Calories burned accuracy

[Alyssa4687]

 I am new to the fitbit world and I was wondering how accurate the calories burned is? I am also using the fitbit food tracker and I am eating the calories it tells me to eat based on my caloric deficit.  I just don't want to gain weight if its not accurate. HELP! lol

[WavyDavey]

Hi @Alyssa4687,

That's a good question we get a lot here. First, let's realize the calories burned is just an estimate, so it can't be exact. I would suggest that tracking food is an inexact process also.

For me, Fitbit tends to under-report calories burned, for others it can over-report them. But not by a huge margin.

So what can we do then? Use the weight scale as the decider of if the calories burned is accurate or not. If you are eating the same calories as you are burning, your weight should be relatively stable. If you gain weight, then you'll know to make an adjustment.

It may take a few weeks to get a sense of what adjustment you'll need. But once you hit upon that number, it should be consistent enough that you can plan around it. Hope this helps.

[Alyssa4687]

Yes that is kind of what I am doing. I have a lot of anxiety in general and I feel like I have OCD with this whole fitbit thing. LOL So an example would be if it says I'm burning 3,000 day it may be off by a couple hundred. Does that sound about right? Also I am having trouble finding out what my activity level would be. I'm obviously not an athlete but I'm on my feet all day. I also exercise at least an hour everyday. So would that be active or moderately active?

[WavyDavey]

Yes, it could be off by 300, or more calories. If 3000 calories is accurate for you depends on too much to know for sure. It would indicate a pretty active person. How many active minutes are you getting per day?

I hear you about the anxiety and OCD. Having all these numbers at our disposal can be overwhelming and can cause us to overthink things.

You can always make a pretty big deficit, maybe 500-750 and see how that goes. You can always add calories later if you're losing weight too quickly. I'm not a fan of huge calorie deficits greater than that, as I find they don't work well long-term.

Don't worry, everything will be fine. Just use Fitbit more like a compass than a map. It'll point you in the right direction, but you'll need to make course corrections along the way.

[SunsetRunner]

@Alyssa4687 as others mentioned, calories burned are just estimates. There is a math formula that takes certain variables into the account and tries to estimate what is your current energy expenditure. It doesn't mean what you see is 100% accurate. It may be too low as well as too high. It's very rare that these numbers hit the spot for somebody. It depends whether you update your details frequently ( your weight, body fat% etc. ) and your Fitbit uses HR monitor ( which again - is far from being perfect and for many people the readings are off one way or another ). I'm pretty sure I replied yesterday in the similar thread 😄 Déjà vu. Well, don't go crazy about any numbers you see. They are there to help you see a big picture. Focusing on small details may actually be less than beneficial. For example, when I relied on burned calories counter I couldn't stop my weight-loss. Despite reaching my goal I lost extra 2kg just because using the numbers as a reference. This tought me a lot and I try to interpret them rather than take them literally. That's why I don't care the steps counter doesn't count steps but wrists "swings", that calorie counter underestimates my energy expenditure ( in my case it's too low ) etc. Instead, I look at it at the end of the day and try to figure out an answer to one question: was my day a good one? It means that I'm not going to beat myself up for slight overeating or that sometimes I missed the gym. I want to see a big picture that classifies my day so that I can think of adjusting another day etc. Chasing numbers in my experience isn't really beneficial. They are more an advisor, not a judge 🙂

[emili]

I am hoping this will help @Alyssa4687 so here goes.. if your picture is recent then I would venture a guess that unless you are doing a sprint during the one hour of activity and really hustling during the day, 3000 is way overestimated for you. I am 5'7, 132 pounds. On my most active day, I run 6 miles in 53 minutes and high incline walk with a ten pound vest for another 30. I go grocery shopping, to the mall, walk in town.. I get about 25K steps with over 100 active minutes. The most I have burned is 2500(+/-) for the entire day. Most days between walking the dogs and going to the gym, I get 15000 steps and about 70 active minutes and I burn between 1900-2000 calories for the day. If you are basing your calories in at 3000 you want to create a pretty large deficit, because it isn't what you are actually burning.. at least that is my educated guess. here is what I did when I was losing- I figured out my own calories in and I weighed and measure everything, logged and... weighed myself every day. If I lost, I kept doing what I was doing, if I stayed the same I decreased that day by 100 calories or increased activity by 200 calories, if I gained, I had a moment of panic and increased and decreased. Every day for as long as it took to finish losing the last few pounds. It really is trial and trial and trial- until you get it right. Good luck in your venture and let us know how things go...  

[Alyssa4687]

yea thats crazy. My steps have been around 16,000-25,000. I dont burn the 3,000 every day but on days that I have 25,000 steps and over 100 active minutes its saying I'm burning that many. I guess its way off then? its the fitbit alta. That kind of stinks. I don't know what the point of having this thing is if its not giving me accurate information. Thanks for the help.

[Alyssa4687]

About 120 active minutes a day. 8-12 miles a day

[Alyssa4687]

Where do I put my body fat % in at? I dont believe it ever asked me for it. I know it asked me what my body fat % goal was.

[SunsetRunner]

There is a text field below the one where you put your weight in the Fitbit app.

[Alyssa4687]

Im sorry I can not find it anymore. Is it under settings?