calorie burn for activity logged different than mfp

[telergirl]

When I manually logged in an activity on my fitbit dashboard it claimed calories burned at 280, however mfp has estimated the same activity as 432 calories burned. Why is there such a huge difference and which to believe? And no I have not manually double logged this activity, I was just curious to see if both programs would match calculated calories burned.

[StephanieFitbit]

@telergirl Welcome to Fitbit Community! Make sure that you have the same profile settings on both accounts (age, gender, weight and height).

Also, MyFitnessPal has changed the way they handle the Fitbit adjustment. This change is intended to give users a more accurate representation of what they should eat. You can read more here: Total daily calorie partners. Let me know if you have another question.

[slysam]

Are you referring to your Fitbit Adjustment on MFP? Or are you referring the calorie burn value estimated if you look the activity up in MFP's database? If the calorie burn value in MFP's database--I think it is overly generous for the activities I compared. I could figure out how Fitbit was estimating the calorie burn by figuring our my BMR for an hour (Mifflin formula, there are different formulas) and by looking up the MET values (metabolic equivalent for a task) and multiplying my hourly BMR by the MET value for that activity. That put me within a couple calories of Fitbit's estimate, but much lower than MFP's estimate. I don't know what MFP bases the estimate on, but it is always high compared to my heart rate monitor as well. Fitbit bases it on METs adjusted for your stats. A lot of activities have MET values associated with them based on how much energy it takes to do the task from lab studies. Of course, you may work harder or not as hard as the estimate, but it should put you in the right general ball park. If you are referring to the Fitbit Adjustment on MFP, that isn't the calorie burn for a specific activity. That is just the difference between what MFP expected you to burn in the day so far and your fitbit burn.

[StephanieFitbit]

@slysam This is an excellent advice! I'm definitely going to refer every user with a similar inquiry to your detailed observation. Thanks!