Active Minutes and Calories burned Too High

[DISdamslTRES]

I've had a fitbit charge hr for the past three years, so I've got a lot of data to compare to. Just replaced with the inspire two days ago. It's registering active minutes and calories through the roof. In the three years I've had my charge I've never burned over 3000 calories in a day, and I didn't even work out nearly as hard as I have previously. The steps and miles seem accurate. The heart rate seems too high, but not CRAZY high. But the active minutes and burned calories are way off my normal charts. I've double checked my personal info like age, gender, etc. I've tried resetting the fitbit.

Moderator edit: title for clarity

[Crbeasley9]

My mom and I both are having this issue as well. Please advise. 

[AudieB]

I am also having this issue.

[Cas744]

I just bought an Inspire HR and I went for a walk for about an hour and was walking around campus quite a bit but it is saying that I burned 3000 calories. Is there any way to get more accurate results. 

[SteveH]

Calories being too high can be caused by a number of things:

• Is your step count looking reasonable? If it's tracking too many steps then it will calculate too many calories
• Are your profile settings for age, height, weight etc correct in your profile at https://www.fitbit.com/settings/profile ? These have a direct impact on the calories calculation.
• Sometimes people do not take into account their BMR calories. These are the calories you burn just keeping your body alive (even when asleep). They are calculated from your profile settings for age, height, weight etc so you needn't be wearing your fitbit to get them. What you are seeing includes the total BMR calories burned since midnight

[MattFitbit]

@DISdamslTRES @AudieB Welcome to the forums!

If you haven't already done so, I would take a look at some of the tips that @SteveH highlighted above.

I'd also be curious to know how much higher these calorie counts are and if there were any specific events that would have inflated them. Feel free to elaborate below. 

It might also be a good idea to perform a quick restart to refresh your tracker's system. Once that is completed, please monitor your activity and calories for the subsequent 24 hours to see if anything changed. 

Looking forward to hearing more on this. 

[DISdamslTRES · Accepted solution]

I unlinked my fitbit to my account, put the fitbit back to factory settings, relinked the fit bit, and then "reset" it. I also turned on cellular data, which I had turned off previously. Doing all this seems to have fixed the problem.

[AudieB]

I have been able to just turn my wrist back and forth or raise my arm above my head and gain steps. A few days ago I logged over 2200 steps and never left my house. Only left my recliner for nature calls and meals. But I will definitely try these tips.

[Asnelson]

Hello,

I am also having this problem and it’s so frustratingly inaccurate that after two days, I want to return the device because it just doesn’t work.

For reference, today I worked at my desk and rode my bike at a slow pace for 60 minutes. I know my BMR is 1400 roughly and I’m 5’2. My calorie burn for the day was over 5000! I’ve run actual MARATHONS and not broke 4000, there’s no way a casual bike ride and desk work is burning more calories than a 26 mile run. I’ve tried resetting it and I’ve confirmed all my biometrics are right. I’ve contacted customer service and they told me that my breathing and heart rate may affect calories burned. A similar day tracking within my old One (which I sorely miss now) would clock in at maybe 2000, but certainly never even close to 5000. Unless there’s is a glitch in the software (which is up to date as i received the Inspire HR 2 days ago) then this watch is basically a useless piece of expensive plastic. Please please tell me that there is a Fix for this MASSIVE problem. 

[SunsetRunner]

I am also having active minutes way to high when I have done nothing at all.

[LBE]

Ugh. I’m having this problem too. 246 active minutes and 3600 calories on just an average day. This device is becoming full of problems. 

[JenniferMK]

Same problem here! My old fitbit put my calorie burn for a normal day at around 2000, but the Inspire has been close to 3000 calories per day, with way too many active minutes. Step count is normal, and my hight/weight, etc. in my profile is correct. So far this morning I've walked 1700 steps (casual pace as I get ready for work), but it says I have 40 active minutes already. This is really inaccurate!

[Feefee5050]

I’ve just changed from an Alta to the inspire and the readings seem totally inaccurate: 30 active minutes while sitting at my desk! Really disappointing. 

[Ahk200721]

Thank you!!! I was extremely confused as to why it says I've burned 900 calories even though I just bought it and just turned it on

[sallymiracle]

I am having the exact same situation. 

[dw1425]

I burnt 500 calories this morning while my Fit Bit was on the charger all night!

[Cheetah154]

How do i turn on my cellular data please

[rosta_cz]

Hi there,

I am longtime user of sport watches and trackers with first sportswatch (polar with hr belt) using already around 2004-2005. I have also been using fitbit Flex 2 for almost 3 years and have nothing to say about sleep tracking - its by far the most accurate I have seen. Steps tracking have always been quite optimistic, but to in range of about 10-15% compared to Garmin Fenix or several phones. 

As my Flex 2 died after 3 years I got inspire HR (I just want a simple tracker - ideally without screen like the Flex 2 was) but was tempted to have full day monitoring of my normal activity and not just sports. After a month of use, I have to confirm the readings of my burned calories are completely nonsense - had days of 5000+ burn.

I have checked all the settings of my account, restart the tracker but no luck. What I have found compared to garmin fenix 5 though is that:

• as before with flex 2, steps are up with inspire hr about 10-15% (tolerable range for me)
• the daily BMR is actually higher with Garmin then with Fitbit (by little)
• when I go for a run or bike run, Fitibit is bit higher on cal burn, but again tolerable given that with Garmin I use GPS for distance and HR belt (with HR being quite similar on both)
• where fitbit goes completely off the board is simple walking!!! For example one day I went for roughly 55 min run with pace around 9,5 - 10 kmh/hr - it gave me around 700 calories burned with Garmin and 760 with fitbit. But then we went for a walk later in the day and in 2 hrs walk of about 4 km according to garmin I have burnt some 300 extra calories, but fitbit gave me another 800 calories which is non-sense.. Seems to me, that FITBIT algorythm is simply way overcalculationg the burn.

I believe though, its not fault of the device itself as the raw readings (steps, hr) are quite similar, but then in the calculations I see the the problem... 

On a footnote, I do believe the Garmin calculations - couple times already I went on few weeks to few month long logging of food and even with their calculations and scoring around - 500 to -700 cal a day it was tough to loose weight (but managed in the long term) - another to believe that fitbit calculations are off... 

I wanted to attach two printscreens comparing the last 7 days, but I cant do it - I am happy to send you those via email.

Rosta

[Witchtrash]

I just got my Fitbit yesterday, and I finished my day at a little over 3000. Seems high considering all I did was go to work. My iPhone in my pocket tracked me at around 5000 steps on a normal work day, but this says I walked 10,000. Maybe this is more accurate? But doubled seems odd. I’m new to Fitbit, how did you find where to unlink account, restart to factory settings, etc.?

[Bigk1969]

My Versa Lite reports about double the calories burned for simple walking. Today Versa gave me 788 calories burned for a 2.5 mile walk on the treadmill. Absolutely impossible to burn that many calories. Maybe if I weighed 900 lbs. I joke here. 

The treadmill reported 360 calories and when I put the workout data into my Noom app, it calculated 355 calories. 

Is Fitbit working on a solution?