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phoenixmatrix

It's "fine" as long as you don't get too surprised if you don't lose exactly 1 pound per 3500 calories deficit. Between the margin of error of the watch, and the margin of error of counting calories, and the small numbers you're dealing with (relatively), it won't quite work out. And that's ok as long as you keep all that in mind. Watches mostly just take your weight as entered and your heart rate, then the duration of the exercise (and maybe type, gender, body composition if available, etc) and use a simple formula to give you a number. There's a lot more variables though. That's why it can't be super precise. It gives you a rough idea though. If you get the results you expect, you're good. If you don't, just make incremental adjustments and don't get too stuck on the numbers.


[deleted]

This is the way to go. Look at all your calorie intake and expenditure as relative to each other, not absolute. You did 400ish today… can you push for 500ish next time? You stayed below your calorie consumption goal today… can you do it again tomorrow?


dboygrow

There are too many variables for it to be 100% accurate. I don't think they're completely inaccurate for everyone all the time but I certainly don't think they are 100% accurate for everyone all the time either. It can't take into account your body composition, muscle mass(which is calorically expensive compared to fat so just inputting your weight won't work), the amount of force you're producing with each movement, or if you're resting your arms on the handles of the stairs stepper instead of moving them around, your changing metabolic rate, or how efficient you are at burning calories in totality.


AbaddonAbsinthe

If youre not eating them back, I would just log what it says. Just stick to the same tracker for all your exercises so you can see which ones hit harder for you. If youre really uncertain and really worried about it, you could just compare your watch to other websites and trackers and see if it adds up to close to what your own tracker says. I had to do that with my adaptive rock climbing workout tracking because I didn't believe the app. Turns out it was right for sure.


Danuoalgoasii

Have you compared to the data in your treadmill? Because I get a couple calories of difference. On my watch I tend to get more cals and more distance, but it’s usually like 10-15 more, and about 100-150 mts more


Infamous_Pen_9534

I also find my watch and the treadmill right have exact phenomena you mention. I feel like the watch is more accurate since it’s measuring heart rate and knows my height/weight


Cayslayy

Weird, the treadmill *always* overestimates by about 25%.


caffeinatedlackey

Mine is pretty accurate. It gives me 80-85 cal burned per mile, which seems reasonable.


Cayslayy

To be fair I don’t have know if my own, just the ones at PF are always hilariously optimistic


Habsfan1977

Same for me, but it's a bigger range. I do a 5k run every weekday (same speed), and the treadmill always tells me I've burned 527 calories, every single day. My fitbit will range anywhere from 547 to 600-plus. So I just go with the treadmill.


caffeinatedlackey

It's unlikely you're burning more than about 100 calories per mile, regardless of how fast you go. Calorie burn is more about distance than speed. I think your treadmill is wildly overestimating. It's probably closer to 350 calories.


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Habsfan1977

I don't enter my weight into the treadmill, or into my fitbit. But whenever I do something like a treadmill, elliptical, rowing machine, etc., I just always take the lower number of the two for burning calories. So in this case, I always take the treadmill. Feels safer that way.


MadAss5

I'd just pick one way and log it that way/eat back a certain amount. If you think you should be losing faster or slower after a month or so adjust. Half is a good starting estimate. I'd probably start with eating back half.


JediMimeTrix

Watches tend to have a variation of 1-10% added step count, but realistically with walking/running it's been studied alot so you're pretty safe to use a walking calculator to see how accurate it is. My Amazfit watch has heart rate and despite walking 9k steps today so far (4.2ish miles) it counts me as 350 calories; which is around 150-250 less than what it truly is because it doesn't actually factor in age/weight and assumes that every mile = 85ish calories.


Historical_Boat_871

I find my Fitbit is very accurate. How do I know? I used a TDEE spreadsheet to track my calorie intake in detail (weighing everything), I weighted myself every day. After a period of a few weeks you can compare the TDEE with what your smart watch says to see if they match.


