Active and exercise minutes do not match

[Amber726]

I have recently sync'd my blaze to my iphone and i went for a 49 min bike ride (daily active goal 45 min) my active minutes only show 33 minutes. Am I entering something incorrectly? I try to meet all of my goals daily. Always shooting for the green 🙂

[Rich_Laue]

@Amber726 let's look at your calorie chart for why. Keeping in mind what Fitbits definition of active minutes. 

[Amber726]

my bike ride was definitely active. i work my **ahem** off to keep my heart rate in the 130's. this is the 1st time it hasnt matched.

[Rich_Laue]

I'm not saying your bike ride was not active, I'm saying the first place to look to see why active minutes are not correct is your call prod chart.. The heart rate chart would also be nice to look at. 

We can then go from their to figure out why. 

Fitbit does not look at the stop and start times of the exercise for active minutes, but looks at what it has calculated your caloric burn is. 

Have you set your height, weight, gender correctly? If not this will affect the active minute calculations. 

[Amber726]

I know you are not saying it wasnt active. yes everything is set correctly. i have been using the blaze since may and previously the charge hr. I have just never had the two match. can i upload screen shots?

[bbarrera]

@Amber726 Yes, you can upload screenshots. Easiest from a computer.

To illustrate @Rich_Laue point, I went to https://www.fitbit.com/activities and here is my chart from yesterday:

Each tick mark represents 5 minutes of activity. Just being alive, I burn 6 calories every 5 minutes (actually I believe Fitbit estimates 77 per hour, so its probably closer to 6.4 calories per 5 minutes).

Lets keep things simple and use 6 calories per 5 minutes. In that case, 1 MET = 6 calories.

This Fitbit article that Rich provided states that Active Minutes are recognized when you have:

- 3 METs or more (3 x 6 = 18 calories)

- for at least 10 minutes

So that means for 10 active minutes I need to:

- have at least two tick marks in a row (10 minutes)

- with each tick mark at 18 calories or higher

A short 8 minutes workout that burned an amazing 1000 calories would earn 0 active minutes if your body immediately went back to burning base calories (6 calories per 5 minutes in my example). That's because you need at least 10 minutes of moderate activity to begin earning active minutes.

For reference, the tall green tick marks starting at 3:10pm are 62 calories. This is the how my 3 hour workout started:

-  6 calories burned from 3:00pm - 3:04pm (5 minutes)

- 11 calories burned from 3:05pm - 3:09pm (5 minutes)

- 62 calories burned from 3:10pm - 3:14pm (5 minutes)

- 62 calories burned from 3:15pm - 3:19pm (5 minutes)

...

...

As you can see, the first 10 minutes are not active minutes - because for my body, Fitbit active minutes requires at least:

- 18 calories per 5 minutes (minimum calorie burn)

- 10 continuous minutes at that minimum calorie burn

So a warmup at beginning of workout is one reason why active minutes can be less than exercise minutes. 

This particular workout example was not tracked with Fitbit heart rate monitor, so the calorie estimates were based on step count. 

Hope that helps.

[bbarrera]

@Amber726 did my explanation help? The Fitbit web dashboard has two charts, one with 15 minute bars and the other with 5 minute bars. You need to look at the number of calories burned when inactive, and multiply that by 3 to figure out minimum calorie burn needed for Fitbit to recognize Active Minutes.

[Saw82]

Hi 

My active minutes are not working correctly either they used to but for through last few weeks haven't been.  I did a spinning class for 50 minutes but my active minutes was only 29 it's frustrating when I know it should be higher.  I workedon't really hard in the class so I know I hit all these targets yiur have set so I believe it's a fault.  Can't say I am happy about it.  

[Rich_Laue]

Not all exercise minutes are acyive minutes,  looking at the calories reported should help understand if you want to post a screen shot. 

[Saw82]

I really do think understand how a 50 minutes of spinning which it picks up only picks up 29 active minutes.  It's a class that is hard work took by an instructor.  I can assure you I am working hard and my heart rate is up.  I am sorry but there is a fault.  I have loads of minor bugs happening and it annoying.  Why can not fitbit except there is a fault and try fixing it? The way things are going I will be looking into other fitness watches.  Your data is not reliable.  All people want is for you to listen to them and try and solve the problem.   Instead you try telling us that us, working out is not active minutes.  I am sure my class instructor wouldn't agree.  Come on fitbit I am sure you can think of better response than that.