How accurate are the calories burned?

[JennyRebecca]

I'm using my Charge 2 with the calories counting app My Net Diary.  They are linked together.  So far I'm averaging almost 2 pounds per week.  I couldn't be happier about that.  It's going really well and I feel amazing!

At the end of the week, My Net Diary tells me based on what I've eaten and what I've burned, what I should have lost that week.  It's always a lot higher that what I actually loose.  I should add, I'm honest about the food I log.  I only answering to myself so why lie to myself.  lol

So does that mean I'm buring less calories than my Fitbit says?

[Heybales]

---

@SunsetRunner wrote:

This topic is important to me and just recently I've taken to wearing 2 devices and using a third party website to calculate "EE" (energy expenditures)

I have a FitBit Charge 3, a Wahoo Tickr (HR monitor with chest strap) and I use this site to calculate my caloric burn: http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.shtml

It's been a fave site of mine for a few years and what makes it a fave is that I can see my gross calories burned and my NET calories burned...it deducts your calories you would normally burn if you weren't exercising - I've been tracking food and exercise for over a decade having used a couple of different Polar devices which I abandoned as they were too unreliable...for example I'd be walking at a 4.0 mph rate and it would show my heart rate at 184....or 201 or some crazy number...anyway I started to use a spreadsheet to compare readings and I'll report back after I get 4-5 weeks of data.  Thanks for the question!  

---

Just to comment on getting the Net calorie burn and using a site like Fitbit to log the workout, or many others. for others looking at this.

Fitbit is a replace only system - meaning you manually log a workout with a better estimate of calorie burn - it replaces what was in that chunk of time.

It is not adding it on top of an otherwise base or BMR burn, or sedentary or other level of burn.

If you didn't even have your Fitbit with you, you'd be given BMR level burn with no steps seen.

So you would actually replace what's there with the Gross figure if you think it's more accurate.

That way you get the base burn which did occur since alive, and the extra the exercise provided on top of it.

This is the problem with cyclists using power meter and head units giving a calorie burn from it. That is a Net reading, and if you do long rides, could easily be missing 80-100 cal/hr of base burn.

And that on a day you might really not want to be increasing your deficit by underestimating 200-300 calories!

Talk about the wrong time to eat even less, when you just did something hard and need recovery from it.

[JuanJoFitbit]

Hi everyone! I'd like to thank you for your feedback and information you've shared about the accuracy of the calories burned.

In addition, I'd like to share this help article, which explains how your Fitbit device tracks your calories.

See you guys around.

[Slipjig8]

What's the point of having an app to do calculations for you if you have to turn around and do your own math to further modify the numbers you're seeing.  The app should just have a % factor we can set to make the numbers accurate and useable.  For me, my fitbit is 3:1 more calorie burn that I'm really getting (I know because I've been using MFP for 3 months) and the target rate of 2 lbs per week matches pretty closely my rate of 2.1 lbs per week.  Fitbit is the wild card saying I have 3X more calories to burn in a day than I really have.  I can understand a modest difference but it's ridiculous.

Fitbit could solve this for users with a simple adjustable factor that we can use to make the calorie burn more conservative (and much closer to reality for me).

We shouldn't have to do this.  It's an app that can be programmed.  Fitbit/Google needs to program it better.  Just give us a factor in there so we can tune it for our outcomes.  If you're going to be off, as far as weight loss goes, you need to be off with fewer calories, not more.

[YachatsMike]

There is no voodoo math more unreliable than counting calories and expecting a specific weight change result.  Counting calories is helpful but seldom yields a predictable result.  One pound of fat is theoretically equal to 3500 calories but somehow it never seems to actually work out that way.  First of all, exercise calorie trackers seldom track NET calories (Calories burned - BMR Calories) and secondly scale weight is significantly affected by hydration.  You may be eating foods that cause you to retain or shed water.  And weight loss seems to be cyclic with interspersed loss days and plateaus.

I have never found a good way to get a reliable forecast.  I just let take it on faith that increasing calorie burn and reducing calorie consumption will yield the result I want but on its own schedule.  And I also know that to keep my weight where I want it I have to continue with the diet and exercise levels pretty much the same as what got me there so going on crash diets or extreme exercise regimens that I cannot realistically maintain for life is wasting my time..