Incorrect Calories Burned?????

[AllieD]

So I just got my Fitbit HR at the weekend (previously had a Jawbone).  On Monday I went a short 13minute walk and according to the App I burned 83calories which is fair enough but last night I went to Circuits and worked my ass off for 50minutes and according to the App all I burned was a measley 41calories! How is that even possible?  There must be something wrong there?

Any help is appreciated as so far I am disappointed in the Fitbit after all the rave reviews I have heard about it!

TIA 

[Dominique]

In such a situation, you can manually log the activity in question.

[AllieD]

Thanks for the reply but what is the point of having a HR tracker to attempt to try and get accurate information if you are just going to log it manually. This completely defeats the purpose of this.

[Colinm39]

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@AllieD wrote:

Thanks for the reply but what is the point of having a HR tracker to attempt to try and get accurate information if you are just going to log it manually. This completely defeats the purpose of this.

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@AllieD Let's get some more information..

Firstly, what is involved in Circuits, ?

Did you set your Timer ?

Did your Charge HR record HR's ? and did they go into the fat burning zone ?

Did you Charge HR record steps, and if so how many/minute.

All of this helps us with a solution.

If some of this isn't available, click on the large stopwatch in your activity log and enter the start and finish times of your Circuits. Click the small stopwatch next to the description and you should have enough data to analyse the 50 minutes.

[josephz2va]

Have you set your strides in the dashboard settings and checked to see if your steps are being recorded?

Check and see if your steps are being recorded and you're motioning your arms. You may also need to seek Fitbit Support and pass on yes and no replys and receive a replacement armband.

Also check your recorded data and see if Fat Burn, Cardio Burn, and Peak Burn are being recorded. A 47 minute aggressive run would have picked up around 500 calories.

[AllieD]

Firstly, what is involved in Circuits, ? Circuits is 10 or so exercises based on HIIT, 1 minute bursts at each station x 3 rounds

Did you set your Timer ? Yes

Did your Charge HR record HR's ? and did they go into the fat burning zone ?  Yes, they went up to 179

Did you Charge HR record steps, and if so how many/minute

https://www.fitbit.com/activities/exercise/1867025903

I am new to this so maybe I am missing something?

[AllieD]

Hi Joseph

I have completed this but not with the stride or running length.

Steps have been picked up fine when walking but I will looking into gettin this completed.

[Dominique]

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@AllieD wrote:

what is the point of having a HR tracker to attempt to try and get accurate information if you are just going to log it manually. This completely defeats the purpose of this.

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OK, you’re assuming your Fitbit with HR monitoring capabilities is using HR data when estimating calories burned. That kind of makes sense on paper: your Fitbit knows/sees your heart is beating like crazy, so it should realize you’re performing some really intense activity and estimate burned calories accordingly. But here is what I think (my personal opinion): Fitbit estimates calories burned mostly based on its motion sensors, not on HR data. In fact, have you seen any mention by Fitbit (in ads, manuals, help articles etc.) HR-capable Fitbit trackers use HR for estimating calories burned?

Fitbit uses HR data for other purposes, for instance for determining your resting HR. The conventional way to do it is to lie down, do nothing for a couple of minutes and then see what is your lowest HR at that time. Fitbit does it in a smarter way, thanks to the 24/7 monitoring.

Sure, your Fitbit can tell you how much time you’ve spent in various time zones during the course of the day. It can also tell you how many floors you’ve climbed. Yet, if you were climbing up the Empire State Building and recording this as an activity, you would be credited for calories burned based mostly on the number of steps, all those floors that were detected wouldn’t be taken into account.  

[JohnRi]

Based on my Fitbit Surge, I can tell you that when I exercise, or just sitting doing nothing, if my heart rate is elevated, my surge shows more calories burned.  Back before I got my resting heart rate under control, my resting heart rate was 105, with spikes of 160.  I got on a beta blocker to lower my heart rate, but my fitbit showed me in the fat burning zone for hours, even though I was just sitting on the couch watching TV.  And my Surge showed me burning higher numbers of calories.

When I first got my Blaze, I was 270 lbs,with a resting heart rate was 70+, and even on a day I didn't walk, I burned around 2800 calories a day.  If I exercised, I was in the 3500-4000 calorie range.  Losing weight was easy at this point.

Today down to 237 lbs, and with a resting heart rate of 58-59, if I don't exercise, I burn around 2400 calories, and if I exercise, I burn around 3200-3400 calories.  Losing weight is getting harder, as I need daily exercise now to have any weight loss.  I maintain a 1800 calorie diet, which for my 6 foot height is hard to do.

They may not say it, but if you were to see one of my fitness walks, you would see it shows calories burned based on the heart zone.

