Allowances for body type in calorie calculations

[spookisgirl]

Hello,

I am wondering if there are any allowances for body type in how the fitbit calculates calorie burn.

I am a female endomorph who struggles with weight loss even though I follow the recommendations on my fitbit. I am extremely active 1-3 hours per day, but I also know that endomorphs tend to have much slower metabolisms overall (just as ectomorphs have higher). I wonder if my estimated calorie burn from my fitbit is therefore likely higher than what I am actually burning due to the characteristics inherent in being this body type?

Is there anyway to correct for this?

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

Calories burned as estimated by Fitbit are based on: 1) an estimate of your BMR derived from your personal data (age, gender, height, weight) using a standard formula that doesn’t take into account body type or any other factor (e.g. medical condition) that may affect your metabolism and 2) your overall activity, as detected by the tracker, using clues from your movements, your heart rate etc. In other words, there is no way to tell Fitbit you’re an endo-, meso- or ectomorph.

What you can do (as a workaround) if you think it’s overestimating your activity  (and therefore underestimating your deficit) is shoot for a larger deficit, knowing the actual deficit will be smaller. For instance, let’s say you want to have a deficit of 500 calories, but you suspect Fitbit is overestimating your energy expenditure by 250 calories: shoot for a 750 calories deficit, understanding the actual deficit will be 500.

As to individual differences in metabolism (or the perception of such differences), I think they have a lot to do with NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). Fitbit offers great ways to boost your NEAT, with reminders to move, challenges, step goals etc., regardless of your body type. Often people focus too much on formal exercise (working out, doing sport etc.) and neglect all the non-formal stuff they could do, especially if/when they have jobs that keep them sitting in front of a computer most of the time, as is the case for many of us.