calories burned is not 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 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.

[Julia_G]

@jjb149, unfortunately everyone's calorie burn is individual.  The best the Blaze can do is give you an estimate of what the average person of your gender, age, height and weight will burn, also taking into account your heart rate.

For example, at the same height and weight a person with more muscle mass will burn more calories than the same person with a similar height and weight.

Also, you should bare in mind that even pre-packaged foods are only an estimate of the calories contained.  

Finally, there is growing evidence that all calories are not the same.  If you are eating mainly pre packaged food you may be taking in more salt and more sugar than is ideal.  More salt can lead to water retention, and an excess of sugar can alter the way your body metabolizes calories.

I would suggest trying to eat more home cooked meals (if possible for you) with as little processing as possible.  And, if you are certain that your Blaze is overcounting your calories (assuming you have correctly entered your gender. height, weight and age) take that into account when you plan your food intake. 

Also be aware that there is not really any "should have lost at least 2 lbs per week" especially if you have only been tryng for two weeks.  Just like calorie burn is individual, so is the rate at which you "hold on" to your weight.  But if you keep with it, and definitely have a calorie deficit, over time, you will lose weight!  Keep at it!

You might want to have a look at the Manage Weight Fitbit forum where you can get lots of support and helpful advice.

[jjb149]

Thanks. I just wish there was a more accurate way to track calories
burned. I understand a little variance, but it is so far off. Perhaps if
they took into account and let you enter your BMI (body mass index) it
would be more accurate. I don't know. I expected at least some accuracy
for how much I paid for it.

[Julia_G]

@jjb149, your BMI is just computed using height and weight, and hopefully yu have already accurately entered this into your profile.  You might want to check that the entries there are correct, including correct units.  If you have entered your weight in pounds, for example, and your Fitbit app has kgs as the unit, the calorie burn will not be correct.

Also you may want to check that your HR measure is roughly correct, as this will affect the calculation of calories burned.  You should wear it snugly enough that light from the HR sensors does not escape, but not so snugly that it cuts off your circulation or is uncomfortably tight.

Finally, if you are very unfit you may show a higher calorie burn for a given exercise because your heart is beating very hard (due to unfitness); I think it is possible that this also could cause your calories to be overestimated.  As you get fitter that should iron out.

Basically, if you find your Fitbit is overestimating burn for you, then you will need to adjust your food intact accordingly.  (And don't forget, as I mentioned, calories IN, especially from processed foods, can be inaccurate, both in their totals but also in their impact on yur metabolism).

[jjb149]

Hi Julia,

Thanks for your comments.

Actually, relying on BMI (body mass index) heavily would not work to calculate calories burned accurately.  I'm not sure how the fitbit calculates calorie burn (wish they would explain exactly how this is done in detail on their web site) but if they rely too heavily on just BMI in their calculations, I see how the calorie burn calculation could be off.  Perhaps if the fitbit and app calculated using your body fat percentage instead, it would be better.  This is because those of the same weight and height, but with different body fat percentages, burn calories at different rates.  A person with same height and weight as another person, but with higher percentage of muscle compared to fat, would burn calories at higher rate than that other person.  Regardless of this, I checked and I had entered my information correctly, including height and weight using the proper units and the fact remains the fitbit device does not calculate my calorie burn correctly.  In fact, it must be way off (calculating too high) because it shows me several thousands of calories deficit every week, but there is no weight loss.

Regarding your comment about me perhaps wearing the fitbit incorrectly, this is also incorrect. I wear the fibit properly as instructed.  It is not too loose or too tight. I only take it off it the shower.

Regarding your comment about me maybe being very unfit causing the calorie count to be high is incorrect.  First, you say that being very unfit would cause the heart rate to be high, but isn't the fitbit supposed to take into consideration your heart rate when calculating calorie burn?  In fact, you even mention that I should make sure and wear my fitbit correctly to make sure it gets an accurate measure of heart rate so it can calculate calories burned correctly.  Second, I am not unfit.  I've been working out and counting calories for many years and often run half marathons and relays, snowboard, ski and wakeboard.  I was hoping the fitbit would make the calorie tracking easier, but it is disappointingly inaccurate and misleading.

Regarding you comment about the type of food I eat, I could see how this may affect metabolism somewhat, but the variance should not be that great to be several thousands of calories off.  If it does make such a huge difference (thousands and thousands of calories) then fitbit should either account for that or should not even advertise it calculates calories burned because such a variance renders the calorie tracker useless.

