Can Fitbit calculate calories burned from weight exercises?

[Frannie48]

One of the biggist reasons I purchased the Fitbit was to track my workouts, not just my steps.  Is there any way Fitbit can track a heart rate or something else when doing weights?  I'd like to know how many calories I burn when doing my workout videos.

[SteveH · Accepted solution]

Your fitbit can only accurately track steps I'm afraid. You can, however, manually log other activitie, such as weights, and have fitbit estimate the calorie burn. There is more information on logging activities in this article:

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/413311

[slysam · Accepted solution]

Frannie, I've used a fitbit and heart rate monitor both for a while and find they give me similar estimates for step based cardio (walking, running, aerobic dancing, cardio kickboxing, aerobic drills like jumping jacks, jumping rope, etc). My Fitbit always underestimates (compared to my heart rate monitor) non step cardio (swimming, cycling, rowing) or resistance training in any form (weight lifting, kettlebells, pilates, yoga, body weight exercises like pushups, etc). My heart rate monitor can cover the non-step cardio fine, but it isn't necessarily accurate for non-aerobic exercise. The reason is... heart rate, itself, doesn't determine calorie burn. In a lab they test it based on oxygen use. Heart rate monitor companies did their own commercial testing to estimate oxygen use from heart rate and calories burned as a result. I believe I read usually they use well studied activities like stationary cycling or running on a treadmill (to measure oxygen use they have to wear a mask hooked to a machine that collects everything they exhale and controls the air they inhale). The assumptions the formulas are based on really just apply to aerobic exercise (where your heart rate is within aerobic zones i.e. not below and not above like it would be during anaerobic workouts). This isn't to say hrm's are useless for anaerobic exercise--they can still be used for heart rate monitoring and as a training tool. It is just that the calorie burn estimate may be quite inaccurate. I am not sure if there is a good device for tracking calories burned weight lifting at the moment (some are developing products but I haven't yet seen any reviews of their accuracy). So for weight... Hard to say, I think you would actually be better off just logging it from fitbit's database (based on MET charts which are also estimated from oxygen use). There are heart rate monitoring options that can automatically log to fitbit for you. I use Digifit I cardio app with a bluetooth hrm strap and it logs to fitbit for me.