Calories burned are incorrect

[Tbit2017]

I know there have been post about this but is there a way to start the day with a zero calorie count? I took 300 steps and it's saying I burnt 700 calories. It's my first day and it was on the charger all last night. Thank you.

[SteveH]

It does start the day with zero calories but the day starts at midnight. Between midnight and you starting the day it's quite normal to burn several hundred calories. As this type of calories (known as your BMR calories) is calculated from your profile settings you don't have to be wearing your fitbit to get them.

[Tbit2017]

Thank you Steve.... they only thing was I wasn't wearing it. It was down stairs charging. Nothing else was on the table because I saw people mentioned that. Any ideas?

[SteveH]

Your BMR calories are burnt at the same rate every minute of the day so you don't need to be wearing your fitbit for it to calculate them. Instead it works them out on the server using your profile settings.

[Tbit2017]

So right now I have 900 steps and burnt 1004 calories, just doesn't seem right. Sorry for being a pest just trying to make sure I fully understand. At the end of the day ... say 9:00 will it tell me an exact amount of actual calories burnt? Thanks for the help 

[SteveH]

It always shows the correct amount of calories burned between midnight and now. But if you check again in 5 minutes is will have gone up because you are continuously burning calories even if you are just sitting there. The total calories for the day won't be shown until 1 minute to midnight.

[Tbit2017]

So it will count calories even if you aren't wearing it? Pretty solid. Do you keep your heart rate on or auto? Just making sure to get the max out of this.

[SteveH]

I use Auto for my heart rate monitor and it seems to work fine for me.

[AlejandraFitbit]

Welcome to the Community @Tbit2017 and @SteveH thanks for stopping by.

As our friend here explained, there's not option to start a day with 0 calories since the value that you see on your tracker when you wake up in the morning is your estimated calorie burn for the day so far (BMR). You still burn calories even if you have been sedentary or were sleeping. Fitbit estimates your calorie burn based on your age, gender, height and weight.

Catch you later. 

[Kimihird]

I have just bought the fitbit blaze- absolutely love it BUT like a lot of others, I’m having issues with incorrect calories burnt data.

i understand that it will always start the day WITH calories and we burn calories even at resting time, but when you’ve only been out of bed 5 mins and it says you e burnt 437 calories -that would be a miracle!

Im also thinking my step counting is slightly out too. In 1 hour 20 mins (around the house) apparently I’ve done 1246 steps. 

Can anyone help with a resolution?

thanks 

[SteveH]

I think 437 calories when you get up sounds about right. I've just got up and mine is 460 calories. You burn your BMR calories at the same rate day and night so when you get up at, say 7am, your calories burned will include 7 hours of BMR calories.

[Tikkievie7]

Hi wonder if u can help. I have a blaze fitbit and the calories are showing really low this has just started in the past few days. I could have done 17000 steps and it is says about 1300 calories burnt even if I've done a workout.  However if I check the next day it has went up drastically to about 2800 calories burnt. I am on my fitness pal ans my steps are showing however it's not showing calories burnt any ideas why this is happening 

Thanks

Rachel

[Sugalet]

If you want to know how many cals youve burned throughtout the day and since theres no real option to start from 0, i suggest you write down the cals u saw in the morning on ur fitbit, right when u wake up. Write on a piece of paper how many cals youve woken up with, then at the end of the day before going to sleep or before 12 am, subtract your morning number from your final number of cals and that should show how much youve burned throughout the day 🙂

[SteveH]

@Sugalet the problem with that approach is that the total calories at the end of the day will include the BMR calories burned during the day as well as those burned from activity. So, you'd end up with a total that excludes the BMR calories burned between midnight and when you get up but includes those burned during the day. I'm not sure how that would be helpful.

[hannahbrice1]

Hello, sorry about this as it seems you get this question a lot but u just got the impulse 2 and worried my calories are wrong. When I wake up it says I’ve burnt 429 calories. Does this sound about right? Weirdly when I go on the app it’s has the exact same number for previous days calories burnt but I only got it yesterday? Are they just guesses ? Thank you! 

[SteveH]

@hannahbrice1 that sounds about right to me.

When you look at days before you started with fitbit it can still calculate what your BMR calories would have been based on your profile settings. Of course it wouldn't be able to calculate the extra calories you burned through activity so you just see your BMR calories and that's why it's the same number each day.

[CindyCh]

I don’t get this either.  I have 1,107 calories at 9:00am, and my Fitbit hasn’t logged my steps yet today.  It says I’ve burned 1,107 calories.  Really?  Since midnight? If I keep that up, I’ll be able to eat 3,000 calories today.  I thought I could use this for food logging, but I guess I’ll move on to something else.  It’s not transparent and makes no sense.

[G-J-D]

You don't start at zero because your body burns calories naturally each hour of the day. It calculates your calorie burn per minute based on your weight, height and age you input into your stats.