Calories burned underestimated?

[NicolaJHicks]

I usually walk between 10,000and 15,000 steps a day and have noticed once I reach about 15,000 or roughly 7 miles I achieve the calories burned goal which always pleases me 🙂 How come yesterday I walked 22,604 steps and registered 10.3 miles walked with 152 active minutes but didn't reach my calories burned goal?............................It doesn't make sense! Is my FitBit One faulty?

[SunsetRunner]

Good question. I'm curious to find out why that is as well. It could be because the watch wasn't at a good place on your wrist so your heart rate wasn't being read properly. Hope that helps!

[NicolaJHicks]

---

@SunsetRunner wrote:

Good question. I'm curious to find out why that is as well. It could be because the watch wasn't at a good place on your wrist so your heart rate wasn't being read properly. Hope that helps!

---

thanks for the suggestion but my fitbit is the FitBit One so it is attached to my belt/pocket and not my wrist and doesn't read my heart rate.............

[josephz2va · Accepted solution]

It depends on the aggregation of burning. How intense you have burned throughout your entire day. While I have done 21,246 steps, the intensity of my steps is what counts towards higher calorie burns earning my score at 5,204 calories.

The 4:30 to 5:30 period in this map is very intense when I burned rubber on the elliptical machine within a short burst. And earned 5,700 steps within one hour and 300+ calories. Other Intense burns on here is how aggressive I have walked within my office. How continuous and fast I have done my walking in the office back and forth performing my office duties. And then at 6:00 pm I performed a high cardio personal training session for 30 minutes straight and moved very often in my house.

[NicolaJHicks]

Thank you for taking the time to give me such a detailed explanation. This has been really helpful and makes sense. I have compared my graph to yours and have got a much better understanding now......

[DanielJH]

It can happen that way. Calories burned is not equal to distance traveled.  Calories burn is also affected by how high your heart was and how much time it was there. Cardio exerise is keep your heart rate above a certain poitn for 20-30 minutes. After doing this, your body burns more at rest throughout the day at rest. Active minutes is not cardio exerise. 

[Heybales]

---

@DanielJH wrote:

It can happen that way. Calories burned is not equal to distance traveled.  Calories burn is also affected by how high your heart was and how much time it was there. Cardio exerise is keep your heart rate above a certain poitn for 20-30 minutes. After doing this, your body burns more at rest throughout the day at rest. Active minutes is not cardio exerise. 

---

Cardio as described stops burning extra calories about 5-10 min after it's done.

But for walking and running, calorie burn for distance traveled in time (ie pace) and weight have been found to be most accurate formula - hence what Fitbit uses.

HR has a lose correlation to calorie burn - and can be fooled for many reasons. And with the assumptions most HRM's make to estimate calories burned - the initial very out of shape have very bad estimates, as do the very in shape but still weight to lose.

True, Active minutes can be fooled, but it is based on a calorie burn 3 x your resting, and therefore would normally mean an elevated activity level.

[SweetLife]

This is a great description. I was just looking at my active mins. vs. calories burned for the last 28 day. While my active mins. have increased 78% my calories burned has only incread 1%....crazy! I understand it's about intensity, but you would think moving 78% move would yield better results in calories burned than not doing any active minutes. Otherwise, why move? Of course, I not going to stop working out, but it would be nice if it actually meant somrthing.

[A_Lurker]

@SweetLife - in a way you've discovered why people go to the gym, work out, and don't understand why they haven't lost weight.  Active minutes increasing is a good thing for cardio health.  However, this could be making you less active the rest of the day.  I know years ago I would go and use the treadmill for an hour in the morning, but it left me with zero energy at the end of the day.  So, before I would go home and do other things, now I would just drop onto the couch.  I also had issues where I wasn't eating enough for the calories that I was burning.  Could be if I'd eaten more I would have ended the day with more energy.

When I first started losing weight I could burn 3500 calorie a day without even coming close to 10,000 steps.  Now I need to hit 15,000 or even 17,000 some days to get to the same level.

[SweetLife]

@A_LurkerI do not go to a gym and I certainly don't sit on the couch for endless hours. I am moving all day, my energy levels are good thoughout the day as I eat natural whole foods several times a day. I move 250+ steps per hour from 7 am - 5 pm most days. I do two exercise sessions each day, most days I walk 15-25 mins depending on time available to me (gotta work) and then some other exercise. I workout with kettlebells for 30 mins 3 times a week, I'm in the pool 2-3 times a week doing aerobics or water jogging. I have lose weight consistently, I have lost 70+lbs in the last 10 months. Like you, I'm finding it difficult to burn as many calories as I did when I start, but then I not carrying a small child around with me (70bls of fat). At the moment I am still sustaining fat burn and feeling satisfied with what I am eating. I can see though, as the fat burns off, that I am going to have to modify something to continue the results. It would be nice if the active mins I am engaging in would equate to more calorie burn, but it is what it is.

[A_Lurker]

@SweetLife - it could also be the length of time for your moving around.  I've never really looked into it, but someone once said you only get credit for active minutes if you do 10 in a row.  As I'm working on my endurance I may do more active minutes at once.  Early on I might have only done 5-9 mins and stopped.  They wouldn't have counted.  I've seen days where I've done lots of steps but haven't burned as many calories.  However, when I look they were in smaller intervals.  Just for fun, as I'm a numbers geek, I looked at my information for Friday and Saturday.

Friday

    17,332 steps

    3580 calories

    72 active minutes

Saturday

    15,093 steps

     3807 calories

     69 active minutes

At first glance it doesn't make sense.  I did fewer active mins (-3) and fewer actual steps (-2239) so why did I burn more calories.  Well, I wear a Charge HR and/or Charge 2, so I look at another metric - heart rate.

Friday

     Fat Burn: 2hr35m

     Cardio:   28m

     Peak:  1m

     Active Mins: 4 groups

Saturday

     Fat Burn: 3hr54m

     Cardio:   37m

     Peak:    1m

     Active Mins: 5 groups

I think perhaps my post rubbed you the wrong way, so I'm sorry.  I was just trying to point out that how you are moving all day can affect your overall calorie burn, not just the active mins.  However, my original statement from years ago does stand - burning a large number of calories once a day does not necessarily correlate to high overall calories burned.

[SweetLife]

@A_Lurker I see your point. I think in the second set of numbers is more telling. Saturday is less steps and less active minutes, but more calories burned because you spent more time in the fatburn zone and cardio zone and by the looks of it not just when you worked out, so we are back to the intensity of the activity thoughout the day. For me I need to be more purposful about my walks and exercise to improve fat/cardio mins. That being said, I walk up a pretty steep incline and at times my heart feels like its coming out of my chest and my Charge HR say 77 BPM or 85 BPM which just can't be right. Anyway, I am learning and changing things as I go to improve. Thanks for the feedback.