Fitbit Calories during exercise

[ToastyBanana625]

Hi!  Question, I’ve noticed that when I pick the type of activity I did my Fitbit is assuming the calories no matter how “intense” the work out was. 

For example: when I do cardio and pick option “cardio sculpt” for 30 min it’s always giving me the same calories burned... even when my HR was different between exercises.  

Is the Fitbit just guessing the calories burned based on the activity I chose? 

Fyi: I have the ChargeHR but just ordered the charge 3 - maybe this will be different with the charge 3?? 

[Colinm39]

@ToastyBanana625  Welcome.... Any manually logged exercise, I believe, uses time, your physical data and the type of exercise to calculate.. That will always give you an estimate.  Even flat line the calories so you may lose Active Minutes.

Being a long time user I would only use the Workout exercise option on your Charge, sync to the PC and/or phone and then rename the Activity.

From your post I presume you already have your named custom activities. 

Your Charge 3 will have more exercise options.

By doing it this way you have all of your original data untouched/overwritten by a manual activity.

---

@ToastyBanana625 wrote:

Hi!  Question, I’ve noticed that when I pick the type of activity I did my Fitbit is assuming the calories no matter how “intense” the work out was. 

For example: when I do cardio and pick option “cardio sculpt” for 30 min it’s always giving me the same calories burned... even when my HR was different between exercises.  

Is the Fitbit just guessing the calories burned based on the activity I chose? 

Fyi: I have the ChargeHR but just ordered the charge 3 - maybe this will be different with the charge 3?? 

---

[Heather-S]

@ToastyBanana625 Welcome!  To add on to what Colin said, when you get your Charge 3, you'll be able to start your workouts directly from your Fitbit device.  By doing this, your Charge 3 will be actively tracking your calories burned based on your heart rate.  So yes, you will get more accurate calories burned data.  Manually logging workouts ignores your heart rate and gives you generic calories burned based on your height, weight, sex, etc.

With your Charge 3, you can add a variety of exercises to the device via the Exercise Shortcuts in the app.  Add whichever exercises you use the most, though just using the "Workout" exercise on your Charge 3 is a nice catch-all for a variety of exercises like HIIT, Zumba, weights, etc.