Calories burned compared to workout machine

[MrsWalania]

I am confused on why the machines at the gym are calculating that I burned more calories than what my Fitbit zip says. I am super frustrated and annoyed. Is the Fitbit right or is the machines since they take in the consideration of the resistance? Because in the machines I plug in my weight and age and it calculates how many calories are burned. The machine will say I've burned over 150 calories but my Fitbit only says 50 calories... Why is there such a big difference?

[SteveH]

I think it depends on the type of machine. Don't forget that your zip doesn't know that you are using a gym machine - all it sees is the steps you take. If the exercise is largely stepping, such as a treadmill, then the zip will track it quite well but other machines (rowing, weights, cycling etc) produce a low step count and therefore your zip calculates a low calorie burn.

For these machines you will get a more accurate calorie burn if you manually enter the exercise:

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-do-I-log-or-record-an-activity/

You could even use the data from the gym machine for the manual entry if you feel the machine is still more accurate than your fitbit.

[SunsetRunner]

I am in the same boat, very confused!

Burning 350 calories on a step up machine but 80 on my fitbit, what do I go by??? 😞

[SteveH]

@SunsetRunner I think in this case the machine is more likely to be correct as your Zip will not know that you are climbing and will base its calories calculation on just the steps it sees. You'd get more accurate calories if you manually logged this activity.

[SunsetRunner]

I have tried to put this in for last night:

What calorie amount do I enter? The fitbit or machine? Still confused how it would give me a more accurate log? Sorry if I am not getting this!

[SteveH]

If you have the calories from the machine in the gym then enter those. When you manually log an activity it will overwrite the calories tracked by your fitbit during those times with those for the manual entry. So, you are  basically saying to your fitbit: forget the calories you calculated for me and use these instead.

[SunsetRunner]

Ok, so for example I would manually enter the step machine, rowing and the bike?

But the tredmil would be pretty accurate to the fitbit?

[SteveH]

That's right. If it's mainly steps then let fitbit do its thing. Other activities are best manually logged.