DASHBOARD CALORIES BURNED DATA.

[BASILCHIVES]

My question is in regards to the dashboard graphs showing calories burned over a week.   I am 66, 225 lbs, and I am fairly active,  I get in 3500-4500 steps per day and do at least 30 minutes on a recumbent bike.  I am up and down stairs, and busy.  Any calculator will say I use 1800-2200 calories a day just to breath, pump blood, etc, yet Fitbit shows me burning around 2000-2200 each day .    So the real question is this:  Are these numbers just the calories I burn from activity over and above what I burn to just survive?   If this is total I am so screwed.  I assume it uses motion, heart rate, weight, and age but would like to know for certain,

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

Fitbit includes both your BMR (basal metabolic rate) calories, plus calories burned from activity.  To see what Fitbit is using as your BMR, look at the calorie burned chart for overnight when you are asleep in 15 minute intervals.  The lowest you read there is your Firbit BMR. multiply that times 4 for calories per hour, then time 24 for daily BMR.

I don't know your sex or height, but looking at https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html,

assuming male 5'10", your BMR is 1807 calories per day, 1641 if female; lower if you are shorter.

From How does my Fitbit device calculate my daily activity? 

[BASILCHIVES]

I am female and 5'4".    holy crap.    I just don't get why my projected calories burned is so low, I am certainly not bed ridden, while i am not out running. I am active and moving.    All of the other calculators I have seen pegs my BMR around 2000.   hmmm food for thought, thank you

[JohnnyRow]

I would check on other calculators you have looked at, if you are really reading BMR, or estimated daily calorie burn including your activities.  Being active is separate from BMR calorie burn.

[LiJaHi]

3500-4500 steps is not that much. I get in about that many during the day while doing my sedentary office job from home. It makes little difference to my calorie burn for the day. When I go to the office, I get closer to 10,000 with walking from the car park, walking around the office, maybe going to the shops at lunch time, then back to the car park. I don't know how energetically you're riding the recumbent bike, but doing 30 min this evening on a stair climber, exerting myself so hard that sweat was literally dripping from me, my Charge 5 said I burned 219 calories. When I run, 30 min is in the 210-250 calorie range. So your numbers of 200 higher than your expected basal rate seem about right.