01-02-2016
15:41
- last edited on
09-06-2020
20:42
by
MatthewFitbit
01-02-2016
15:41
- last edited on
09-06-2020
20:42
by
MatthewFitbit
HI all,
I am a new member and looking for some help.
I have been tracking and logging fitness and food for many years now via sparkpeople.com. I also used to use a polar hrm for tracking calories burned when I was initially losing weight around 4-5 years ago. Neither of these had the same level of detail as the fitbit, and so I am still getting used to everything and figuring out how it all works. However, I am getting a bit perplexed!
At my goal weight (139 lbs) according to my HRM, I was burning about 400 cals on a 30 minute run and around 600 for an hours high intensity circuits class, sometimes 700 for Body Attack. Spark people would give a lower cal burn because it was more of an estimation than an accurate reading.
I have been using my fitbit charge hr now for around a week - I have worn it for a 32 minute run, during a 45 minute Body Attack class and then for GRIT strength and CX worx this morning. Each of my burns seems a little low in my opinion: 169 for GRIT, 341 for my run, 356 for Body Attack.
The run probably makes sense to me as it was a gentle run as I am getting over a chest infection, however the gym classes don't. I don't wish to blow my own trumpet or sound conceited but I worked really hard - and always do - in GRIT and Attack. Also, a lot of my friends have fitbits and their burn was a lot higher than mine, and we were all pushing equally as hard together!
I am wondering if I have something set up wrong, or if I am using it incorrectly? The polar unfortunately is broken and it was a couple of years ago when I was using it, so it could be that over the years my body has gotten used to working at high intensity during these activities and so I don't burn as much - however I still feel just as pooped at the end of the sessions as I used to do!! Maybe I need to find some more intense workouts!
Any help would be gratefully received. Thank you.
09-10-2016 05:37
09-10-2016 05:37
09-10-2016 10:51
09-10-2016 10:51
Hi, @AussieSteveH, if that question was addressed to me, and you referred to my statement that "if the Fitbit is giving you reasonably accurate heartrate info then it is more likely to be correct than the elliptical", I wasn't basing it on independent data, I was basing it on first principles. You will note that I prefaced the statement with "if your Fitbit is giving you reasonably accurate HR information" (if not, all bets are off). For aerobic exercises, heartrate is a pretty good indication of calorie burn.
Also, of course, I don't know how advanced your elliptical machine is... at my gym the ellipticals have no means of measuring my heartrate. Furthermore, they don't require me to input my gender, my age or my height and weight -- and this is all information that the Fitbit has and uses to compute calories.
So if you compare a tool for measuring your calories that has your personal information and is giving you a reasonably accurate heartrate reading it is definitionally going to be more accurate than one that is simply based on what the average person burns for X amount of time at Y resistance.
If you have an elliptical connected to a chest strap, and it knows your gender, age, height and weight, then (and only then) would I bet on its calorie estimation over the Fitbit's.
I hope this makes it clearer.
Sense, Charge 5, Inspire 2; iOS and Android
09-10-2016 10:59
09-10-2016 10:59
09-10-2016 11:36
09-10-2016 11:36
09-10-2016 16:07
09-10-2016 16:07
09-10-2016 16:20
09-10-2016 16:20
The physics of the elliptical are known, of course. But the biology of the person pushing the elliptical, and how many calories he or she is burning, will depend on the amount of energy that person needs to expend to push it -- a calculation without heartrate, gender, age, height, weight, will not make sense.
Sense, Charge 5, Inspire 2; iOS and Android
10-23-2016 18:54
10-23-2016 18:54
I have a Suunto Ambit 2 with a chest strap heart rate monitor and a Charge 2. The profile (height/weight/etc) on both are the same. The heart rate readings from both are very close (I've been using them in parallel).
However, I burn 487 calories in 45 minutes on an elliptical with the Suunto, both only 400 with the Charge 2.
This is clearly not a problem with the heart rate monitor, but with the math behind the calorie burn. It appears that the Charge 2 is under-estimating the calorie burn from elliptical activities. Can someone from Fitbit just explain the math?
