Why won't my calorie burn for gardening show up?

[NinaJean]

I use the website to log food and my FitBit Inspire 2 logs steps (and sports?!?!...no clue what THAT is!). I just went in to log 4 hours of pretty strenuous gardening and included what I thought was a fairly accurate calorie burn for that time. But my dashboard is not recognizing those calories burned. Why? What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

[JohnnyRow]

If your gardening was auto-recognized, albeit as Sport, it would have the calorie burn and all other stats right there with that.  Why bother trying to figure out and entering a calorie burn when fitbit already did that for you?  I don't see the point of trying to figure out and re-enter what Fitbit already measured for you.

[Bozzdivine]

I just wanna add that the issue could be due to the way Fitbit categorizes different activities. It might not recognize gardening as a specific exercise, hence not tracking the calories burned the way you expect. You could try logging it under a different category, such as "general exercise," to see if that helps.

[NinaJean]

FitBit didn't recognize the gardening, and it was relatively strenuous, i.e., spreading bark, and many many instances of sitting on the ground/getting up/sitting down/getting up, moving rocks, installing low fencing, etc. 

[LZeeW]

@NinaJean   Fitbit's auto recognition depends on "high movement activities" and is hit or miss with me when I do gardening or yard work. Help article  Sometimes I get Sport or Aerobic Workout, but sometimes I get nothing.  If you want to make sure it gets tracked and marked as an exercise, please use the Exercise app on your Inspire 2 with the Workout shortcut.  You should not use the web or app dashboard to log an activity after the fact if you were wearing your Fitbit at the time.  Your Inspire 2 estimates your calorie burn from your heart rate.  When you log something after the fact, Fitbit uses a huge table of calorie burn estimation and overwrites the calorie burn.  You should only log something if you forgot to wear your Fitbit.

[NinaJean]

Thanks, LZeeW. So when you say I should use the Exercise app on my Inspire 2, do you mean I need to do that manually at the time of the activity, or can it be done after the fact? You said not to use the web-based dashboard after the fact, but why not if the FitBit didn't register the activity? And if the latter is the case, I still have the same question: Why don't the calories I log for the activity get counted in the dashboard? I'm still learning the best way to use my FitBit! 🙂

[LZeeW]

@NinaJean   Your Fitbit is always measuring your steps, heart rate, and calorie burn when you wear it.  You can see your calorie burn during the day by doing the following: tap on your calorie icon on your dashboard and you will see your daily history.  Tap on any day and you can see your calorie burn over the day.  I think every bar is 15 minutes.

When you start and stop any activity on the Inspire 2, you know it will get counted as credit for your exercise days.  If you look at the exercise details from your manual log, you will see that the calorie burn graph shows the same number of calories burned per minute for the whole time.  This is what happens if you log after the fact, but were wearing your Fitbit.  The best choice for you depends on what you want to get from your Fitbit.  Your calorie burn will be changed if you log after the fact and it could go up or down.  This is very important to some users.

I personally don't start the Exercise app when doing gardening and yard work.  If I get an exercise credit, fine.  If I don't, that's fine, too.  I try not to be a slave to my Fitbit.