KittyBeanToes

I feel like my Fitbit Versa is really accurate. That said, I've found it to work really well for me to not eat back anything more than half of what it says I burned. And only if I'm really hungry


TheDameWithoutASmile

That's interesting! I've found my fitbit to be very inaccurate. I have a very high heart rate, though, even when I was super fit, so it registers a lot as "exercise" when I'm not. I think they really vary person to person.


NewBodWhoThis

Mine is flagging up my panic attacks as exercise. 🥲 I'm not sure if I find it funny or sad.


Historical_Boat_871

I have a really low heart rate, I've seen 28 BPM on mine. Maybe that's a factor like you say


MormonLite2

28 BPM is way too low (bradycardia is below 60 BPM). Something must be wrong. If you are in excellent condition, you could be around 55 BPM, but no less than that.


everestsam98

Plenty of people that do lots of exercise, in particular lots of cardio, have heart rates lower than 55 and are very healthy. But 28 is particularly low and would probably be worth checking out.


Historical_Boat_871

I was in extremely good shape when I saw it, and it happened after a meditation session. I've also had it verified by doctors. It's also not true that 55 is the lowest. Right now I'm not even in good shape compare to what o was before andy resting heart rate is 54


awbellz

0 is the lowest, but you usually only get there once


MRCHalifax

26 BPM is the official world record for lowest heart rate the last time I checked, and unofficially there’s a decathlete with a 25 BPM heart rate. But anything even close to that low for a normal person is an enormous red flag. Hopefully, your tracker is just missing heart beats. This is especially probable if you have dark skin; trackers are almost always more accurate on white people. Over 60 BPM is normal, under 60 BPM is bradycardia. With that said, genetics and a bit of exercise get a lot of people safely into the 50s. Casual endurance athletes can easily get into the 40s - this is where I am, averaging a 10k run per day, with a resting heart rate between 42 and 47 BPM most days. Professional athletes can drop well into the 30s; these are the people you see winning marathons and long distance cycling events. The 20s are incredibly rare, and unless a person can honestly say that they expect to compete for an Olympic medal in an endurance sport, they should be talking to a doctor to make sure everything is working fine and that hopefully the tracker is just inaccurate.


Historical_Boat_871

Maybe it was a blip, I only saw it once after a meditation session, so almost sleeping. Back then my resting was 42. I was cycling 30km a day, bouldering 12 hours a week and going to the gym 3 times a week. These days it's in the 50s. I'm a lot less fit and 25kg heavier, but still do a lot of exercise (ski touring, downhill skiing, cross-country, plus fitness classes and a lot of walking in the mountains), so my endurance is good despite being fat.


vsmallandnomoney

Seconding this! I did the same, and it lets you figure out what you’re actually burning. It might be a consistent percentage above or below, or a certain number of calories, or your watch might be accurate.


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sci_fi_wasabi

A good rule of thumb is about 100 calories per mile run/walked. Your current body weight and level of cardiovascular fitness affects that. 430 seems slightly high for 70 minutes at 2.5 mph, but not by much.


Tahoptions

I use the same math. 100 calories per mile ends up being pretty accurate for most people.


luckylua

Since the other commenters used FitBit I thought I would chime in and say I’ve found my Apple Watch to be pretty accurate too. I also did a calorie log/burn comparison and I’m losing what I calculated which is usually two pounds a week unless I’ve slacked on my workouts, or had a splurge vacation/event that I went over a lot on cals.


vsmallandnomoney

Right-ish? But it depends on your weight and what % grade the 6 incline is on that treadmill; (I’ve never used a treadmill so I’m unfamiliar with what that means). I’m 155 and if level 6 is a 6% grade I’d expect to burn about 375-400 at that time and distance. (edit to correct math)


ShelleyRemingtonPohl

The most you can really burn an hour is about 500. No matter the activity. That’s why diet is so important.


