Calorie Estimation a Little High?

[DeceitfulChickn]

I measured using the 15 second rule, and the heart rate on my blaze is accurate.

I crosschecked the BMR that fitbit estimates with myfitnesspal, and both numbers were within 20 calories of each other if I recall correctly, that being estimated 2269 calorie basic metabolic rate per day. 

I set custom heart rate zones, using my resting heart rate of 53 and my age to set a minimum of 149 and a max of 202. I'm reasonably fit, being able to pull off a 9 minute mile, and currently likely have a body fat percentage of around 15-20%.

The only thing I haven't done is input my stride measurements into the blaze.

Here's where my issue starts, I'm a six foot, 260 pound male. I workout nearly every day, running as fast a mile as I can on a treadmill daily, followed by 30-40 minutes of a resistance training regimen. On weekends I trail run with my girlfriend. I only recently got my blaze, and for the past few days it has been telling me I've been burning around 5000 plus calories a day. Yesterday was 6,466, sunday was a rest day where I burned around 4300, and saturday was ~5300 calories. This means I burn almost 3000 calories a day extra. I've been logging nearly all of what I eat, and I usually intake around 1500-2000 a day, this would leave me in huge deficits every single day. Is this possible? Or is my blaze not measuring correctly?

Today it tells me I was in a fat burn zone for 264 minutes. However besides my hour at the gym, I don't recall doing much strenuous excersize. I'll include a link to a screenshot off the desktop site, which after two days, Sunday and Monday, puts me at a 7800 calorie deficiency.

Anyone with any expertise on this would help. According to these stats, some days I should be dropping nearly a pound!

Link: https://gyazo.com/56f6f9876880945de0a2d75adc8b6dcd

[Julia_G]

I would try removing your custom heart rate zones for a week or two, and let the Blaze calculate for you and see if you get calorie results more consistent with your observations / expectations.

[DeceitfulChickn]

Cheers, on default settings, does it create heart rate zones for me personally, or is the default setting an across board, generalized heart rate zones for anybody?

For anyone else with expertise, here's a link to my profile, I set my calories burned/intake to public, so you should be able to see all the numbers: https://www.fitbit.com/user/4HPN5S

Could me setting the custom zones really have it messing up so bad on the calories burned? Or am I actually cutting like 3000 calories a day?

[MikeIT]

I wouldnt mess with the default zones unless you know what you are actually doing.  (no offense).

It wont blow up your fitbit- but it could skew your results even worse.

I would do some non-fitbit calculations of your base line calorie burn.   IE, what does your body burn given your weight, height, age- if you were strapped to a chair and did NOTHING all day.   Mine is like 1800 calories.  My body burns this just to stay alive. 

Fitbit calculated this accurately.   

Now consider what calorie burn, per minute, given a specified heart rate zones (fat, cardio, peak).  And check your heart rate results over that day that you feel your calorie burn rate is  off.    

Given your size and active lifestyle, you may be an individual that does burn that amount of calories.  

Are you accurately tracking your food intake?

If after a few weeks of accurately monitoring your food, and your calorie burn rate spread-  check your weight loss.  

Its what 5000 calories per pound or something like that?   Adjust your defaults to make the weightloss match your calorie deficit then???

Just an idea.

[DeceitfulChickn]

None taken at all Mike,

I just wasn't sure how much to trust the default zones, and it seems like they work really well.

I agree on your point that fitbit calculted my base line daily burn of 2200 calories accurately. And my intake is usually a educated estimate, like give or take a few hundred a day, not enough that should matter if I'm actually using around 5000 calories a day. I'm a student with few classes, so I wake up at 10-11 AM, therefore I really only eat two meals a day, with one or two healthy snacks between meals. 

I think you're right. I may be jumping the gun on this. It could very well be that my efforts to log nearly all intake has caused me to eat healthier, and snack on unhealthy foods less. Therefore my calorie intake is at an all time low.  I will give it some time, logging intake, and trusting what fitbit says I'm burning and see if I lose any weight in the next few weeks. 

My only issue is when I'm done with my weightloss goals, all the calories I'll have to eat in order to maintain muscle mass 😛

I've heard, and read that a pound of fat is equal to something like 3500 calories. I could be wrong.

Cheers for the help, I'll put a little more faith in, keep on my workout regimen, and see if I keep losing weight. 

[MikeIT · Accepted solution]

Glad to hear I talked ya down off the cliff 😉

I would be interested to see your findings in a couple of months to see if you actually needed to adjust any.

Just be honest with yourself, about what you eat, and try to keep a 1-3 lb weekly weight loss.  Anything else is usually water weight or setting yourself up for a half gallon ice cream crisis.

[Amk2016]

I feel like my calories burned are estimated very high as well... after my 10k steps it says i have burned 2,730 calories. That seem extremely high to me. Am I missing any other settings to help get this more accurate?

[jjb149]

The calories burned is not accurate. I've accurately tracked how many calories I've eaten over the past two weeks and I should have lost at least 2 lbs per week based on my calorie deficit, but have not lost any.  I have also entered in my, height, weight, etc., accurately.

I track my calories eaten very carefully, so I know calorie intake is accurate. I eat only prepackaged foods with the calorie count on the package and weigh the food every time, and the very few times I've eaten out, I overestimate the calories eaten. Therefore, that must mean the calories burned is not accurate if it is showing such a large calorie deficit and I am not losing any weight.