Does the activity type influence the calories burnt?

[Acrozynk]

I am wondering whether the activity type chosen (e.g. weights, workout, yoga, treadmill) has any influence in the calculation of the calories burnt or not. For example, let's say I have exactly the same heart rate during a 1-hour step workout and a 1-hour weights workout. Will my calorie burn be the same according to the fitbit calculation?

Thank you

[MarreFitbit]

Hey there @Acrozynk, welcome to the Fitbit forums!  Yep, they'll be different amount of calories. 

If the exercise is very intense  you will get active minutes hence you will burn more calories. If by a small chance you interrupted the exercise, the active minutes count will be reset back to zero, in other words if you don't complete a whole minute with the same pace, or intensity that minute wont count for the totals an the calories burned will be less.

I've found great posts in which some of my friends share all their knowledge about how the calories work and how to better understand them. Said that, check this post from @SebringDon about calorie burn accuracy, this one from @PureEvil about calories burned during exercises, and this one from my dear @MariamFitbit about how to calculate calories burned from exercise. Also, since your Charge 2 tracks your heart rate I'd recommend checking this post to know when and how is your heart rate used to calculate your calories burned. 

Hope all this information helps! 

[Acrozynk]

Hello @MarreFitbit, thank you so much for your answer. However, I don't see the answer to my question in all those posts. Let me try to explain it better. I already know how calorie burn and heart rate work, I'm asking specifically about the fitbit algorithm.

So, let's say I start tracking an activity on my fitbit which is named "treadmill". The calorie burn will be calculated according to my heart rate.

Now, I start tracking another activity named "weights". The calorie burn will too be calculated according to my heart rate.

Here is my question: imagine for a moment that I had exactly the same heart rate throughout both those activities; will the calorie burn be exactly the same? In other words: does the activity type influence at all the formula to calculate the calorie burn?

The reason why I'm asking this is because when I exercise, sometimes I do let's say 20-min treadmill, 10-min weights, 20-min treadmill, 10-min weight, 10-min abs. I want to know if there would be any difference in the calorie burn calculation in these two options: 1) I stop the activity each time and track the correct activity (treadmill or weights every time I change); 2) I log everything as "workout".

I don't mind that my app shows I did a "workout" instead of showing "treadmill", "weights", etc. I am only concerned about the calorie burn calculation. Did the activity type influence it or is it ONLY based on the heart rate?

Thank you very much and I hope this was understandable

[JodyMody]

I am wondering the same. Did you ever get the answer to your question? 

[Acrozynk]

No, never, it would be nice if Fitbit gave a proper answer.

[Jrich911]

i've been looking for an answer to this question for months! again today i'm wondering because i forgot to stop my tracker when i finished a weight lifting workout.. it was 40 minutes but it was 3 hours later when i noticed! i had hit the "end workout" button but not the "are you sure?" option on the ionic. weird thing is that it stopped tracking the exercise, but my calorie burn over the next 3 hours was over 1200... makes no sense as my heart rate was in the resting zone for most of that time. 

[Acrozynk]

Yes, that is indeed very interesting and suspicious... Thanks for sharing your experience, hopefully Fitbit will some day clear all our doubts!

[WendyB]

@Jrich911

---

@Jrich911 wrote:

i've been looking for an answer to this question for months! again today i'm wondering because i forgot to stop my tracker when i finished a weight lifting workout.. it was 40 minutes but it was 3 hours later when i noticed! i had hit the "end workout" button but not the "are you sure?" option on the ionic. weird thing is that it stopped tracking the exercise, Of course it quit tracking your exercise. But you still burn calories doing nothing  so it added it on.

The calories burned are BMR calories. Your fitbit also calculates calories burned for your BMR. You burn calories just by being alive! Even Sleeping. Fitbit includes these burned calories in it's calorie calculations, so even if you did not wear the fitbit, you'll still burn these calories.

Read this http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-does-Fitbit-know-how-many-calories-I-ve-burne...

[Acrozynk]

Hi Wendy, thanks for your answer. Of course that the Fitbit calculates BMR calories. But here the question is if at the same heart rate, the calories burnt would be same during a weightlifting session and a cycling session according to Fitbit calculations.

Thank you

[Jrich911]

Hi Wendy,

I do understand I'm still burning calories at rest; however, at 5'4" and 115lbs I'm looking at maybe 50 calories an hour. My tracker shows I burned almost 1200 calories in 3 hours and I'm wondering if it's because my tracker was set to weight lifting .

Trying to figure out if setting an activity type automatically charges the algorithm used to calculate calorie burn .

[ellejay313]

I have also been looking for this exact question (and answer obviously) since I got my FitBit versa two weeks ago. It is driving me nuts that when I go back and name the type of "workout" the calories never adjust, no matter what I change it to! Did you ever get an answer or figure this one out? Thanks

[Jrich911]

Unfortunately not! I'm sorry!

[WattageBazooka]

Not surprising you didn't get an answer on here; this forum is the equivalent of "have you tried turning it off and back on again"...

I can't find the answer to your question (one I'd love the answer to), and it seems no-one actually knows.  The only way I can think to test it is as follows.

Go for a 10 minute jog, setting the activity type to running.  Aim for a max heart rate of 130bpm (recovery run pace). Stop at 10 minutes, and note calories burned.

The next day when fully recovered and starting at the same HR, repeat exactly (same route and intensity as much as you can), but select a totally unrelated workout activity (weights, for example), and see if the calories burned is the same or not.  I suspect it won't be, as I'm pretty sure if you have HR of 130 bpm lifting weights, you're consuming more calories than the equivalent run, as 130 bpm while lifting weights is comparatively far more intense than running (is my guess).

[AbsolutCorrupt]

Anyone come up with a response on this one? I can confirm if I forget to turn off my exercise when I stop running (usually happens when I have a meeting to go to or get a call), then 2 hours later I realize I forgot and I hit "finish", I will have burned substantially more calories according to the Fitbit, than if I had stopped it correctly.

So, I was hoping for an official response here, but I guess this is just more evidence to confirm what you are all seeing. Heart rate is not the only thing that Fitbit is using to assume your calorie burn rate. Seems fishy. Also, when I edit the workout and "fix" the end time, it doesn't change the calories burned. So, what gives?

[vitoboy]

Same question for me here ... WHY WHY AND WHY HASN'T A FITBIT MODERATOR ANSWERED THIS QUESTION.,,,!

[vitoboy]

Hi Marre

Why haven't you answered these persons questions ...??

5 years and totally ignored by moderators  WHY

[MDThalmann]

I'm not a Fitbit expert or employee, but I want to say yes they use an algorithm to determine calories burnt... Unfortunately.... I say unfortunately because I have gone in to my workout history and seeing that I had an automatically detected workout. I went in and changed the type of activity from what Fitbit thought it was to what I actually did and it lowered the calories burnt. This is shocking to me as I thought they were using my heart rate and steps to calculate based on my weight... However as soon as I told them I was actually doing x instead of y they said well you must not have burned that many calories then. Which is hog wash.

I have also gone in and logged a previous workout that Fitbit missed because it was perhaps too low intensity, and depending on the activity that I select it spits out a different calories burnt. Even though they have my heart rate and step data for the time frame specified.

[StephSS]

I’ve definitely noticed that when you “select an exercise” it over estimates active zone minutes so I assume calories burned too. Really disappointing that there isn’t an explanation.