Calorie tracking is awful, way too high, I'm finding it unusable

[SunsetRunner]

If I go for a 40 minute leisurely walk, average heart rate of 122 bpm, it's telling me that I burned 570 calories; Which is ridiculous and not even close to possible.

When I go on the cross trainer it over-estimates by 100-200 calories consistently.

Every single figure for calories burned is consistently nonsense and completely divorced from reality 😂.

I have had other trackers and I have used many different calculators, they all spit out roughly the same figures for my walks or work outs. It's literally just fitbit that insists I'm moving mountains if I so much as shuffle a few metres.

It does this to the point where I have never been able to use this thing, in the year I have owned it, to actually track my calories burned. Which is as unacceptable as it is laughable imho, for a device whose only job is to track fitness.

I thought when I first got it there would be an update to address this, because the device was brand new at the time and I had pre-ordered it before release day. But it's still just as broken today as it was on day 1.

I've googled this many times and seen other people saying similar things for different devices, and I've never seen a resolution.

I saw a few posts a while back saying to factory reset everything and start over, which I have done, and it made no difference.

Does anybody else see this? Is there something I'm missing or not understanding? I don't expect miracles, I know it's a guess. But to be 300-400 calories above the reality is so useless it may as well not bother trying to tell me. It makes every goal and progression in the whole fitbit eco-system utterly meaningless.

I'm aware that the over-all calorie counter includes my BMR, which makes that figure as clear as mud with regards to my daily targets in my personal opinion. I just want to see a total calories burned in exercise without BMR. But I already know this isn't possible for some reason.

But I'm specifically talking about when I go on the exercise section of the app, and I look at a single exercise entry - not the overall calorie counter.

I thought maybe that figure for my walks includes calories it thinks I also burned as part of my BMR during that time. But even if I include that figure, it's still like 200-300 calories over what it should be at least.

If anybody is able to please point out something I'm missing or not understanding, or has any suggestions, I would be very grateful thanks 😅.

[JohnnyRow]

One possibility would be that your weight is entered wrong.  If you entered your weight too high, that makes it show higher calorie burn.

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for the suggestion, but my weight is entered correctly I'm afraid. I regularly update this figure, it was updated just this morning actually 😅.

[JohnnyRow]

The other factor is heart rate; if you are familiar with heart rate counting or have done that before, does yours seem reasonably accurate?

[SunsetRunner]

My heart rate does seem to be tracked reasonably accurately yes.

That is the main value I go off while I'm working out to maintain a certain intensity. And I have checked it in the past several times, because my old watch was not good at sensing my heart rate.

[JohnnyRow]

If your weight is correct and heart rate is reasonable, reconsider that calorie burn might be accurate; and re-examine your basis for saying calories are not reasonable.

[SunsetRunner]

I appreciate you're trying to help me and I am thankful for you efforts. I have looked at this over and over again throughout the last year. I've checked all the settings I can see for mistakes, and googled this repeatedly, installed every update, checked placement of the sensor, verified heart rates, changed straps... everything.

The calories burned figures it spits out are far beyond the word "unreasonable". They don't even have a little toe dipped in reality. They're such fanciful nonsense they should have been on Boris Johnson's list of bloody brexit boons 😂.

I'm not just speculating here I'm afraid, I'm not saying I feel like it's wrong. I'm a software developer, who has spent the last many years working on apps and websites specifically for the diet and the health and well-being sectors, for all sorts of different companies and dietitians in my time.

There is something wrong here, with mine at least.

I'm perfectly happy to grant that maybe something I'm unaware of specific to fitbit, or a presumption or mistake I have made; But it certainly isn't my maths.

When I track my calories burned and intake targets myself outside of fitbit, my weekly results consistently match my predictions.

If I check with any of the apps I have collaborated on, or ones I built outright, or I check with an online calculator, or I check with my old Fossil Sport WearOS watch; They all roughly agree, within about 60 calories of each other, that such a walk is somewhere between 130-190 calories. And they are all factoring in amount of effort put in, how long the walk was, how intense it was, what my weight is, etc.

But Fitbit dribbles down itself and declares proudly in a wall-eyed stupor that it must be 570. It does this with everything and always has. It has never ever given me a reasonable number since I got the **ahem** thing. But it is consistently unreasonable. The numbers don't vary much per-activity, they're just hugely inflated always.

We're talking about a slow paced leisurely 40 minute walk, while holding a conversation, so not out of breath or anything. That's what it takes to walk to my office and back, and I work full time. If I would burn nearly six hundred calories every time I did that in the last year; I should be punching Zeus himself in the ti*ts right now 😂.

To burn 600 calories in just 40 minutes, I would need to do something like moderate-high swimming non-stop. Or high intensity cardio like sprinting. Or towing a small country across the surface of the earth using nothing but my face.

This grossly exaggerated calories burned figure also has a knock on effect, which I think causes the problem to get worse.

I am trying to lose weight, my fitbit is set for a weight loss goal with a 1000 calorie deficit.

I know that my BMR is about 2500 right now. So my intake target after exercise should be about 1500.

Fitbit is saying my intake target is 2300 calories, which means it thinks my BMR is 3300.

I'm not a bloody polar explorer, having fist fights with bears to pass the time between breakfast and brunch. I sit on my **ahem** writing code in various heated rooms! If I would eat 2300 calories per day my weight would barely change. And if I would eat 3300 per day I'd be gaining around 0.7kg a week 😂!

Part of a BMR calculation factors in how much activity you do in general per day. Some people are more active than others, and have higher BMRs as a result.