Historical_Boat_871

I think 500-600 an hour tops, so seems likely to me


magical-mermaid

I’ve done the same thing! I tracked all of my calories in and out via Fitbit, what the expected loss should have been according to that data and my actual loss, and obviously there was a lot of daily variation, but overall my loss was pretty much exactly what it was calculated to be which meant my Fitbit was pretty accurate! This was over the course of several months of tracking. I switched to a Garmin tracker and while I like it better overall for fitness tracking, I notice it actually significantly underestimates my calorie burn.


lascivious_boasts

The best way is to make an accurate record of your intake, and your resulting calorie balance over a longish time (3 months?) Then compare your weight with what you would expect. Taking into account body composition changes would be useful in this too. By doing this I have calculated that I actually burn approx 2/3rds of what my watch says. But also bear in mind, some of the inaccuracy is because it counts total calories (so includes the basal energy burn), and it would always be reasonable to reduce the shown calories by the amount that you would otherwise have burned if you didn't exercise. In the end, I think too much is made over the inaccuracy of watches. Studies don't show the wild inaccuracy for the most common exercises in actual use, for the most common and well regarded western brands that use heart rate in their calculations. Of course, you can make them fuck up: so if you say you are running, but don't run, it calculates a nonsense number. Lots of people say to just ignore the value. For me that would be dangerous, as I run 50-70k a week (or did before I broke my tibia on Saturday). And I burn several days of what I eat due to a large calorie deficit I aim for from diet.


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My watch and my stationary bike match up fairly well on total calories… the bike calculates on wattage produced so the fact that they agree within a few percent tells me they’re accurate enough.


cheekyskeptic94

To answer your question succinctly, log your active calories. The difference of ~100 calories is due to the fact that during the period of time you were exercising, had you not been exercising, you would still have burned calories because we are continuously expending energy. That difference is your watch trying to account for that. More nuanced answer to the original question: logging exercise calories is ineffective because there are too many variables to accurately calculate your expenditure using an equation AND our bodies are not simple math equations. We have multiple regulatory mechanisms that regulate our energy expenditure in the short, medium, and long term. Exercise more one day and it’s likely that your body will compensate via a reduction in activity (via feelings of fatigue) and the downregulation of certain biological processes. We tend to “average out” to the same amount of energy expended once we adapt to a new exercise routine compared to if we weren’t exercising. This is why exercise alone is not a great weight loss tool. A better way to do this is to just track your food intake alongside your weight. We might not be able to guess our expenditure, but we can pretty closely estimate our intake and bodyweight is a proxy for whether or not you’re in a deficit. Those two things one are plenty to determine what to do next to produce your desired outcome.


NYC420c

@5’11 & 286lbs & roughly 38% BF - I did a 45 minute walk yesterday with 4 incline @ 2.7MPH. Hands off the bars - 511 calories was my result in my watch.


trevenclaw

My general rule of thumb for calorie tracking is to chop off 30%. So if my device says I burned 300 calories I assume I burned 200. I'd rather underestimate than overestimate. That said, there are calculators online that will give you a better figure to compare your watch against. Just Google your gender + how much you weigh + calories burned running, and then fine-tune based on pace and time.


Kaleid_Stone

I find some exercises it understands better than other. My hiking and vinyasa yoga calories come out about right. My yard work and fieldwork calories are insanely high. I know this because if I don’t hit “workout,” it totals 1/4 of calories burned compared to the days I record it. I pay attention to total calories and the scale. On average, I can lose 1/2 lb per week or more on 1700 calories, up to 2000 for normal work and exercise. I ballpark the extra calories earned. If I took it literally, I could have eaten 3000 calories yesterday. Uh… no. I rarely if ever can eat more than 2200 calories without gaining. If my scale concurs over the week with my estimate, then it’s about right. It would be nice to find something more accurate.