10-31-2016 00:10
10-31-2016 00:10
10-31-2016 03:42
10-31-2016 03:42
11-29-2016 12:59
11-29-2016 12:59
12-04-2016 18:12
12-04-2016 18:12
I have been monitoring my hr a d calories with a navigator good quality watch and when I got the fitbithr I decided to wear them both at the same time. Let's just say that if the fit bit is correct then I night as well never exercise. An hour spin class reads as about 250 working really hard, compared to about 600 on the other watch. I can run 10 kms and it is only a couple hundred calories. It's so wrong it's a joke
12-26-2016 00:41 - edited 12-27-2016 05:19
12-26-2016 00:41 - edited 12-27-2016 05:19
12-27-2016 16:06
12-27-2016 16:06
This thing is crap! Calories burnt is directly affected by heart rate right? The higher your heart rate is the more calories burnt per minute right? Well please explain these results?
12-29-2016 12:31
12-29-2016 12:31
I am only repeating what has already been said 100x on this thread, but my calorie count is also inaccurate for various exercises, despite the HR average being within very close range. I have a Polar chest strap and have performed the following exercises with both devices on (polar and Charge 2) and received the following average HRs and calorie counts:
1. Elliptical and weights - 1hr - Polar: 119 hr average/ 422 calories burned; Charge 2: 124 hr average 294 calories burned
2. Barre class - 1 hr: Polar: 114 hr average/ 352 calories burned; Charge 2: 113 hr average/ 201 calories burned
3. Tracy Anderson workout - 51 mins: Polar: 125 hr average/ 365 calories burned; Charge 2: 122 hr average/226 calories burned
You can see that the HR averages for all three different workouts are pretty close, which is great, yet the calorie count on the Charge 2 is under by at least 100 calories! This clearly just means that fitbits way of calculating the calories burned is inaccurate, right? How difficult is it to fix an algorithm to put an end to this issue? The "type" of exercise I input to each device is the same, my age, height, weight, and sex are all the same... what gives? What a disappointment.
12-29-2016 12:43
12-29-2016 12:43
Hey Monchi, as you can see from my previous posts I agreed with you a few days ago, but after a lot of research I now believe Fitbit is actually the more accurate one and my other apps using the polar hrm have been over calculating all this time.
12-29-2016 12:55
12-29-2016 12:55
Most people, and aparently many systems, vastly over calculate calories burned from exercise. I think Fitbit is correct. Unless you are following Fitbit's systems and actually losing weight, I would go with them.
Sense, Charge 5, Inspire 2; iOS and Android
12-29-2016 14:49
12-29-2016 14:49
I think u mean NOT losing weight Julia lol
12-29-2016 17:30
12-29-2016 17:30
Hey Mike, thanks for the insight. What kind of research did you find that makes you think Fitbit is actually correct? I'm not disagreeing with you but the low cal counts just don't "feel right", but perhaps that is because I've always used the polar strap and got accustomed to the high calorie counts?
12-29-2016 18:43 - edited 12-29-2016 18:44
12-29-2016 18:43 - edited 12-29-2016 18:44
Hi monchi,
For the last couple years I had a Flex to count my daily steps but always used a polar HRM linked to Digifit, now called Fitdigits, when I worked out. If I ever did a walk with only my Flex the calories were always way lower, which I put down to being wrong because my hr wasn't being recorded. I had in my head that it didn't matter what exercise I was doing, the higher my hr the more calories I burned, which I now know is wrong. For example, it's much easier to get your hr higher riding a bike as it is walking/running.
I recently got a Charge 2 because I was sick of wearing the strap and wanted an all day read of my hr, and was immediately disappointed with the calories burned. I started doing multiple tests to compare, and lots of reading online. To make a really long story not quite as long, I'll tell you the two main points that finally made me believe Fitbit was accurate.
Polar HRM and Digifit would always log a way higher calorie burn per min riding than walking with about the same actual effort, which obviously can't be right. My Charge 2 logs walks and rides at the same CPM burned even though my average HR is a fair bit higher riding. Same effort = same calorie burn right?
And the second thing was I decided to forget about all the gadgets, heart rate, age, height etc etc and just google "calories burned walking". I read multiple results and not one of them came anywhere near the calories I was apparently burning with the Polar HRM with Digifit. Every one was actually under what Fitbit was recording, which I put down to the lack of the other info not taken into account.
Sorry this was so long winded but I hope it made sense. In the end, ultimately it's up to the individual what they want to believe.
Cheers Mike
12-30-2016 01:35
12-30-2016 01:35
Hi, @Mike007, no, I did mean losing weight. If the Fitbit is UNDER counting calories, and you are actually burning much more calories than the Fitbit thinks, you might find yourself losing weight... (assuming, of course, you eat based on the information Fitbit gives you).
If you don't find yourself losing weight by using the lower calorie burn calculations, that would suggest the lower burn is correct.
Sense, Charge 5, Inspire 2; iOS and Android