So the impression I get, is that fitbit dramatically over-estimates how many calories I burn doing things. And then the average of those figures is used when calculating my BMR as how much activity I do in general.

So because it keeps saying I'm some kind of chiselled Adonis who could win an arm wrestle against a hydraulic press; My BMR on fitbit has just crept up and up and up.

I have learned to just ignore the fitbit almost entirely over the year and do the tracking myself. I use this watch as a way to see my heart rate while I'm exercising and to get notifications on my wrist. Because that's all it seems to be actually capable of doing.

I am rather annoyed at how bad it is though, I appreciate that the versa 3 isn't apple watch money, but it's not exactly cheap either. And of course I can't speak for the experience everybody else has with it. I'm sure it must be working well for others.

But from my perspective it's so far from fit-for-purpose; I may as well wear a bracelet made of dice, and whatever number it spits out when I shake it, is how many calories I just burned.

I know it may seem like I'm just complaining right now 😂, and I apologise for that, I just wanted to clarify a few things further. Because I do genuinely want the **ahem** thing to actually work, and any input is appreciated, that's why I'm here.

I never post on forums usually. I am just very frustrated with it is all. I didn't buy a fitness tracker, to then track my fitness manually like I was before.

I would be over-joyed if there were some setting I could change, or mistake discovered which I could correct, or an issue with my account. I'd rather feel dumb for 60 seconds and have a working fitness tracker. That would be better than feeling like I have paid 200 quid for a generous one-armed bandit on my wrist, that gives random pay-outs in "calories burned".

[SunsetRunner]

So last week I went for a swim. I swam 50 minutes worth of front crawl. This should be about 500-600 calories worth of burn.

Fitbit says it was 260, which is nonsense. But it will also tell me, that my 15 minute walk to the pool burned nearly 400 🤔.

Fitbit also thinks I swam 1.2km and I know I did 800m. I have told it the length of the pool, and the amount of lengths it detected was way off.

But really? Really though? 260 calories for what it thought was 1.2km of swimming?

I went in and deleted the incorrect swimming entry, because it doesn't let me edit it. I added a new one with corrected distance, for the same start time and duration.

I put 800 meters for the distance, and set 500 calories as the amount burned manually.

On the lengths page for the entry, it says "25m pool" at the top. It says "800 meters" for the distance as I entered.

And then, it has calculated that as "43 lengths" 😂. It can't even do a simple division correctly for gods sake!

Come on guys, seriously? This is pathetic. And to top it off, the original entry keeps being put back into my log! I've deleted it 4 times now!

There are pathological liars in the world who tell the truth more often than this thing does.

So in summary; I'm having to count my own laps in the pool. I'm having to calculate my own BMR and targets. I'm having to calculate and log my own calories burned. What exactly is the ****ing point of this tracker? It's a complete joke!

I even have to press the button to get it to tell me the time usually, so it's **** even as just a watch. I really expected better of this brand and it's eco-system considering it's position in the market place, and how long it has been around.

But to anyone reading this who is thinking of getting one; Do yourself a favour, get a Galaxy or an Apple watch, or a Garmin if you're a runner. God I wish I had.

[RichInArizona]

I got a Garmin. Much more realistic w r t calories burned.

[M.lane]

I just got an inspire 3, it says I burn over 2,000 calories a day... 😂 Not sure if there's a fix for it as I'm posting this march 2023.

[WalkerMom1887]

Have to agree this is still an issue. Just watched my friend complete a half marathon and my walking around the city burned more calories 😂. Not even close. The calories burned is useless. 

[Oldbear]

I met with a nutritionist and shared my Fitbit data with her.  She was amazed at how inaccurate & exaggerated the calories burned.  For example it re reported I had burned over 700 calories.  Her computer program indicated I may have burned 75 calories!  We tried to see if there was a setting to change & couldn't find anything. 

[Keto4life]

This would completely explain why even at a calorie deficit, I walk ( fast paced) about 30 miles a week AND I do YouTube workouts a couple times a week..... I've stopped losing weight. Well, I'm gaining and losing the same about 4 lb over and over again and that's all the further my progress is. Something is very wrong.

[Kgmill]

This is ridiculous. I have have a Inspire 3 and it says I’ve burned 3500 calories today. I didn’t do anything - I slept, worked (mostly sitting) and.. that was my day today. How the hell would I burn 3500 calories? And it shows that every day. No wonder my calories out is double of my calories in, I was wondering how that would be possible with me holding my weight. 

I don’t even care if the detection algorithm is broken, but give us an option to factor the values. If I’d be able to always log 0.5x of what is measured that would probably be somewhat accurate. 

[Poncke]

Agree with all that is said here. I bought a freagin Fitibit to seriously track my progress because I need to shed 70 facking kilos of fat. I told it my weight, my height, my age, and my goal (35k loss at first). I told fitbit I want to have a 1000 calories per day deficit. So I am on a Keto diet, eating about 2000 to 2200 calories per day. Fitbit says I have 1000 calories left to eat at 10pm, because it says I burned 4000 calories. On days when I have a 2km walk it has me on 5000 calories burned. So I could have eaten another 2000 calories according to the app. If I follow its advice, I am going to be as fat as a 200 liter drum of lard 2 months from now and probably end up dead. I paid 200 euro for this thing, and it cannot do one of the main things I bought it for. And recording micronutrients separately is also not possible, but that is for another day. 

[Poncke]

Oh and the step counter is also highly overestimating the number of steps. I get an alert telling me I have another 10 steps to walk in the hour. And as soon as I get up from the couch and take a step its celebrating me hitting my step goal. It almost doubles the number of steps my Samsung health app on my phone tells me.