Spinning calories burned are incorrect

[dRdR]

Hi..

Blaze can not calculate spinning calories with recumbent bike. 

After 1hr exercise, blaze just report 30cal. It should be around 500-530cal

Treadmill, weight & workout works fine though.

How to solve it? Not just log manually..

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hey there @dRdR.  Good to see you in the Community!

I would maybe recommend using "Workout" for recording your activity and once you're done with it and you've synced your tracker to your account and see the activity there, recategorize it to Spinning or the activity you'd like and see if this makes calories burned to show better.

Let me know how it goes!

[dRdR]

Tried many times, Yes it's better than spinning mode but still the calories
are less around 50C than it should be..
Recategorize means write a new activity log or create custom activity?
So spinning mode has no function at all then.. 😞

[reesekm]

I've had this issue as well. I've completed about 8-10 spin classes while wearing my new Fitbit Blaze and I think the calorie count is low. It has registered anywhere from 310 - 350 for a 45 minute intense Flywheel class. My stats from the Flywhee app after the class are always in the 700 - 800 calorie range. I expect the class monitors are over estimating calorie burn, especially since you do not enter any personal information (height, weight, age) into the bike, but that is still a huge discrepancy in calories burned from an intense workout.

I'm disappointed that I dont find this a reliable way to track my activity in a spin class.  

[bbarrera]

@reesekm Manual entry does a terrible job estimating calories, and I've reported this many times to Fitbit. There are two separate spinning entries, and they give very different calorie counts:

As you can see, trying to improve calorie estimate by using manual Spinning entry results in less calories. You can bet that 22 miles in 1 hour is really working hard, and yet I get less than half the calories of the older Spinning entry.

This estimator:

http://www.acaloriecalculator.com/calories-burned-calculator/

Does a fairly good job when comparing to calories estimated from chest strap. When cycling at 20mph for an hour, the estimates for 200lb person are:

- outdoor cycling: 1089 calories (drafting) and 1433 not drafting

- spinning: 998 calories (161-200 watts) and 1270 calories (201-270 watts)

Those estimate are close to estimates from my chest strap.

Lets call it 1000 calories to make the math simple. Fitbit calories estimates (for me) when manually entering are off by 50% (499 calories) and 77% (231 calories). Thats huge!

Your calorie estimates from that website will be lower if you weigh less than me. Lets use 150lbs and 45 minutes, a vigorous spin session should around about 560-710 calories, which is about 2x your Blaze.

I've given up on trying to get accurate calorie estimates from Surge, Blaze, and Fitbit manual entry. My suggestion is to play around with band position and tightness to see if that improves things, or just give up and do a manual entry with calorie override.

Hope that helps.

[Rich_Laue]

@bbarrera one thing i notice is that without having an idea of the intensity, ie miles, fit i will assume an average. 

How realistic is 22 mph, on a bike this would not be easy. When spinning the miles at best are theoretical. 

Now when it comes to calories reported by these machines they are known to read high, they are called feel good calories. 

http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/why-you-shouldnt-trust-calories-burned-on-exercise-machines/

You can also do your on srarch

[mprague]

I wear my Blaze for Spinning as well and yes the calorie burn is a lot lower than the bike's computer, but I believe it is fairly accurate! It gives me about the same calorie burn as measured on a Garmin or Polar using a heart rate strap! Disappointing but good to know!

[bbarrera]

---

@Rich_Laue wrote:

@bbarrera one thing i notice is that without having an idea of the intensity, ie miles, fit i will assume an average. 

How realistic is 22 mph, on a bike this would not be easy. When spinning the miles at best are theoretical. 

---

@Rich_Laue All the info I provided is based on my experience for my weight and current fitness level.

During a 1 hour spin session, I burn from 750 to 1200 calories. These are not feel good sessions, I walk out completely drenched. And no matter what I do, Fitbit estimates are not even close. However the estimates from the website I provided are quite close, and they allow you to "fine tune" the estimate if you have power info (for indoor spin sessions) or average mph (for outdoor rides, both with or without drafting).

Regarding my 22mph estimate, its very realistic. For example lets look at last week - I'm the 4th line in this Strava chart:

As you can see, last week I rode ~130 miles outside at an average speed 19.4mph, and 100 miles were ridden solo without the benefit of drafting anyone.

Last week's 30 mile group ride had an average speed of 21mph, and these were my fastest 1 mile splits from that ride (from MapMyRide):

In addition, I use a gym that has power meters on some spin bikes. I picked the 22mph based on comparing spin rides to outdoor rides, its fairly accurate for me when riding flat roads.

But yeah, 22mph is pretty hard to maintain unless you ride and train. The point being, Fitbit says 231 calories for a really hard spin session, and 499 calories for a spin session that it doesn't know how hard you are working. Pretty dumb and hard to believe, and Fitbit even knows my actual weight (I own an Aria scale)! Go figure.

All of my estimates are from Garmin app paired with Garmin premium chest strap, and cross referenced to Strava estimates and Apple Watch estimates. Those estimates are fairly close, its the Fitbit manual entry estimates for spinning that are terrible. The Surge and Blaze do a little better, but aren't close. And I used my BMR and Garmin calorie burn to maintain my weight, so I trust the Garmin estimates.

Again to be clear, I'm suggesting that @reesekm use the web calorie estimator with her own weight. Then compare that to Fitbit Blaze estimates. I'm not suggesting anyone use the estimates from a machine that doesn't allow you to input weight. If your gym has power meters on spin bikes then you'll be able to use that info to lookup and get a better "stationary bike" calorie burn from that website. I've found those estimates to closely match HR-estimated calorie burns on Strava, Garmin, and Apple Watch. And I've found Fitbit estimates to be shockingly off for manually entered activities, and better but not good enough for HR estimated.

Hope that helps.

[SunsetRunner]

I disapointed as well.. Havent tried it in workout mode though only spin mode..  I added spin to exercise function pressed start at the start of my spin class   (60 mins) Well what a let down... Blaze only tracked 18mins active mins??  of the 60 mins.  I wore the blaze higher as recomended as well?  When i synced to phone (android samsung galaxy S5.. ) I can see my heart rate data logged  time ss 61mins?? So why didnt it track the whole spin class??? So disapointing when the other modes seem to be working pretty well so far.. 😞

[SunsetRunner]

.................................... How did you get it to track your spin class?  I added spin to exericse mode as suggested and it only tracked 18mins of the 60 class?

[SamInOakland]

I appreciate your analysis and data sharing, and the other commenters too.

the very reason I bought a Fitbit was so I could do a spin class with my sister and not rely on machines that have metrics on board. I'm 25 minutes into my first ride in my Fitbit is under reporting my calorie burn by 35%. 

Meanwhile it reports my steps in a much higher rate than my Samsung Galaxy S8 native exercise app. 

[Rich_Laue]

As for steps @SamInOakland since your not walking on a bike, this count should be zero. Fitbit looks at the arm movements to determine steps.

As for calories, are you sure, many exercise machines on ourpose add feel good calories so therethe can feel good about all the calories they burned.

Have you checked that your stats, height week, etc or correct? 

Even then Fitbit only calculated it as if your and average person, hint, your not.

[henleyu]

yes yes yes....you sound like correct i don't just know if i can also ride like you do ride?