Fitbit Coach workouts with pre-set calorie burn

[Ambs22]

Ok, so.... I’m starting to doubt the actual reasons i’m using a Fitbit. I recently upgraded to premium to enjoy the workouts on Fitbit coach. It’s not terribly expensive and I enjoy doing them. The thing is, I have a problem with Fitbit coach telling me how many calories i will burn by doing the workout. For example, today I did “cardio kickoff” and it said I would burn 235 calories. I did the workout wearing my fitbit charge 2 and I do each exercise with all I have to give. The workouts aren’t really all that hard. Some moves are challenging and I usually am sweating while doing them, but not as much as I would spending 30 mins on the elliptical or doing a 20min Jillian Michaels DVD. At the end of the workout I refresh the Fitbit app on my phone and it will list the workout I did and the identical number of calories that it said I would burn (today “cardio kickoff 235 cals”) So..... why am I using the heart rate monitor and why do I need the watch? What I’m looking for is a different number based on the effort I put in and my heart rate. For all they know I just load the workout and sit on my duff eating Doritos. I am really looking for a bit more here considering the money i spend on the hardware and now my monthly subscription. I was going to upgrade to an ionic because now I work out quite a bit but this has put a sour taste in my mouth and am considering an Apple Watch instead.

[SilviaFitbit]

@Ambs22 A warm welcome to the Fitbit Community. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with Fitbit Coach and your Charge 2. 

I see where your disappointment is coming from. I appreciate your feedback and comments, these help us to continue improving our services offered. 

The calories burned showing in Fitbit Coach workouts are based in the personal information that you entered when you created your profile. Since you have a Charge 2 and it has the heart rate feature then please confirm that you have linked Fitbit and Fitbit Coach. 

When your accounts are linked your heart rate will be taken into consideration for the calories burned showing in Workout session. 

Let me know how the troubleshooting goes. I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[Ambs22]

Hey, thanks for the advice. I only use the Fitbit app and the Fitbit coach app. None of the other subscriptions you mentions such as my fitness pal. I can appreciate that the calorie expenditure is calculated based on the info I submitted at the beginning but I still don’t think it’s right that it doesn’t calculate my effort based on heart rate and really defeats the purpose of the watch. I am able to do my own calculations using my previous food tracker, FatSecret to figure out my rough caloric expenditure. I’ve looked all over the Fitbit coach app to link my account with Fitbit and I’ve not seen anything. I assumed I linked it when I started the subscription. If you have any more information specific to Fitbit coach app and linking it to my account that would be very helpful.

Kindest Regards,

Amber Gallia

[SilviaFitbit]

@Ambs22 Thanks for getting back. I'm sorry if the instructions confused you, those are the general steps to link third-party apps to Fitbit. 

You could confirm that Fitbit and Coach are linked by doing the following: 

- Visit Fitbit Coach website
- Click on your profile picture 
- Choose Settings 
- Scroll down until you see "Connected Account" 
- Fitbit should show "Disconnect" if they have been linked 

When your accounts are linked and you use your Charge 2 to exercise while doing Fitbit Coach, your heart rate will be taken into consideration for the calories burned. 

I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[Ambs22]

Ok, I have confirmed that my Fitbit has been connected to my Fitbit coach sessions this whole time. Thank you for the instructions. It definitely is not taking my heart rate into account while performing the workout sessions though, only estimating the calories burned based on height, weight and age. I know this because regardless of how hard I push myself (or don’t, I’ve was interrupted no less than 5 times by my kids last time) it always says I’ve burned the exact number of calories it estimated at the beginning before starting the workout.

Kindest Regards,

Amber Gallia

[MrGuidoful]

Hi SilviaFitbit,

This is just to confirm that @Ambs22 is right - it doesn't matter if Fitbit coach is connected to your HR device, it only estimates calories based your height/weight/age, rather than using your HR. I use a charge 4 and the charge 4 gives me an accurate calorie count based on HR, which is, frankly *wildly* different from the estimates provided by FitBit Coach. As I am trying to lose weight this is incredibly annoying!

As the moment, I am recording sessions on my Charge 4 and then running Fitbit coach and then going and manually deleting the Fitbit coach session from my Fitbit dashboard in order to get an accurate calorie count based on HR. Surely this can't be right can it? There must be some way of using Coach, but not having it overwrite the HR based calorie data coming from the Charge 4?

Thanks in advance for any additional information you can give to solve this for me,

best

g. 

[Ambs22]

When you say “wildly different” am I right to assume that when you manually track the exercise using HR it say you have burned less calories than what the workout suggests? My only guess for why this might be is #1 encouraging people to pay for premium and use their workouts and #2 they take into account EPOC effect which I don’t think is that effective to count when losing weight. I lost my baby weight last year and used FATSECRET app to track calories and exercise. They have a huge database. No it doesn’t measure HR but I can tell you I had more success using that app than I am with Fitbit. unfortunately the pandemic turned me into a boxed wine, packaged snack, pasta loving monster and I gained a significant amount of weight back. 

