Why aren't calories from exercises included in calories burned?

[mbarylski]

I'm not sure if this just started or not, but I just noticed that calories burned from exercise are not added to the total calories burned. Shouldn't exercise calories add to the total calories burned?

[JohnnyRow]

They are included.  You would have to convince why you think they are not.

[mbarylski]

If I delete an exercise, the calories burned total remains the same. If I manually add an exercise the calories burned barely changes. I just added an exercise for 250 calories and the total calories burned only increased by 80. And I'm not even sure the increase was related to the new exercise. It was likely just a delayed sync with the watch since deleting the same exercise didn't change the calories total at all.

So, why do you think they're included?

[JohnnyRow]

Before you manually add an exercise, Fitbit already includes the calories burned during that time based on your heart rate.  Then when you manually log an exercise session, calories are determined from whatever parameters you enter, such as speed or intensity, and override the calories fitbit had already measured during that time.  In the case you mentioned, Fitbit would have already calculated you burned 170 calories; then the way logged it overrode that 170 and came to 250 instead of 170, 80 more calories.  If you then delete that manually logged workout, the calories revert back to the data Fitbit actually measured.

So the calories are already included before you log the workout; the only difference is you might not have a labelled exercise session per se, even though you get credit for the steps and calories burned.

That is one of the reasons it is usually better to use the Exercise App, rather than manually logging a workout, to use the data that fitbit actually recorded.  Manually logging a workout is best just for times when you were not wearing the tracker.

[mbarylski]

That seems reasonable. I guess what isn't working then is that the calories aren't reverting back when an exercise is deleted. Not sure why that isn't working.

[JohnnyRow]

I just tried logging an activity, then deleting it, and stats did not revert back, just as you said.  I am almost positive I have done that before and seen the numbers revert back to original, so I don't know if Fitbit has intentionally changed this, it's just a temporary glitch, or a bug that got introduced.  If I get any more info on that, I will let you know.

But I think everything else I said above is still true.