Are calories accuracte?

[Kitsboy]

Yesterday was a rest day for me only did 2000 steps didn't work out shows I burned 2400 calories. Day before got in 6000 steps, worked out for an hr burned over 500 according to my heart rate monitor and fitbit shows I burned 2300, doesn't make much sense showing I burned more on a day I did nothing. I've only had it less then a week. Is it faulty?

[WendyB]

It uses you BMR

The calories burned are BMR calories. Your fitbit also calculates calories burned for your BMR, which is your Basil Metabolic Rate. You burn calories just by being alive!  Even Sleeping. Fitbit includes these burned calories in it's calorie calculations, so even if you did not wear the fitbit, you'll still burn these calories.

To Learn more about BMR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate

[Kitsboy]

I was wearing it and the calories burned showed around 1800 by days end the website shows 600 more calories, should the number on the fitbit match? plus regardless of BMR still wouldn't make sense that I burn less on a day I had 5000+ more steps and an hour long workout,

[Dominique]

Use this calculator to determine your BMR and your TDEE based on your gender, weight, height, age and activity level.

[Dominique]

If your one-hour workout that burned 500 calories as per your HRM was mostly stationary, your Fitbit may only have detected it as light activity. Such activities should be logged manually if you want to be credited for the calories in full:

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/413311-how-do-i-log-or-record-an-activity-

Also see:

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/1020095-what-are-%22very-active-minutes%22-

[Kitsboy]

Are you guys reading my posts? lol why would fitbit say 2400 calories burned on a day I did not exercise and it shows I burned 2300 on a day I did  worked out?  it should be the other way around. The fitbit resets at midnight I went to bed last night at 11 my fitbit said I was at 1700. So why does the dahboard show 2400? I didn't burn 700 calories sleeping for an hr lol. Please no more copy and paste about bmr I know what bmr is.

[Dominique]

Have a look at your calories burned during these two days. For instance, mine for yesterday looks like this:

Your should see your one-hour workout @ 500 cal in the form all tall gren lines, like my 55-min. run above. If not, Fitbit failed to register it (or you failed to log it). Your Fitbit only registers activity (and, consequently, calories) it can detect reliably. It's essentially a pedometer, so not ideal for the kind of non-step-based activity your workout possibly was.

[Kitsboy]

You're still not getting it. Saturday shows I burned 2300 calories it shows my activities for working out for an hour and the 500 calories there's no issue with what it says for Saturday 2300 is about right. I'm not missing any data

The issue is with yesterday Sunday. I did NOT workout and my activities were low because I did nothing besides watch movies all day my calories burned at 11pm showed around 1800 that's fine makes sense. But now on the dashboard it shows I burned 2400 yesterday, that's 100 more calories burned on a day I did no activity at all. If my fitbit says 1800 shouldn't the dashboard as well?

[Dominique]

If you synced your Fitbit with your account, your Dashboard should display the same amount of calories burned as your One. There might be a slight discrepancy, as here:

This is because your Fitbit keeps adding BMR calories, so by the time I had set my One on top of my laptop's display (after syncing) and got my phone to take a snapshot, I had already burned 9 more calories.

If your Dashboard doesn't display the same amount of calories as your One right after you synced, you're having a problem.

[slysam · Accepted solution]

Kitsboy, do you happen to have the setting "calorie estimation" enabled in your profile settings? The default is enabled. The reason I ask is sometimes with this setting enabled people find their fitbit estimates a higher calorie burn on a day when they left their fitbit at home, did not sync it, or were so sedentary it may have seemed to the fitbit that it was left at home than a moderately active day including some exercise. Calorie estimation does credit you with some "activity calories" on days when it is applied, it i meant to be applied when you leave your fitbit at home much or a big part of the day. I have it disabled in my settings. If you disable it, if you are truly sedentary for a minute it will credit you with your BMR in that minute, but it still credits you for movement. With it disabled when I leave my fitbit on a table all day my calorie burn is just my BMR which is considerably lower than I see on an active day including exercise or even lower than a sedentary day where I get about 4,000 steps. Try disabling this and see if it makes a difference in the future. You shouldn't see any difference on a normal day where you wear the Fitbit, but you may on a day where you are very sedentary. I think "Calorie estimation", unless it was recently changed, assumes too high an activity level. If I recall, before I disabled it I would see a calorie burn I might achieve on a 10,000 step day including a workout. If less active throughout the day or without a workout, the assumption would be too high.

[slysam]

One other point, not related to the "calorie estimation" issue that sometimes effects some users... We don't know enough about your activity to be too specific. But it is possible to burn as much on a generally active day with no exercise vs. a day with a good workout where you were sedentary outside the workout. It happens a lot and often surprises people. Of course the ideal is a good amount of movement outside of the workout as well as a workout. The things to compare between the two days: step count, sedentary minutes, lightly active minutes, moderately active minutes and very active minutes. If you have a day with a lot of light activity and very little sedentary activity you can see a surprisingly high calorie burn without major exertion. On vacation a couple years ago I was surprised that I had a 25,000 step day with no very active minutes. I didn't do an intentional workout, I walked moderately paced outside between museums and walked very slowly inside museums looking at the exhibits. I visited three or four museums and walked between the hotel, museums, and restaurants. The only sedentary time that day was sleeping and meal times. I was rather surprised my Fitbit calorie burn was similar to a day when I had a 90 minute workout but was working on the computer much of the day. Comparing the sedentary/sleeping and lightly active time between the two days made it clear what was going on. One day the calories were all pretty much concentrated within 90 minutes and the other day spread out throughout the day. So that type of thing might be something else to look at if the non-workout day involved movement throughout much of the day. If it involved little or no movement, I would look at "calorie estimation".

[Kitsboy]

Yeah if I look at my Fitbit now since I've been working in the office all day shows 1234 burned and its 2pm it does match up with what it shows on my dashboard. You're right it almost looks like at the end of the day it just added on an extra 700 calories since at 11pm I was at 1800 and at 12 after reset I was 2400. I'll turn the calorie estimate off and see. It's an interesting feature in case you leave it at home but adding in an extra 700 on a lazy day? Crazy. Thanks for the tip I'll give that a shot and disable it.

[Kitsboy]

Thanks slysam that was the issue it even corrected it for Sunday as well. Cheers 🙂

[gma2sjp]

Dominique, my reports have never showed my actual activities written in. How do you get it to account for it like yours saying run and walk?

[Dominique]

The red texts and arrows were legends manually added by me, they are not part of the Fitbit report. Sorry if I misled you!

[gma2sjp]

That's ok. Thanks. I thought maybe I had my settings wrong.