[SilviaFitbit]

@Ambs22 @MrGuidoful Hi there. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with Fitbit Coach exercises. 

I understand the importance of the accuracy of these calories burned. As mentioned before, for the best experience, we recommend using Fitbit Coach with your Fitbit device because it will take into consideration your heart rate data if Fitbit tracks it. For more information about it please check this article. 

Your feedback has been shared with our team and they will further investigate it. 

I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[MrGuidoful]

Hi @SilviaFitbit, you wrote: ".....we recommend using Fitbit Coach with your Fitbit device because it will take into consideration your heart rate data if Fitbit tracks it. For more information about it please check this article...."

I'm sorry but I do not think you are right at all.

I have Fitbit coach linked to my Fitbit device, but the dashboard ignores the calorie burn given by my HR tracker, and only uses the calorie burn that the Fitbit Coach application provides. The Fitbit Coach application PROVIDES A FIXED CALORIE COUNT that is always the same regardless of how hard or light you actually perform during the workout. Take this morning for example - I did the 'stronger and longer' 22min Fitbit Coach workout. This recorded the standard 142 calories that was estimated prior to the workout itself. I also recorded the session on my Fitbit device (a Charge 4 that I set to circuit training for recording the exercise). Since I was using dumbbells & doing faster reps, I notched up a much higher calorie count (over 250) based on my measured HR....

After completing the workout, both of these exercises are showing in my dashboard and double counting calories, so I am having to delete the FitBit Coach session to get the accurate HR-based calorie count. This CANNOT be right!

The article that you linked to is a generic article on Fitbit Coach and does not say anything at all about how to make the Fitbit Coach use your real HR data - please can you advise in more detail on how to get Fitbit Coach using HR data from my Charge 4.

thanks

g.

[SilviaFitbit]

@MrGuidoful Thank you for getting back. I appreciate the information provided about the way that you're tracking Fitbit Coach workouts. 

When exercising with Fitbit Coach and your Charge 4, there's no need to start the exercise on your tracker because if you do, you'll end up having two workouts logged on your Dashboard. To avoid this, you need to wear your Charge 4 and start the exercise on Fitbit Coach once you finish, sync your tracker and your activity will appear on your Dashboard showing HR data and a different amount of calories burned because your HR will be taken into consideration. (Check the screenshot below) 

Please try the steps mentioned above and let me know how it goes. I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[ohynek]

Hi everyone! I'm long time user of Fitbit Coach (even from the times where it was Fitstar). And I can confirm that your heart rate data doesn't count to your calories burned. You need to manually start a workout on your watch and delete Fitbit Coach activity (if you don't want duplicity) to see your real calories burned. As you can see from the screenshot above HR is different every minute but calories burned is always the same!

I'm waiting for this to be repaired for a long time now bud sadly a few months ago Fitbit changed the status of this to "Not Currently Planned" as you can see here https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Integrate-heartrate-data-into-Fitbit-Coach-calor....

If you have Fitbit Premium you can start Fitbit Coach workouts from Fitbit app and your calories will be counted from your HR. But you cannot run personalized workout from Fitbit app as you can from Fitbit Coach sadly 😞 .

[MrGuidoful]

Hi Silvia - as @ohynek has very clearly described in his post, the screenshots that you posted actually illustrate the problem perfectly. The fact that your second graph shows that calories burned is the *same* regardless of your heart rate shown in the first graph in your post, means that the calories recorded IGNORE YOUR HEART RATE entirely. This is rather annoying, as I’ve just spent £120 on a Fitbit device to measure heart rate! This makes the Fitbit Coach integration a complete waste of time. So I guess I will continue recording the exercise on my device, then run the Fitbit coach exercise and then manually delete the Fitbit coach recording afterwards from the dashboard - not a great customer experience!

Thank you nonetheless for trying to help out on this one - I guess we wait until Fitbit changes the functionality,

best wishes

guy.

[MrGuidoful]

Hi @ohynek thank you for the post - it is extremely informative, so I guess I will carry on just deleting the fitbit coach activity!

many thanks

best

g.

[SilviaFitbit]

@MrGuidoful Thank you for getting back.  

@ohynek Hi there. I appreciate the observation made, your comments have been shared with my team. 

In the meantime, you could unlink Fitbit and Fitbit Coach and track the exercise with your Fitbit device and Fitbit Coach this will avoid that you delete the Fitbit Coach activity in your Fitbit account. 

I'll be around if you have any additional questions.