Calorie count too high

[BruceE]

Hi -- my Fitbit accurately tracked a very low-activity day (709 steps -- basically I was sleeping through most of it, or on the couch, because I was sick), and the tracker seemed to be pointing to a daily calorie burn of 1700-1800 kcal all day long up until when I went to bed.  With BMR I understand this should be about right for a day like this.

The next morning I wake up and the day is recorded as a whopping 2539 kcal, and the logs don't show any spike in kcal/5min that would indicate anything close to where it would have recorded any errors in energy burn.  Any ideas where this extra 600-700kcal came from?  Note that the food log for the day says I hit my goal of 1649kcal food intake, which is consistent with a 1900kcal burn because I'm targeting a 250kcal daily deficit.

Any ideas on what happened?  Is there a way to fix the final daily calorie burn count manually, after-the-fact?

Thanks!

Bruce

[BruceE]

Found the following article in Fitbit help:

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/898903-how-does-fitbit-know-how-many-calories-i-ve-...

I think this is what happened, so I disabled calorie estimation in settings and hopefully it won't happen again.  (Actually, hopefully I'll never have a sick day like that again where there was so little activity...)  Is there a way to manually correct the day's final calorie burn number after the fact?

[Colinm39 · Accepted solution]

See this link about calorie estimation setting when you are inactive or less active.

Read this link

[BruceE]

Thanks Colin!

Yes, I turned off calorie estimation, and now a few minutes later the daily log fixed itself and it's reading 1899kcal, which seems reasonable.  The number hasn't made its way to the Dashboard (yet), not sure if it will.

[Colinm39]

Thanks Bruce

Here is another useful tool to have in your kitbag..if you haven't already got it. The BMR Calculator which uses the formula that Fitbit uses, it is within 4 calories at 1,584 for me on the Fitbit sleeping sedentary calculation

BMR Calculator

[Colinm39]

Bruce, thanks again I will add that to my arsenal of helpful tips for the Fitbitters.

You can always create a manual activity for "calories only" which will overwrite the period you require.

You would do a manual timer activity for your waking hours, that will give you the calories for that period's calories,

Another manual timer record for the sleeping period.

You now have enough calorie information to create your third "real" manual record with the calories you needed for the awake period and that will overwrite the calories.

I would suggest you use this activity from the manual activities and enter your time period and the new calorie total.

Lying quietly, doing nothing, lying in bed awake, listening to music (not talking or reading)

If you haven't performed a manual timer record before, Log Activities, click on the large Stop watch and input the data. This is an exact copy of the tracker data exactly as setting the timer on the actual Fitbit.

Over the last few days there have been many posts of manual activities not updating and the blue update icon just keeps going round and round.

I had no trouble last night with all of my testing and was getting 3 seconds update and 5 seconds edit times and no problems at all.

I just tested that manual activity and it gives me equivalent to 1632 calories against my BMR of 1584, maybe that is a simple way for the time period

Apologies for the problem solving as I typed.

Another tip, when you enter data for past periods the date defaults to Today and if you edit that same data it defaults to AM..... careful

[josephz2va]

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

"The BMR Calculator will calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day.

If you've noticed that every year, it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim, you've also learnt that your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight also decreases your BMR, a foil to your intentions. However, a regular routine of cardiovascular exercise can increase your BMR, improving your health and fitness when your body's ability to burn energy gradually slows down."

To improve your overall health (fat loss, toning), you need to improve on your Calories Burned. Not focusing on the (10,000 Steps) or the (30 active minutes). Those are minimum requirements. Goals set by the WHO in the 1960s.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2014/05/21/why-10-000-steps-a-day-wont-make-you-t...

The way you burn fat is to burn to your maximum calories required. If you're maximum calories required is 3,060 calories, you need to aim for 3,060 calories per day on Cardio, Regular Work, Walking, etc.