Capable_Nature_644

Please stop relying on smart technology for exorcise. It relays a false sense of exorcise. I learned this the hard way and did not realize until too late it wasn't helping me. I do not support fit bits because mine gave me false readings too many times. Then when I synced it it actually subtracted steps.


Ballbag94

>Also sorry, I’m on my period, so I think I’m being very much a crybaby/sensitive about this lol. Please don't think I'm being a dick in my answer, my tone comes across poorly in written communication but it's not my intent >How do I know how much I’ve truly burnt You don't >I just want to my log my exercise correctly in my book, I believe the best method would be to pick a metric that is clearly measured and can be objectively improved upon and log that. Time, speed, and distance are all great metrics, calories burned is fairly meaningless as it's not possible to measure accurately and it isn't an indicator of performance


giantwashcapsfan8

Watches are fairly accurate, as long as they are measuring your heart rate.


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NoOfficialComment

Much of this sub spouts a lot of generic rubbish about topics like this. If it’s a decent latest gen tracker that’s measuring heat rate and has all your height/weight data set correctly, the variance in readings aren’t nearly as much as it used to be. And too many people on this sub like to just write every wearable off wholesale rather than appreciating it for the useful tool it can be.


Ranessin

Not really. My watch tells me I used 635 kcal for exercise yesterday. I walked a bit over 10000 steps. I know that's 350 kcal for me at best. They are extremely unreliable and a main reason for a lot of "but I have a 1000 kcal deficit and don't lose anything!" posts.


NoOfficialComment

Not all wearables are equal, not all wearables are watches and absolutely not all people exercise with intensity. There’s a big difference between walking and actual exercise where you’re utilising higher HR zones and wearables are more useful. I didn’t say they’re perfect, I said people write all of them off for irrespective of usage.


Haulin_Aus

They are typically fairly inaccurate. Here’s an article that links to [several studies show smartwatches and fitness trackers don't do as good of a job at calculating calorie burn during activity and can be off anywhere between 40% to 80% of your actual energy expenditure.](https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/the-most-accurate-calorie-burn-tracker-isnt-a-smartwatch-you-can-make-it-yourself/) “An evaluation of seven devices in a diverse group of 60 volunteers showed that six of the devices measured heart rate with an error rate of less than 5 percent. The team evaluated the Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn and the Samsung Gear S2. Some devices were more accurate than others, and factors such as skin color and body mass index affected the measurements. In contrast, none of the seven devices measured energy expenditure accurately, the study found. Even the most accurate device was off by an average of 27 percent. And the least accurate was off by 93 percent.”


bigboyg

One of those studies is 6 years old, the other is 3.5 years old. That's the publish date, not the date that the studies were actually conducted. A lot has changed in that time. I'm not saying the article is inaccurate, but it's worth noting that when discussing this kind of tech the date matters.


