Logging excercise

[SunsetRunner]

Would it be better to not log in my excercises at all, sticking only to calories burn by steps and heart rare? Just because I’m not entirely sure if I’m actually burning the amount of calories that my device tells me (it says I burn around 3500-4500 everybday)

[JohnnyRow]

If you are wearing your tracker, there is no reason to also log a workout.  Use the exercise app to tell what kind of exercise and mark the start and end of workout.

See How do I track my workouts with my Fitbit device?

[SunsetRunner]

Can I create a deficit by tracking only my steps without adding my workouts in the exercise app though?

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

As long as you are wearing the tracker, everything goes into the daily totals: steps, calories, stairs, active minutes, whatever.  It just might not be called a "workout".

[Circular]

I am also not sure that the exercise calories are counted correctly.

When I am doing exercise but not log it in advance (start/stop) but log it later it adds a lot more calories to the count. So there is definitely a difference between logging before and after that needs to be explained.

Secondly I just tested the system by logging exercises that I did not do just by using time and duration. The calorie count still went up. So why would the system do it? It can't properly track the calories without me telling what an exercise I am doing?

I am using Charge 4.

[JohnnyRow]

@Circular  Yes there is often a difference in calories burned between manually logging afterward, and recording it as it happens (which is not logging in advance).  When you record it as it happens, it uses actual recorded heart rate to determine calories burned.  When you manually log it afterward, whatever parameters you input override whatever data was actually recorded.

Logging the workout manually after the fact is basically meant only for times when you could not wear the tracker, so it ignores any actually recorded data.