[Colinm39]

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@AllieD wrote:

So I just got my Fitbit HR at the weekend (previously had a Jawbone).  On Monday I went a short 13minute walk and according to the App I burned 83calories which is fair enough but last night I went to Circuits and worked my ass off for 50minutes and according to the App all I burned was a measley 41calories! How is that even possible?  There must be something wrong there?

Any help is appreciated as so far I am disappointed in the Fitbit after all the rave reviews I have heard about it!

TIA 

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@AllieD  Definitely with the effort you mentioned in the later posts you should have been at least in the 250+ calorie range. Did Active Minutes show. ? because each of those minutes is 3 times your Sleeping/BMR calories/minute, but they only display 10 continuous minutes of that effort

Because it is all based on your BMR and effort I would definitely check your settings because all of my HR Fitbits, definitely the HR equates to calories burned if over the Fat Burning Zone.

If you use the stopwatch icon in the activity log you can get a better appreciation of the effort calories and steps/minute

[AllieD]

Thanks everyone for your replies & comments.  I am new to this so I am just going to take it a day at a time.  I am the 1st to admit that I know nothing about the science behind this losing weight & getting fit malarky, I just thought that this would make it easier!!

I have a boxercise class tonight so I will see what happens after I have finished tracking.  If the calories are still low I will contact the support form to see if there is a problem with my tracker!

[Colinm39 · Accepted solution]

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@AllieD wrote:

Thanks everyone for your replies & comments.  I am new to this so I am just going to take it a day at a time.  I am the 1st to admit that I know nothing about the science behind this losing weight & getting fit malarky, I just thought that this would make it easier!!

I have a boxercise class tonight so I will see what happens after I have finished tracking.  If the calories are still low I will contact the support form to see if there is a problem with my tracker!

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@AllieD  Well done, good attitude and we all started the same way. 

I would use this BMR calculator which is 5 calories different over 24 hours for me at 1,570 calories. It uses the exact same equations that Fitbit uses.

This will be the quickest way to see if your personal settings are correct and compare the result with your Calories Burned Goal

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

Also read this link which may help in our interpretation of your effort.. 

Go for it tonight...

[josephz2va]

Depends on on how you burn throughout the day too. Here's my examples:

[AllieD]

Sorry, trying to make sense of this.  

Using MFP my BMR is 1496 cals per day.

My tracker currently has 888 calories burned out of 2412

So what does this mean???

How can I look back previous days information?  On the comp I can go back a day but the See More is not available like it is on the current day.  Yesterday I was at 84% of 2412 and the day of curcuits I was 88%

Thanks

[Colinm39 · Accepted solution]

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@AllieD wrote:

Sorry, trying to make sense of this.  

Using MFP my BMR is 1496 cals per day.

My tracker currently has 888 calories burned out of 2412

So what does this mean???

How can I look back previous days information?  On the comp I can go back a day but the See More is not available like it is on the current day.  Yesterday I was at 84% of 2412 and the day of curcuits I was 88%

Thanks

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@AllieD What time of day is it where you are..? because what you have shown us is typical of about late morning for most Fitbitters.. You only show 2,300 steps on your profile. The Calories Burned is from midnight.

Also Fitbit has determined your Calorie Burn Goal has an effort factor of 1.61 which is a good start.. See these tables..  (Divide your calculated BMR into the Calories Burned Goal)

I would double check the calories in your sleep period from your Activity Log and multiply one of those bars by 288 which gives you the Fitbit BMR with rounding errors. Mine rounds down to 5 calories/5 minutes and the 24 hour answer here is 1440 calories angainst 1570 calculated which is an issue.

In my case Fitbit rounds the actual calories of 5.46 down to 5 and I lose 130 calories, so I create an Activity Record, using the large stopwatch for your sleep time which is a copy of your calculated data and gives you a more accurate measure... If this is getting to complicated and I'm accelerating you too quickly into the foibles of Fitbit, let me know.

Sedentary.  Little to no regular exercise.  (factor 1.2)

Mild activity level: Intensive exercise for at least 20 minutes 1 to 3 times per week. This may include such things as bicycling, jogging, basketball, swimming, skating, etc.  If you do not exercise regularly, but you maintain a busy life style that requires you to walk frequently for long periods, you meet the requirements of this level.  (factor 1.375)

Moderate activity level: Intensive exercise for at least 30 to 60 minutes 3 to 4 times per week. Any of the activities listed above will qualify.    (factor 1.55)

Heavy or (Labor-intensive) activity level: Intensive exercise for 60 minutes or greater 5 to 7 days per week (see sample activities above).  Labor-intensive occupations also qualify for this level.  Labor-intensive occupations include construction work (brick laying, carpentry, general labor, etc.). Also farming, landscape worker or similar occupations.     (factor 1.7)

Extreme level: Exceedingly active and/or very demanding activities:  Examples include:  (1) athlete with an almost unstoppable training schedule with multiple training sessions throughout the day  (2) very demanding job, such as shoveling coal or working long hours on an assembly line. Generally, this level of activity is very difficult to achieve.  (factor 1.9)

[AllieD]

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@Colinm39 wrote:

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@AllieD wrote:

Sorry, trying to make sense of this.  