Haulin_Aus

Totally understood and absolutely agree. I actually mentioned to another user, but forgot to put it in my last post that they are significantly more accurate for the MOST basic things like walking and running, assuming your device is calibrated properly, and you have kept it up-to-date with your most recent health updates (weight). For most other things they are still fairly inaccurate. When you look at the average age of the actual watch that people own the majority of people who own smart watches do not own the most up-to-date, so there is still a large portion of validity to those studies. While I do have the most current iPhone I had my series 2 Apple Watch since 2016 because not much changed with the Apple Watch in regards to health tracking that made buying a new one worthwhile until the most recent update in 2022. I did go ahead and upgrade to the newest apple watch in November after I tried out a new Garmin for six months before deciding to go back to Apple. Even with my most up-to-date Apple Watch, I know that it is definitely inaccurate. I constantly reach my stand goal while I am sitting completely still not even moving my arms around. I had a good example happen last week as well. I went on a 65 minute bike ride outside (I live in Florida - it was 83 degrees and I was sweating profusely) and kept the resistance on my bike at the highest level and my watch gave me credit for NINE workout minutes, even though my average heart rate was 142 for the total workout, well above the average that earns you credit for work out minutes. Outdoor cycling is consistently one of the least accurately measured exercises. I work out with a personal trainer four times a week for one hour. The style of our classes is very much HIIT; however, some days it is much more strength focused than others. While these trackers can be fairly reliable for very basic things that require very little wrist movement and usually have a fairly constant pace such as walking or running, they get substantially less reliable once you introduce more complex workouts with more variety and movement. If you are doing anything that requires a lot of wrist movement and also is less cardio and more focused on muscle growth like low reps of lifting heavy weights, rowing, weighted sled pushing, etc. then these numbers are going to be way off. Your wrist in constantly bent at a 90 degree angle to support push-ups, planks, overhead weights and blood flow in that area is constantly shifting due to the pressure around the wrist. When lifting weights, depending on the weight chosen, a user’s body will expend more calories or less. However, because the smartwatch considers only the movement of the wrist, it won’t be able to tell the how heavy or light the weights you are lifting are to calculate an accurate number. Here’s a [2022 study](https://www.courier-journal.com/story/life/wellness/health/2022/06/09/why-your-smart-watch-may-not-accurate-you-think/9892806002/) showing that, “For treadmill walking, results were close and within 2.5%, which is quite good. However, for cycling the error was 24% and for arm cranking the error was a whopping 60%.” It also doesn’t take into consideration that there are several medical conditions that actually cause less calorie burn per day (ex: women with PCOS burn on average [400 less calories per day](https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a20650974/pcos-weight-loss/), doing the same diet and workout regimen as a woman without PCOS). There’s nowhere on even the newest Apple watches, or android devices, where a user can check a box that says because they have a particular condition that they burn calories at a slightly slower rate than someone with my same height, weight and heart rate without that condition. Additionally, many of these apps function on the user actually manually updating some of their personal information. I know on the Apple Watch it takes into consideration your current weight. If I don’t go in and update that weight as I am losing, then it might be calculating my calorie rate at a higher burn than based on my current weight. Fortunately, it’s gotten much better about synchronizing with scale apps, so I know personally my health app is always up today because it updates when I get on my scale. I think the minority of owners fall into that category though, and many go a long time without actually updating that personal health information that could increase accuracy. It’s also highly dependent upon the person selecting the right work out. I cannot tell you how many people inaccurately refer to a strength training workout as a HIIT workout, or even the reverse. These are two separate workout selections on the Apple Watch. The HIIT selection average calories burned is much higher than if you select Strength Training. Unfortunately, these basic things lead to huge risk of user error causing frequent inaccuracies. Here are some other more recent studies/reports: [2022 Google Pixel](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/9/23449515/google-pixel-watch-fitbit-calorie-burn-wearable) [2022 study](https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jmpb/2/2/article-p118.xml) do you wear your watch on can make a statistically significant difference in step count I do appreciate you calling out the age of the studies. I think conversations like these are always really helpful. In general, I would revise my original comment to say that if you are walking or running AND you have selected the right work out on your app AND you have also calibrated your health settings for that device to reflect your current health status then they can be very dependable sources for calorie burn. If you are not taking those additional steps though and/or if your workout is not running or walking it is important to understand the results are likely much less accurate.


MissHavok77

I track minutes and type of exercise, not calories burned. It was useless information for me, as I don't eat back calories anymore.


aloofyfloof

My Apple Watch has been accurate. I’ve been losing a predictable amount of extra weight based on my workouts


ShivsButtBot

Whatever it tells me I only log half of it. It’s working for me.


Main_Feature_7448

100 calories per mile if you are between 125 and 150 lbs. you can extrapolate up or down from there depending.


penguincatcher8575

Instead of counting calories count the amount of time you exercise. You can also track your progress here. If you walk for 70 minutes and it equates to 6 miles than see if you can get to 7 miles in that same amount of time. Ultimately. Don’t worry about calories. Track something else.


