Calories burnt seems high?

[Muppie]

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased a FitBit and decided to record my activity when going out for a walk.

After a 30 minute walk I apparently walk 3.2k steps and burn 261 calories. My average Heart Rate was 91bpm and my Average calorie burn was 8 cals/min.

Does this sound right? It seems to me that my calories burnt is fairly high and I just want to make sure that everything is correct.

Also is anybody else's manual logging of activities not work? After entering the infomation and click log it seems to just get stuck.

Thank you.

[MaryAlice411]

I do miles and have never worn a heart monator. The standard is 100 calories per mile, but remember it is all an estament. Because there are so many things that can effect the calorie burn outside, weather, type of surface you are walking on, and on and on, they normally use a trad mill for there estament. Even then, you have spead, incline and body type to think about. If what you are comeing up with is close to 100 calories a mile, yes it is a good number. 

[emili]

for that heart rate it seems a tad high, but not so high that I would be recalcing and giving up. depending on your overall fitness level, resting heart rate and weight- it might be right. If 92 for you is fat burn zone then it is completely possible.

[Muppie]

My typical walk is 1.5 miles so it does seem quite a bit off. I weigh 199 pounds and fitbit records my resting heart rate at 54bpm.

My walk does have a few inclines in it but nothing to major, when fitbit has tracked the exercise it shows that the whole walk was in the fat burning zone.

Thanks again.

[emili]

Then I would say its pretty close to accurate. Fat burn zone is when you just begin to burn calories past your normal metabolic rate. When you get into cardio and peak - you are burning really fast. As you lose, it will slow down. Your fat burn zone won't be burning as many calories as you are now- so enjoy it. And you can always test your results. Force yourself to stay out of fat burn for the whole walk and see what your reading is. you will be literally strolling- but you'll have a comparison. The next time- accelerate to cardio (if you can) and see the spike in more calories burned. If you get different numbers, you know you're on track. Enjoy the walks!

[divedragon]

In my personal experience, I find the calorie burn in fitbit to be high.  I know I'm not burning 3k a day, but it consistently says I am.  If it were accurate, I'd be loosing weight a lot faster.  I just use a standard of 2200 to 2400 calories a day.

[Heybales · Accepted solution]

---

@Muppie wrote:

After a 30 minute walk I apparently walk 3.2k steps and burn 261 calories. My average Heart Rate was 91bpm and my Average calorie burn was 8 cals/min.

My typical walk is 1.5 miles so it does seem quite a bit off. I weigh 199 pounds and fitbit records my resting heart rate at 54bpm.

My walk does have a few inclines in it but nothing to major, when fitbit has tracked the exercise it shows that the whole walk was in the fat burning zone.

Thanks again.

---

The exercise HR doesn't matter that much. Resting does.

You could be out of shape with high HR or in shape with low HR - but if the same weight and pace - same calorie burn.

In fact the formula for calorie burn from HR is trying to take those other factors into account.

More accurate in studies is actually weight and pace. You want the Gross option to compare to Fitbit, HRM, database, whatever is used.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

3 mph level for 30 min, 199 lbs - estimate 157 calories depending on that distance accuracy and how much incline. So it could have been up there more, especially with incline. Moving mass up burns more.

If this is still within first week of using the HR based device - then it's still tweaking to take into account and figure out if you appear in or out of shape, as means of estimating VO2max.

[Muppie]

I've had the fitbit since the 8th December so I hope it would have tweaked itself by now 🙂

[Heybales]

---

@Muppie wrote:
I've had the fitbit since the 8th December so I hope it would have tweaked itself by now 🙂

---

Is it better yet?

[Muppie]

Yes, thank you very much.