Calories burned inaccurate

[MattPaddock]

I recently bought my fitbit and have a very good knowledge of how fitness and calorie burnign generally works.  I have read many posts on here about the issues people are having with thier Calories burned being in excess of 3,000.  This is simply not possibly based on today's activities.  

Thus creating a very inaccurate accont of what I have burnt.  This is a rather important part of using my fitbit as I am very much looking to lose weight and mangaing my food well to achieve this!  A major flaw, that must be rectified, otherwise I will be forced to get a refund and find an alternative product!

Any help appreciated! 

Thanks,

Matt

Fitbit Newbie

[Julia_G]

Hi, @MattPaddock , as a first step, check carefully the information you entered in your profile settings and especially check your units -- if you have written your weight in pounds, for example, and the label says kgs, then you are going to get a lot of extra calorie credit! 

Also, have a look at your heartrate graphs.  Is it showing you an unreasonable amount of time in cardio or peak?  As you know, that will make the program calculate extra calories.

If you bought yours directly from Fitbit you have a 45 day return window, so you can take some time to see if you can get it working for you.  

Welcome to the Community, good luck, and keep us posted!

[Leebassman]

I'm having problems with accuracy of calories burned as well. I've always done the cardio portion of my workout on machines such as elliptical and treadmill. The amount of calories burned as shown or readouts of these machines is very consistent, but my surge is all over the place. I rechecked all my settings, and I wear the device 3 fingers above the writs bone. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @Leebassman , your Surge knows your gender, age, height and weight.  Does the machine have this full information?  The Surge is also giving you a calorie estimate partly based on your HR readings.  If the machines are not reading your heart rate, this would definitely explain the differences.  Your heart rate will vary from day to day even doing the same exercise.  When you exercise, do the readings you get from your Surge seem reasonable, based on how you feel and your age?

Unless the machine has all the info that the Surge has, I would bet on the Surge being more likely to be accurate.

[Leebassman]

Hi Julia, and thanks so much for your reply. I'm now on my second Surge device (from retailer) and fitbit , who is well aware of that fact, is offering to send a third; but to me that makes no sense. According to the people I've spoke with from customer service, the Surge does not take heart rate into consideration. From what I understand, some of the other fitbit devices that don't measure HR do give a reading for calories burned, so that would support that assumption. As far as the machines, the only reason I tend to think they're accurate is that they seem pretty consistent, regardless of the various machines. These machines do have HR monitors, but I don't know if that a factor in the measurement of calories burned. I welcome any further advice you or anyone else has to offer.