less the better. The more numbers the greater chance of being inaccurate.

I think if someone did use those those gizmos that it would require a lot of time and energy to keep tweaking the numbers and adjustments until a certain sense of accuracy was found rather than just getting one and and just relying on an initial readout as being the be all end all of accuracy.

AnnPT77 · May 6

ButButBut . . . devices are not just about calories. I know it's just me being biased by my experience, but it kinda blows me away when people here speak as if that was their sole reason for existing.

I used earlier generations of fitness tracker devices for over a decade as a fat (technically obese) and happy athlete, never even thought about the calories.

glassyo · May 6

Damn, y'all give up easily. Go ask Garmin support how much I DIDN'T give up when my display would sometimes add the prior day's active calories to the current day and then right itself out at around 5:00 pm. We never did figure it out and, yes, the region was correct.

My very first fitbit (THE very first fitbit) was spot on and continued to be until it broke in half and was unusable. I've been trying to find that bliss ever since.

My garmin vivofit 4 has come the closest but that started acting wonky which is when I started looking at activity trackers again.

I know they're not required but it also helps to see the numbers throughout the day and I could never get it right when logging exercise manually. Just like with logging food, I can't trust myself to not go the wrong way in estimating calories.

Maybe I'll see what the fitbit community has to say before sending it back. I'd stick with garmin but I need that detachment from the band perk and not many of their trackers have that. And are still cheap.

Lietchi · May 6

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

The simpler you make things the better.

But numbers are cool! We love numbers!
well, if they work out half ok. My fitbit numbers from way back were crazy. I guess Garmin works better for me, also for most exercises. Walking though is still grossly overstated.

lol, yes numbers ARE cool however your body doesn’t know math so the less the better. The more numbers the greater chance of being inaccurate.

I think if someone did use those those gizmos that it would require a lot of time and energy to keep tweaking the numbers and adjustments until a certain sense of accuracy was found rather than just getting one and and just relying on an initial readout as being the be all end all of accuracy.

Well, I'm sure my body does do the math. And my fitness tracker helps me understand that math. Without it, I wouldn't know nearly as well how active or inactive I was in a given day.
(I also never would have understood how truly sedentary I used to be, so it had also helped me be more active)

I know my Garmin underestimates my TDEE. It didn't take a lot of time or energy to find that out, just a spreadsheet and enough patience to accumulate the data from my Garmin and my weigh-ins. I spot check occasionally, it's pretty consistent.

So I think it's highly individual whether or not a fitness tracker helps. If anyone asks me the key to my successful weight-loss, I would certainly mention my fitness tracker alongside my kitchen and bathroom scales.

zebasschick · May 20

i enjoy my fitbit, but TBH, it undercounts steps, although it undercounts less if i wear it on my waist, and it does the best when wearing in my sock, with no case so it can get my HR.

i've never found any calorie figuring device to be accurate - many over-estimate, some underestimate. if you stick with one for a while, you learn how much it over or under estimates and work with that.

Fitbit Charge 6 overestimating calories

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