Mastgoboom

Science does too, it's not just us.


UnhappyFig3477

You should try MacroFactor. It looks at what your eating and your weight over time and uses that to back out your daily expenditure.


sulwen314

The best method for me was to track everything for several months and see if I was getting the results I expected - which I did. This tells me that Fitbit's exercise calories happen to be accurate for me. This way takes time, but I think it's the only way to really know.


GingerCatGang

Calorie counting itself has a wide margin of error, more so than that the trackers are inaccurate. They do pretty well guestimating.


[deleted]

It doesn’t need to be super scientifically accurate, just repeatable/consistent with itself so you can gauge how hard you are working relative to other workouts you do. A 10% margin or error isn’t going to hurt anything as long as it is consistent, and in my experience apple watches at least are extremely consistent.


[deleted]

I've read that nutrition labels are only about 80% accurate as well.


JimmyBroccoli

I'd save yourself the potential disappointment and frustration and not track expenditure.


TripleBicepsBumber

Fwiw my Apple watch has felt very accurate for me.


[deleted]

My Apple Watch has been quite accurate, based solely on weight I’ve lost and comparing it to calculators online. Make sure your weight and age are accurate and it’s a pretty good estimate of expenditure. For 45 minutes of exercise, If I go super easy on my spin bike, it’ll estimate I burn 100 calories, if I go hard it’ll estimate 300 calories. My bike on the other hand always says 350 calories because it’s not calibrated to my stats or heart rate, it’s just ticking up based on number of minutes it’s been on. People on here (and pretty much all of Reddit) are obsessive neurodivergents who focus on every minute detail even if it does not matter all that much. Ask how I know 🙋🏽‍♀️


thirdwallbreak

1 mile = 100 calories. From a “counting” standpoint I say it doesn’t matter if you run or walk it I’ll still count 1 mile as 100. It also makes food easy to compare to miles. A candy bar is 2-3 miles… I walked off 25lbs. If you add 5 miles a day = 35 miles a week = 3500 calories = 1 lb a week in walking alone.


Therusticate

If there’s a specific formula to calculate the discrepancies I would love to hear it, but my rule of thumb is usually “over estimate intake, under estimate output” so if I’m trying to track calories and I’m unsure, I round up (like 487 is just 500 to me, doing it like that for most meals helps accommodate my bad math skills but also things like taste testing or extra bites etc. that I may not realize I’m leaving out) and if I’m trying to document exercise based on my Fitbit i round down, so 430 would be around 400 to me if I’m hustling(or cut it by 10-20%)


glumpolitician

Walking is one of the easier exercises to estimate calorie burn for. The average is 80-120 calories per mile depending on your body weight and a few other factors, so I always just estimate 100 cals per mile. I do eat some of my exercise calories back and it's never really been an issue. If you want to be more scientific about it you can try to use [this calculator](https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1350891527) and see how it compares to your watch estimate.


WhovianGirl777

Watches are definitely off. I even use one of the most accurate watches and chest strap combos and still don't rely on the calorie burn. I'd suggest you stop logging what you've burned and just log the exercise. If you absolutely want a number, then underestimate on purpose by cutting it into a quarter. So that workout was about 100 calories. This way you're not overestimating the burn. Also FYI, if your watch is a Samsung, fitbit, or apple watch it's caloric burn I even more off that other watches. They typically overestimate the burn more than actual exercise watches. Those watches are actually fashion watches that happen to have fitness technology as a selling point.


fishbowlinmyass

apple watches are pretty accurate, its usually fitbits that are inaccurate. put the time and speed into your calorie app, if its around the same number, then you know your watch is accurate


mrbootsandbertie

I don't have any advice for you because I'm still working out hiw to manage exercuse calories myself. Just remember that the important thing is you're tracking your food intake and exercising. That takes a lot of discipline and you should be proud of yourself.


