How acurate is the calorie counter on Fitbit?

[2014itstime]

I am a new Fitbit user. I am noticing a high number of calories burnt 1,345 on my tracker early in my day, with only 2,246 steps, before my workout. I am wondering how acurate that actually is.

[trainer · Accepted solution]

Fitbit is designed to give you activity calories AND your basal metabolic rate (BMR). For example, I have a BMR of about 1250 (based on age, gender, etc) so my fitbit is going to start at midnight giving me credit for being alive. Then you add on any activity you do throughout the day. So, I can end up at the end of the day having burned 1250 calories being alive AND another 1-2 thousand calories in activity. Throughout the day the fitbit is constantly adjusting based on these calculations.

[Jabrat]

Well I do believe it is accurate - with my 50 pound weight loss in a year - I'll keep my Fitbit One 🙂

[Heybales]

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@2014itstime wrote:

I am a new Fitbit user. I am noticing a high number of calories burnt 1,345 on my tracker early in my day, with only 2,246 steps, before my workout. I am wondering how acurate that actually is.

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It actually underestimates.

It gives ALL non-moving time the same calorie burn as sleeping deeply, BMR mentioned above.

But when awake you burn more, RMR, resting metabolism.

When standing you burn even more.

When digesting/processing food you burn more, about 10% of calories eaten.

All that is unaccounted for.

It only seems high because you didn't know you burned calories even sleeping.

[Colinm39]

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@Heybales wrote:

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@2014itstime wrote:

I am a new Fitbit user. I am noticing a high number of calories burnt 1,345 on my tracker early in my day, with only 2,246 steps, before my workout. I am wondering how acurate that actually is.

---

It actually underestimates.

It gives ALL non-moving time the same calorie burn as sleeping deeply, BMR mentioned above.

But when awake you burn more, RMR, resting metabolism.

When standing you burn even more.

When digesting/processing food you burn more, about 10% of calories eaten.

All that is unaccounted for.

It only seems high because you didn't know you burned calories even sleeping.

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@HeybalesLet's go fishing.. Here are sone examples of my manual activities with a BMR.of 1,612 in 15 minute time slots.

[Heybales]

Your device saw steps, simple as that.

The steps seen may or may not correlate with what you actually burned not sleeping but doing those other activities.

Fact is though, merely being awake burns more than BMR, 150-250 more daily at RMR level, that is not reflected in your graph.

And my Zip, and other on-body units I've seen graphs for, don't see the movement of standing, rocking, shuffling, ect. 

Just as walking/running steps seen doesn't equal biking steps seen, neither in this case, unless sheer coincidence, that the calorie burn calculated for a few steps, or rather hand movements, equaled what really happened.

[jims33]

Thanks for the info on the fitbit calorie counter.  Really had me confused.