Calories Burned, Accurate, Good or Bad? Help!

[Richard_UK]

Okay, so first off I'm pretty new to actually tracking and recording my food and drink intake, calories and exercise stuff, not even 100% sure what it all mean's, but all I care about is burning them off to help me lose weight.

So I've had the Inspire HR a couple of day's now, and generally speaking found it to be accurate when it comes to tracking my sleep pattern, heartbeat and general steps taken, but the calories burned bit has got me a tad confused.

I'm not doing any heavy exercise, mostly walking some, lifting some weights and doing my daily housework, like hoovering, and over the past three days it's recorded:

* 2,683 steps
* 1.16 miles
* 12,199 calories

Surely the calories burned can't be that much? My food/drink record has a daily calorie budget of 2,125, there's no way I can could have burned off 2,182 calories on Saturday for example, just moving 1,640 steps and doing some weights and house work, right? I really need help understanding this. Thanks.

[JohnnyRow]

"over the past three days it's recorded:

* 2,683 steps
* 1.16 miles
* 12,199 calories

Surely the calories burned can't be that much?"

Do you mean 3 days total or average?

Are you accounting for Fitbit including BMR (basal metabolic rate) calories burned, which you are always burning just by being alive?  These usually are most than half of daily calorie burn.

See How does my Fitbit device calculate calories burned? 

[Richard_UK]

That was taken directly from the dashboard, so I guess that was the total. And no, I just took the numbers from the fitbit as is, never thought about how the body is naturally burning calories just staying alive, that does make the numbers seem more realistic.

[Natty0907]

I seem to be having the same problem. Mine told me that I had burned nearly 1000 calories when I didn't even have it on. I only bought it yesterday. Now that I have it on its telling me that I've burned nearly 1500 calories even though I haven't done very much today. The steps and heart rate seem normal as I know roughly what's my daily average from a previous fitbit but the calories burned is way too high.

[JohnnyRow]

@Natty0907  See my post above about BMR.  BMR calories are credited even when you are not wearing the tracker.