Calories burned walking too high

[MikeBryan]

I've used a Charge HR for a week now.  I'm a 53 year old male, 186 pounds, 6 foot even.  The calories burned for an hour walk are way too high and I'm frustrated.  For instance, I walked 65 minutes yesterday at a moderate pace of 3 mph, I took 6070 steps which was just over 3 miles, 124 bpm.  My daily BMR is 1730 so that equates to 72 an hour.  Fitbit says I burned 598 calories for that walk.  Deducting the 72, that's 526 calories for a 65 minute walk!  I wish that were true but don't think it's possible.  Does over 500 calories burned seem reasonable for a 65 minute walk?????

[DavideFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community @Nat2788, @Callaghan86!  it is normal that you see a certain amount of calories burnt upon waking up, just as @Callaghan86 mentioned before. 

This value that you see on your tracker when you wake up in the morning is the estimated calorie burn for the day so far, remember that you still burn calories even if you have been sedentary or were sleeping. This amount of calories is based on your age, gender, height and weight. I hope this helps, keep me posted. 

[hiramJim]

Same as many others report - I regularly do a 40 minute walk on my treadmill (incline=0), 4100 steps, at 3mph and it awards 630-660 calories.  Yea, I am obese at 290 lbs but by any number of calculators I shouldn't get more than 300 calories credit.

I primarily have been using my Fitbit to log calories in and out in order to lose weight.   According to fitbit for 12 months I have had a DAILY net of -800 calories.    I have lost only 6 lbs.

I really like the company and apart from this I love my tracker and the website.  But it isn't fulfilling the mission.   I am going to buy a Garmin, sadly.

[shipo]

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@hiramJim wrote:

Same as many others report - I regularly do a 40 minute walk on my treadmill (incline=0), 4100 steps, at 3mph and it awards 630-660 calories.  Yea, I am obese at 290 lbs but by any number of calculators I shouldn't get more than 300 calories credit.

I primarily have been using my Fitbit to log calories in and out in order to lose weight.   According to fitbit for 12 months I have had a DAILY net of -800 calories.    I have lost only 6 lbs.

I really like the company and apart from this I love my tracker and the website.  But it isn't fulfilling the mission.   I am going to buy a Garmin, sadly.

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Assuming you have a Charge HR, did you track how high your heart rate got during your treadmill workout?  I'm thinking it is highly likely your heart rate got high enough to affect the calorie burn calculation.  Regarding buying a Garmin, don't be surprised if it shows similar calorie burn numbers for a similar effort.

[Rickeveru]

Unfortunately, that's what i had to do.

[hiramJim]

Yep, Charge HR.   The calorie inflation is consistant whether I use a treadmill or an aactual walk outside with the activity tracker time started and GPS going.    My HR is almost always in the 100-110 range (80% of the walk), with a few ranges of 120-140 (20% of the time).    On my treadmill I can test my peak at full run at about 155-160.    I walk on level ground in a corporate park.    So I really don't think the HR would be resoponsible for 2x the burn - but thatnks for the idea.   I thought that too which why experimented with different modes - and tweaked my body profile (which I didn't like doing... but it didn't change things much.)

[tulipqueen]

My HR tracker has been consistent with calorie count until today.. it has me burning 2000 calories when I've walked 2 miles. I'm 125 pounds!. I rebooted. But not sure how to fix the error or keep it from happening again. It generally takes me 6 or 7 hiking miles t burn 2000

[Stegmanco]

I just went from Fitbit Flex which I found to calorie expenditure to be fairly accurate to the Charge 2 and my calories jumped up significantly. Is there and adequate response to this yet?

[shipo]

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@Stegmanco wrote:
I just went from Fitbit Flex which I found to calorie expenditure to be fairly accurate to the Charge 2 and my calories jumped up significantly. Is there and adequate response to this yet?

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Flex does not have heart rate monitoring and the Charge HR does; the differences in the calorie burned calculation is due to the heart rate monitoring as it can then assess your relative workload instead if just the number of steps.

[Rickeveru]

Hi everyone,

I've looked into this quite a bit and from what I remember, Fitbit's
algorithm does not really take into consideration the actual heart rate
readings. If it did, we wouldn't get the exaggerated calories burned while
walking for example.

[Stegmanco]

You are correct.  I just went from burning ~3,750 on the flex to ~4,375 on the charge walking the same.  I have been very consistent for the last 3 months.  The ~3,750 seems to add up to other online calculators, being 6'2" and 315 lbs working out for an 45-60 min 5 days a week.

The HR on the charge also says I average about 110 bpm during during my treadmill work outs and the machine is telling me that I am closer to 145-155 bpm.  I am going to try and tighten the charge and see if this gets me better results today.  However if I am working my heart harder during exercise then that ~4,375 number will rise even higher.  I have been doing about 1,000+ a day calorie deficit and have been looseing on average about 2 to 2.5 lbs a week.  Which again lines up with the 3,750 number.

I am wondering if the charge adjusts as it gets more data as I have only had it a few days.

[shipo]

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@Rickeveru wrote:
Hi everyone,

I've looked into this quite a bit and from what I remember, Fitbit's
algorithm does not really take into consideration the actual heart rate
readings. If it did, we wouldn't get the exaggerated calories burned while
walking for example.

---

Hmmm, doesn't sound right; when I run I notice a dramatic change in my calories burned per minute; the higher my heart rate, the higher my calorie burn per minute.  The following is the the most extreme example I've seen (a race event up the 1000' vertical face of a ski slope and then back down):

When hovering over the graph I see a low water mark of 11.9 calories per minute and a high water mark of 19.8 calories per minute; a rather substantial delta based solely on heart rate.

[Rickeveru]

No it won't adjust lol, not until they change their algorithm. The Fitbit
does have difficulty with the heartrate and calories burned on intense
workouts so I used to make a manual adjustment to add the correct calories
burned. I now have a competitor's tracker and though it is also somewhat
low on calories burned for intense workouts, for activities like walking,
my current tracker is much more accurate.

[golgi]

Essentially it is 100 calories per mile--does not matter what rate or (for the most part) what weight.  If you walk 2 miles, you burn 200 calories.

[dlhnj]

I don't think this is quite right.  If you walk a mile on a flat surface and your heart rate is 80 beats per minute, your calorie count will be much lower than if you walk a mile on a hill and your heart rate is 120 beats per minute.  Heart rate is definitely a factor in the way Fitbit calculates walking calories. 

[MyZenNolan]

I would love to vote down your "BMR" nonsense as fitbit currently has my BMR set at nearly 3500cal a day and if I dare exercise I'm told to eat back those calories to lose weight. BMR for 180lbs-ish is approx 1800, NOT 3456. Until this is fix the calculations from fitbit are beyond useless.

[Aussie51]

I think I'm going to change to a different brand.  I just walked exactly 5km in 55 mins and my Blaze told me I burned 800 Kcal. This is ridiculous.

[Neurosci-NYC]

Fitbit needs actual scientists and engineers responding to us on these forums.  Their "moderators" giving canned answers is unacceptable.

Transparency or bust.

[Pauloross90]

Been playing around with Charge 3 HR since Christmas and experiencing similar issues. 

29 year old male

5ft7

63kg

470 calories burned during a 60 minute 3 mile walk. Average HR 110. Seems way too high. 

[Amandaeczl]

Hi there!

I was just curious as to which apps you are using to compare calories burned...I would love to do the same!

Thank you, 

Amanda

[tulipqueen]

I have switched to an Apple
Watch!
Jane