Using MFP my BMR is 1496 cals per day.

My tracker currently has 888 calories burned out of 2412

So what does this mean???

How can I look back previous days information?  On the comp I can go back a day but the See More is not available like it is on the current day.  Yesterday I was at 84% of 2412 and the day of curcuits I was 88%

Thanks

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@AllieD What time of day is it where you are..? because what you have shown us is typical of about late morning for most Fitbitters.. You only show 2,300 steps on your profile. The Calories Burned is from midnight.

Also Fitbit has determined your Calorie Burn Goal has an effort factor of 1.61 which is a good start.. See these tables..  (Divide your calculated BMR into the Calories Burned Goal)

I would double check the calories in your sleep period from your Activity Log and multiply one of those bars by 288 which gives you the Fitbit BMR with rounding errors. Mine rounds down to 5 calories/5 minutes and the 24 hour answer here is 1440 calories angainst 1570 calculated which is an issue.

In my case Fitbit rounds the actual calories of 5.46 down to 5 and I lose 130 calories, so I create an Activity Record, using the large stopwatch for your sleep time which is a copy of your calculated data and gives you a more accurate measure... If this is getting to complicated and I'm accelerating you too quickly into the foibles of Fitbit, let me know.

Sedentary.  Little to no regular exercise.  (factor 1.2)

Mild activity level: Intensive exercise for at least 20 minutes 1 to 3 times per week. This may include such things as bicycling, jogging, basketball, swimming, skating, etc.  If you do not exercise regularly, but you maintain a busy life style that requires you to walk frequently for long periods, you meet the requirements of this level.  (factor 1.375)

Moderate activity level: Intensive exercise for at least 30 to 60 minutes 3 to 4 times per week. Any of the activities listed above will qualify.    (factor 1.55)

Heavy or (Labor-intensive) activity level: Intensive exercise for 60 minutes or greater 5 to 7 days per week (see sample activities above).  Labor-intensive occupations also qualify for this level.  Labor-intensive occupations include construction work (brick laying, carpentry, general labor, etc.). Also farming, landscape worker or similar occupations.     (factor 1.7)

Extreme level: Exceedingly active and/or very demanding activities:  Examples include:  (1) athlete with an almost unstoppable training schedule with multiple training sessions throughout the day  (2) very demanding job, such as shoveling coal or working long hours on an assembly line. Generally, this level of activity is very difficult to achieve.  (factor 1.9)

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Hi there

I am in Scotland so at the moment it is 730am.

It is all a little complicated.  I am not a fitness fanatic and when it comes to all the science behind it all it goes straight over my head.  My sleep thing does work out to 1440 also.

I was at a class last night and I wore the tracker higher up my arm as per the link/info provided by some kind soul (apologoes I cannot remember which post it was in!).

Seems to be OK to now and hopefully we are all good.

Thanks everyone 

[Dominique]

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@JohnRi wrote:

Based on my Fitbit Surge, I can tell you that when I exercise, or just sitting doing nothing, if my heart rate is elevated, my surge shows more calories burned. 

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In order to establish that extra calories reported as being burned come precisely from the HR feature of your Surge, you would need to perform the same activity at different HR levels. It’s quite difficult to just sit for 30 minutes with very different HR during that period. With walking/running, you could do it now if/when out of shape, and repeat it after three months of training: in such a case, you could have the same activity at 150 and 120 bpm (just an example). I’m still not convinced a 30 minute jog at 150 bpm would translate in significantly more calories reported as burned by your Surge as the same 30 minute jog at 120 bpm.

[BrendaMartin]

Hi there I am new to this forum, I am excited about my new fitbit ulta but frustrated. I went for a walk and it shows 3700 steps, but 0 calories burned. Is there something I am suppose to set for this. Also where do I see my heart rate nad how does that work, is there settings for that ?

[Dominique]

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@BrendaMartin wrote:

I am excited about my new fitbit ulta but frustrated

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There are two Fitbits with a similar name: Ultra and Alta. Yours look like it could be either. However, I’ll assume it’s the Alta, since the Ultra is an old model no longer available (except perhaps on places like eBay). The Fitbit Alta does not have heart rate monitoring capabilities (some Fitbit trackers have, some don’t), so it’s perfectly normal you’re not seeing heart rate data anywhere. As to calories not being counted: have you gone through the setup process, whereas you create an account for yourself, and a profile with your age, gender, height and weight? Fitbit needs all that information in order to estimate calories you burn. The fact you don’t see calories yet would indicate you haven’t completed that process.