Can anyone explain the Fitbit One calories burned to me??

[amg35]

It's saying I already burned 826 calories today...believe me, I didn't!

how does this work? I just got it yesterday, I entered my weight and goal weight, picked the level I wanted (kind of hard).
I understand when it says I can eat 957 and if I eat over it tells me how many calories I need to burn, but why is it saying I already burned 826 this morning??

I do not understand technology.

 

[Tiramisu]

Those are the calories you burn just by being alive.

 

[amg35]

thanks.

Any other answers out there?

 

[worm761]

Nope. There are no other answers. That is how Fitbit works. It tells you how many calories you have burned all day. Not just exercising. Like mine tells me I burn 1 calorie per minute doing absolutely nothing. (I did the math to figure that out).

 

[amg35]

Nope. There are no other answers. That is how Fitbit works. It tells you how many calories you have burned all day. Not just exercising. Like mine tells me I burn 1 calorie per minute doing absolutely nothing. (I did the math to figure that out).

So you're saying I burned 826 calories by doing mostly nothing.

That makes no sense at all.

If that were a true calorie burn, I'd be thin as a rail based on what I eat.

I guess I'm just having trouble understanding:

Say I eat a 1250 calorie a day diet.
According to my fitbit just by being sedentary I burn 850, won't that mean I've only taken in 400 calories for that day?

that just seems so off to me.....

 

[RitaE]

I'm not sure what you are asking.

Everybody has what is called a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is the amount of energy your body uses just by being alive. It is largely determined by age and gender, and also effected by muscle mass. There are several calculators out on the internet which will compute it for you.

Fitbit estimates how many calories you will consume in a day based on the BMR and what you have told it you typically do (Sedentary, Moderate etc). Then as you start adding steps and activity during the day it will add or subtract from that number.

Most women will easily burn 1500 to 2100 calories in a day with no intentional exercise at all. So yes, if you are approaching lunchtime (1/2 a day) and it is showing calories burned of around 850, that is very likely.

If you are reportedly eating 1250calories in a day and not losing weight, the most likely cause is mis-estimating your calorie consumption. It is not that anybody thinks you are a liar, it is that accurately measuring calorie consumption is extremely difficult and nearly everybody under-reports and nearly every scientific study ever done shows that result.

 

[amg35]

I'm not sure what you are asking.

Everybody has what is called a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is the amount of energy your body uses just by being alive. It is largely determined by age and gender, and also effected by muscle mass. There are several calculators out on the internet which will compute it for you.

Fitbit estimates how many calories you will consume in a day based on the BMR and what you have told it you typically do (Sedentary, Moderate etc). Then as you start adding steps and activity during the day it will add or subtract from that number.

Most women will easily burn 1500 to 2100 calories in a day with no intentional exercise at all. So yes, if you are approaching lunchtime (1/2 a day) and it is showing calories burned of around 850, that is very likely.

If you are reportedly eating 1250calories in a day and not losing weight, the most likely cause is mis-estimating your calorie consumption. It is not that anybody thinks you are a liar, it is that accurately measuring calorie consumption is extremely difficult and nearly everybody under-reports and nearly every scientific study ever done shows that result.

I didn't say anyone called me a liar.

I'm fine with my weight loss thus far, I've just never counted calories that way. I only ever counted what I ate in calories and what I burned through exercise and the way fitbit counts is confusing to me.

I knew to burn 500 calories a day, so if my goal was to consume 1200 calories a day, I know I can eat 1700, burn 500 through exercise and be at 1200 calories eaten for the day. I'm just having some trouble fitting that calculation with the way fitbit calculates, but I'm sure i'll figure it out.

 

[gert]

I didn't say anyone called me a liar.

I'm fine with my weight loss thus far, I've just never counted calories that way. I only ever counted what I ate in calories and what I burned through exercise and the way fitbit counts is confusing to me.

I knew to burn 500 calories a day, so if my goal was to consume 1200 calories a day, I know I can eat 1700, burn 500 through exercise and be at 1200 calories eaten for the day. I'm just having some trouble fitting that calculation with the way fitbit calculates, but I'm sure i'll figure it out.

My fitbit right now says I've used 924 calories today. If I continue on my day, without doing any abnormal physical activity, by the time I go to sleep it'll be around 1400. Those are just the calories I burn on a typical, non-active day.

I have the fitbit ultra, it has an "activity" mode that is activated by holding down the button. When I'm doing with whatever activity I'm doing, I hold down the button to turn off the activity mode. If I'm doing a specific physical activity (like jogging), I turn on the activity mode and it will track my steps and calorie burn for just the time that I'm doing that activity. So I'll have 1600 calories burned for the day, but 200 for this 30 minutes of "activity" when I look at the fitbit website.

 

[worm761]

Also remember that Fitbit is not 100% accurate. Mine says that I have walked 4902 steps today. Burned 1115 calories. and been a distance of 1.92 miles. Very active for 23 minutes.
We get up at 4am and exercise. Today was a brisk walk. 1.65 miles in 31 minutes. I use a GPS based app to track that.

As for weight loss, you need to know your BMR. Base your calories off of that and then subtract 500 calories for a one pound a week loss.

 

[DLgal]

I didn't say anyone called me a liar.

I'm fine with my weight loss thus far, I've just never counted calories that way. I only ever counted what I ate in calories and what I burned through exercise and the way fitbit counts is confusing to me.

I knew to burn 500 calories a day, so if my goal was to consume 1200 calories a day, I know I can eat 1700, burn 500 through exercise and be at 1200 calories eaten for the day. I'm just having some trouble fitting that calculation with the way fitbit calculates, but I'm sure i'll figure it out.

Fitbit is just also counting that 1200. The 1200 is what is needed to just maintain all your body functions. You burn calories every minute that you are alive. Fitbit is telling you, probably, how many calories you've burned since midnight. Most sedentary people will burn about 60-100 calories per hour, depending on body composition, gender, age, etc. If you are moving around, doing just normal household stuff (cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shoppinv, etc.) you will easily burn 200 cal or more per hour.

You can't just count your "workout" calories.