Finally, you said that if I find my fitbit is overestimating burn for me, then I will need to adjust my food intake accordingly.  But that's not the point.  My issue is that it is supposed to be tracking calories burned accurately, but it is not.  Obviously, I need to adjust my calorie intake down further while continuing my exercise regimen given the fact that I am not losing weight.  I didn't need the fitbit to know that.  All I need is a scale.  Also, I don't know if the fitbit is off by a percentage (or what that percentage is), whether the percentage the fitbit is off grows with the more calories I burn (linearly, exponentially, or by some other function), or perhaps is just off by a flat amount.  I would really have to invest a lot of time to expiremnt with it to find out what my accurate calorie burn really is using the number fitbit provides and what recalculations I would have to make to the fitbit count to make it accurate, which actually adds to the hassle and is not what I bought it for.

Jim

[Mada82]

I think my calories are being completely over estimated by the ionic too. 4000 calories today when I sit at a desk most of the day and walked for 3km at lunch. I’m a 6ft 3 male, 17st 6 pounds. Carrying a good 2.5 stone of extra fat

[NR1985]

HI I really want to say firstly, if you are expecting to lose weight by eating majorly pre packaged foods then Good LUCK. Secondly, yes there is inaccuracy in how we record calories (human error) and how watch calculates calories burn but in my scenario for last 2 months, to calculate my calories defecit, I only count 75% of my calories burned as real burned calories and then do the math. It comes out perfect so I suggest you to do same thing.

[jjb149]

If you and I both have to recalculate the calories burned from what fitbit
provides, then it just confirms the calculation that fitbit does is
inaccurate.

Prepackaged or not, it's impossible not to lose weight if you burn more
calories than you consume. It has nothing to do with luck. Thank you for
your useless advice, and your sarcasm.

Jim

[Julia_G]

Hi, @jjb149, I quite agree that the remarks from @NR1985 probably were not helpful for you.

You are quite correct in saying that, over time, if you consume fewer calories than you burn, you are bound to lose weight.  

I wrote you a fairly lengthy response earlier to your question of why you had not lost 2 pounds, and you apparently took these very personally and listed why my remarks were incorrect.  For example, I did not say you were wearing your Fitbit improperly, I just mentioned that a possible factor in inaccurate calorie counting might be because much of the calorie calculation is based on heartrate -- so if the heartrate is incorrect, then the calculation will be wrong.   This can happen if a person is wearing their Fitbit incorrectly.  That did not mean to imply that you were!  It was just something to think about.

Basically, as I said before, calorie burn, as calculated by an off the shelf fitness device, and calorie intact, as calculated by a package from a supermarket, are always averages and estimates.  The calories in your packet are probably mostly pretty accurate, though not exact, but the calories burned are very much individual.

Fitbit actually tries to come up with a pretty good estimate of that -- they base your BMR (basal metabolic rate) calories on your height and weight (BMI, which we mentioned earlier) but also your age and gender.  Women burn fewer calories, on average, than men, and older people, on average, burn fewer calories than younger.

But, as I keep mentioning, all these things are based on averages.  Maybe you have a fantastically efficient metabolism!  That sounds pretty good, but it will also mean that you need fewer calories than the average person to maintain the same weight.  (Bad luck you!). Increasing evidence suggests that the more often you have been on a diet, lost weight, and then gained it back again, the fewer calories your body will need to hold on to your weight (i.e. the slower = more efficient your metabolism).  Your body is evolved to hold on to calories, to survive throughout periods of want.  It is not designed to give up those calories easily.

Basically. you may not be average.  The message is not to get mad at Fitbit, but to still use it as a tool.  Okay, maybe you are not average.  Maybe when the average person your height, age and weight burns 2000 calories a day, you burn 10% less.  You can use that information!  

You previously said that you "should have" lost 2 pounds and you didn't...  As I said before, there is no "should have" .  There is only your own body, and how it reacts.  Over time you can use your Fitbit as a tool to help you find out how to balance, for YOU, calories in and out.

If your main goal using your Fitbit is to lose weight, I would strongly recommend that you get involved in the manage weight forum, where there will be many more people who can discuss the best way of using the Fitbit to achieve that goal.

[jjb149]

I just want the fitbit to work as advertised. I'm perfectly capable of
losing weight without it, which I had been doing so before I bought it. I
was hoping the fitbit would make it easier, but its inaccuracy makes it
more difficult. It's a waste of money.