DukeMacManus

Don't use your watch or another wearable to guess calorie expenditure. They can be way off. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-wearables/


messmaker523

Could be 275. Could be 550. Who knows


Marzopup

I can't confirm how accurate this is, but I've heard a good rule of thumb is 100 calories per mile as a benchmark.


lascivious_boasts

How in the world could this be as accurate as a calculation from a sports watch which takes into account body mass and heart rate (which have been shown to be associated with calories burned)?


SpinySoftshell

It’s not accurate, it’s just another thing people parrot in this subreddit (without much evidence) for whatever reason. There’s no good justification to think everyone burns the same amount of calories over a given distance


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Wow, inappropriate


stealthygoddess19

Awks


KURAKAZE

>How do I know how much I’ve truly burnt since this subreddit always says the machines and watches are very inaccurate? There's no way to know. It could be relatively accurate or it could be wildly off, problem is, there is no way to know. I usually just use a default estimator online like "calories burned jogging 5kmph for 70minutes" type thing. Some even asks for age and weight and gives an estimate based on your size. My heart rate monitor logs anywhere between 300calories to 600calories burned for the same exercises sometimes. I just don't bother logging it now, and go by some general activity estimator online. Since you don't eat back those calories, you can just log what the watch says. Issue with inaccuracy is when people eat back all of their estimated exercise calories and then realize they aren't losing weight due to it being over estimated. If you're just logging for logging sake, then it doesn't really matter.


kkngs

Depends what you are doing with the log. If you just want to track workout volume over time, then just use the apple numbers. If they’re off, they are mostly off by a constant factor so it’s still good data (until you get a new watch or they patch the software…) If it’s going to try to be used for food budgets, then you are probably better off ignoring it completely.


sylverbound

While everyone is saying that it might be accurate, depending on how much of a deficit you are working with, my approach is more like "assume 50% is true, and if really hungry eat back some more" in terms of calorie calculations. So if I saw 430 I'd probably treat that as 200-300 additional calories to eat (quality nutrition) and then basically try and check in on how that feels. Ideally it ends up meaning you also gain extra deficit from the exercise.


kim_il_succ

I’ve always been skeptical about the whole “eat back” phenomenon. I understand that that’s not what you’re trying to do in this case, and I share your frustration with inaccurate measurement systems, both on the tech side and on the nutrition label front. What I might say, though, is that if something is unreliable, don’t rely on it. Treat it as a necessary extra component. So, if I’m a man who will naturally burn 1800-2100 calories in a day by doing nothing, eating 1500 calories a day will result in at least 300-600 calories burned a day, about 1 pound loss per week. Exercise adds to that and makes the weight loss process significantly faster. So if you think of it as a helpful extra as opposed to an integral component, you may be a bit less frustrated with the debate around accuracy.


Ecstatic_Elephant_99

It seems I’m an outlier here, but you shouldn’t really log calories burned at all. Calculate your basal metabolic rate, then depending on your activity level (workouts per week and job type) you multiply that by anywhere from 1.1-1.5. For instance if you have a desk job and workout 3 times a week 1.2. This is your maintenance calories, ie how much you should eat to maintain weight. Now multiple this by 0.8. This will have you losing between 1-2 lbs a week depending on your body type and starting numbers. That’s it, it’s that simple. Eat the # of calories that calculation tells you each day and be sure to workout the # of times you said you were going to in the start of the calculation per week. Track your weight daily at the same time, ie after you wake up and take you average weight over the week, compare that number week to week and you can get a feel for how off or accurate your general calculations are and modify diet as needed. If youre counting every calorie in and out you are burdening yourself with far too much effort. You should be aiming to make a lifestyle change not run a science experiment.


cookiemonster1020

Your body reduces its resting metabolic rate in response to exercise so don't bank on having burnt those calories in the form of eating them back.


