About logging exercise and calorie outputs

[ThatGreen]

Today was the first time I ever stepped foot in a gym and logging said affair manually (after I forgot to tell my Blaze it was workout time) has been a major headscratcher.
I logged my hour at the gym (11.25-12-25) as "Circiut Training" initially, which seemed the best fit for my activity out of my activity shortcuts as my program involved a mix of cardio, weights and stretching.

For 0.3 seconds I was amazed that my low to medium intensity hour had resulted in buring 600 calories! (Did anyone say dessert?)
Then my rationality took a hold and I realized that can't possibly be correct (I wish). So I started experimenting with the logging page.

All cardio exercises demanded a milage, which is zero as cardio happened intermittently on stationary machines.
"Weights" gave me roughly 300 calories, which seemed pretty spot on based on previous knowledge of my fitness level vs effort, but upon further inspection lowered my total calories slightly compared to the readings from the Fitbit. More research needed.
"Yoga" fit like a glove with 320 calories, just a couple measly calories away from the actual Fitbit readings.

Well, there's your answer, I thought, but nope.
Since the manual log seems to completely negate the readings, this happened:

Left: Actual reading. Right: Activity logged manually

Not the biggest issue (I do what that exercise to count on my "x of x days weekly exercise" tile though), but it's annoying enough going through the process of trying to find something to match, not to mention trying to read all the tiny spikes and adding them up before logging to find the Fitbit readings of your effort and calories burned.
The steps I got during the hour is still intact and looks like it should.

*Since you can't edit exercise logs made by using the Fitbit, this issue also comes up every time I turn it on or off late. Sometimes you're just eager to go about your day and forget to tap and communicate with the thing.
I know calories are more or less an estimate and can't be 100% correct. I also realize steady state cardio is more accurate, but I feel like I'm missing something in this. Double the calories for changing what you call your activity? I don't buy it.

Is there a simpler way to do this and get decently accurate outputs?
Will using "Circuit Training" (or any other of my activity shortcuts) on my Fitbit make the calories burned untrustable, in that the name of the exercise brings my calories up/down compared to simply not logging it as exercise at all?


TLDR; Logging exercise is weird because calorie output seems based on the name of the exercise (intensity factor?) and makes no sense compared to readings before logging. How can I make my life easier?


*Late edit; but I found a way to edit exercise time if I forget to turn it on/off.

[WavyDavey]

As I understand, each exercise type has an intensity factor to it, so that an hour of yoga is calculated having burned fewer calories than biking, etc. If the exercise isn't logged at all, calories burned will be calculated using the heart rate, which will roughly correct except that the exercise type intensity factor (my term) won't be applied.

Circuit training and Crossfit are notoriously difficult to log because they are made up of exercises of varying intensity. There's no simple answer, other than it takes some experimentation to get things accurate. The best way I know is to put meals in the food log, and compare those calories to the reported calories burned. If the scale says you're losing weight, then it's likely the calories burned are a little low. (My weight training calories burned are a little low and I make an adjustment for that). Once the calories in and out match and your weight stays the same, it's likely that your exercise logging is correct.

In general I find better results from exercise tracking that is real time, whether auto-track or manually starting the tracking (on Charge 2). Adding manual logs later is OK but more prone to issues.

I don't know about all the features of the blaze, so you might want to inquire further on that forum as to its exercise tracking capabilities.

[ThatGreen]

Thank you for replying.
I completely agree on the intensity factor. However, the Blaze has multisport, which means I have to either select my activity when starting my exercise or let it auto-select and auto-track it for me. This puts every exercise into a category.
I don't like the auto-tracking, but the categories are great for when I go back and look at my exercise logs. It's so easy to figure out what I did on what day and how it went.
I stongly suspect that if I were to choose "Circuit Training" manually at the start of my exercise, I would get an inflated calorie estimate.
Going to ask on the Blaze forum for any thoughts and maybe test this theory by choosing different categories when I go for a normal runs/walks and compare results.

I'm currently trying to lose weight and I log my intake with MFP (bigger food database, or at least that was the case when I started using it ages ago). I'm not overly strict with my deficit or my exercise, which means it's not always x amount of calories in/out each day, making the normal "linear" supposed weightloss of x amount of weight each *unit of time* a bit more complicated.

[ThatGreen]

Yesterday I posted this post on the Dashboard forum after my first stint at something other than walking/running/hiking and I realized this might be an issue more connected to the Blaze or the multisport function, rather than just any Fitbit.
Worth a read to get a more comprehensive look at the issue.

In short, I would like to track my exercises as accurately as I can, but putting a name/category to that exercise seems to inflate/deflate the calorie output (sometimes drastically).
Having categories on the exercises when I go back to look at my log is extremely helpful (especially now when I'm branching out and trying new things) and seeing the x out of x days exercised is motivating me to hit my goal, but it's annoying to think that I can throw my calorie output off simply by labeling my exercise.

Is there any way to tell the Blaze that "hey, we're gonna do something active" and not label it, but still get the readings from said activity?
Better yet, is there a way to label it, but not get the intensity inflation/deflation from the category?

[SunsetRunner]

I've merged your posts so that people can follow better and comment as needed. Please keep the same issue confined to a single thread. Thanks.  🙂

[WavyDavey]

And I moved this topic to the Blaze forum from the fitbit.com Dashboard, as the question pertains to the Blaze rather than the Dashboard.