Jim

[Bec1]

Hi Jim

i have only had my Fitbit for two weeks and just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I am not a particularly active person yet my calories burnt each day have been really high so I’m beginning to think that the Fitbit is not accurate. 

[Julia_G]

@Bec1, most of the calories that most people burn are not calories from activity, but BMR (basal metabolic rate) calories -- calories your body burns just staying alive.

Fitbit makes a standard measure of this based on your gender, age, height and weight.  You can check your BMR calorie burn with a quick google: Here's a quick example, but there are many more: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Fitbit will calculate any extra calories you burn from activity.  If you have a Fitbit with a HR monitor it will do that based on your heartrate.  For other Fitbits it will be based on a calculation of how fast it is detecting "steps" and your gender, age, height and weight.

I hope this helps make it clearer.  Welcome to the forums!

[Bec1]

Hi Julia

thank you for explaining that-I had no idea and I thought the calories burnt were from activity. 

[Julia_G]

@Bec1, it was a good question, and one of the most frequently asked ones on the Fotbit forums.

Your Fitbit, of course, counts activity calories too, but it has to count them in addition to the calories your body burns just staying alive.  It really doesn 't make sense to try to imagine how many calories a body (which body!) might burn if it weren't also using all its bodily functions at the same time (breathing, thinking -- your brain burns an amzing amount of calories -- digesting , etc.)

[LizKSwimming]

The thing with weight loss is that you have to try not to get hung up on the small values. Most dietitians reccommend against weighing yourself too often. 

Your weight can fluctuate 1 to five pounds in a single day just from water! The two pounds should show up more as a general trend of weight loss over time. Better evidence that Fitbit isn’t working properly would be if you lost no weight while carefully tracking your calories in an entire month. 

[jjb149]

I weigh myself only once a week and it has been consistently off over many
months since I bought it about a year ago.

[Tristanlm_33]

I absolutely agree! I just bought one (Fitbit blaze) and it is disappointingly inaccurate by far!!! I have had my BMR tested on an InBody machine and I know my calorie intake because I prep alllllllll my food weekly. I used the InBody machine for 6 weeks tracking my progress and not only visually, but also documenting evidence from the machine showed me loose 9% body fat in that shirt period. I have been down to below 12% body fat before. I’m am roughly around 15-16% now. I thought This could tell me more exact about my calorie burning so I could adjust my diet to the calorie intake perfectly burning atleast 5-600 calories daily. It says I have been burning 3,300-4,200 calories a day! Wtf?? Lmao!! the low calorie day (3,300) was on my off day on Sunday. I didn’t even work out or do anything strenuous. My BMR IS ONKY 1,500. Calories. I’m only 5’ tall amd 140lbs. 

Ok so. Now to add to what my friend here was saying.....I intake 1,500-1,700 calories a day exactly in order to be in roughly a 3-500 caloric deficit daily with my workout and cardio. That’s not including working a few times a week which would only add a couple hundred more calories burned those days. 3,500 calories burned is a pound of fat no matter how you look at it. According to fit bit I should be shredding 1 pound of fat every other day whether I work out or not. Sorry but this is a complete bogus device for calories. Other features may be accurate but positively absolutely definitely not accurate on calories. Hands down. THATS the ONLY reason I bought this device so it is a little upsetting I will say. 🤷🏼‍:male_sign:🤷🏼‍:male_sign:🤷🏼‍:male_sign:  

It does have my average BMR close at 1420 calories daily. And when I subtract that number from my total each day is seems more realistic. But still not accurate  enough to rely on. I wonder if that’s the glitch?? Maybe it literally adds up your BMR slowly through the day on top of steps and HR and it just gets off track some. Not sure but I wish there was a truly accurate device that hands down could tell us how many calories out icy really is burning. Loosing weight efficiently would be so much easier!! Ok thanks for letting me vent! 

[Tristanlm_33]

This is more accurate or a reading for sure. But to be safe I would honestly take off around 30-35% of total calorie count or add up only 65-70% of the total. Same difference lol. I respect this comment,  it makes more sense than defending the Fitbit because of whatever promotional reasons. 😂

[WLU]

Did you do any research prior to buying the device?  There a numerous discussions and articles regarding the inaccuracy of all such tracking devices.  Better to use it as a tool to give you an idea than an exact calculator of calories burned.  Maybe going somewhere and completing body composition testing/metabolic testing/etc, would be a better use of your time and money if you are trying to lose weight.

[Bec1]

The device was a gift, so no, I didn’t do any research.