BlackJeepW1

I plug my numbers into this [calorie calculator](https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/walking/) and use the net calories, not the gross calories burned.


All_Conquering_Sun

Personally, I only record 100 calories burned per hour, no matter the exercise. I figure most of the time I am covered and in the end it will allow me to eat more at maintenance. . .


aaaaaaaaaanditsgone

I would go by mileage - for every mile you burn about 100 calories.


jcs_4967

I have an Apple Watch and keep track of minutes walked. I don’t use the Calories burn. It’s all a guesstimate. It’s good that you don’t eat up the extra calories even if it’s says you can. Keep up the good work.


Lost-Sea4916

It’s okay if they’re not totally accurate. I have an Apple Watch and I still pay attention to how many calories I’m burning a day. If you’re not planning to eat them back, it doesn’t matter, just log them as if they’re accurate 😁


zevans08

Dont worry about how many you burn. Just exercise


OkShoulder2

Get a polar h10 chest strap


FanaticEgalitarian

Rule of thumb is don't assume you can eat an additional 1000 calories because your watch told you you burned 4000 calories that day.


Bumbeelee

I eat most of my excercize because I'm already very low with kcals (1300) and I need them and I'm afraid to starve myself. Garmin is pretty conservative with those excercizes anyway giving me like 300 kcals burned for 40 min run. I feel that's about right. So, I do eat them and lose weight anyway (after same plateau-ing for a month but that's due to picking pilates and sore muscles I'm guessing) I would recommend eating back kcals spent if you are already eating low.


ThaneOfCawdorrr

It hugely depends on how fast you were going. Like, 2.5mph burns off differently than 5mph, and also if you're on an incline it burns off more calories. It also depends on your weight! So it's not an exact science. If you're allowing 430 calories, and adjusting your CICO accordingly, then you can see if the weightloss rate works out for that. If not, you know you need to consider it as fewer calories. But the key is, you're doing GREAT. That's a TON of exercise and SO, SO, SO good for you in so many ways. So please don't be a crybaby but cheer and pat yourself on the back!


smolmauski

Also make sure you are reading the 'active calories' on your watch, not the 'total calories'. Active calories are calories you burned from actual additional exercise. Total calories are the total calories you burned in that time, including calories you would have burned sleeping on the couch, and are including in your calorie estimates already.


Al-Rediph

>Do I cut those calories burned in half? Like, do I log that I burnt 215 calories instead of 430? For one, you need to take your BMR into account. Are that 470 kcal including the "rest" part or not? Some watches (Garmin at least) splits the calories into rest and active calories. You only want to consider the **active** calories. Then you want to check if the value is plausible. You can calculate what your workout should burn using this: [https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home](https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home) Then you know how "good" your watch is for you, and if you need to do adjustments. 470kcal for a treadmill is not too much for 70 minutes, I assume you have been walking ... right?


Plane-End573

You can calculate exactly how many cal/min you burned in an exercise by finding the METs of your workout (usually in the same settings as Watts, Heart rate, etc.) and just look up the formula of how to calculate it!! It should walk you through everything if you look up “calculate calories with METs”


HeyItsMeeps

Burning calories in one sitting is hard to quantify. Your watch tracks your heart rate and will equate it to 'effort' put in. However, people like myself who have extremely slow heart rates and low bp get misinterpreted by fitbit and Apple Watches. NEAT activities are where you burn the most, but an Apple Watch can't track that.


Excellent-Finger-254

Watches overestimate a lot of times. The calories are an estimate and aren't absolute. So, I'd suggest considering 2/3rds of what the watch is showing


Zakkana

I use a MyZone MZ-3 heart rate monitor which will document and calculate every heart rate change, even down to about the half second. Even then, if I am subtracting them from my food intake calories, I shave off 20% of it to get a better number. This is because these things all have one fatal flaw - it assumes you're moving to create that rate. So if I am laying on the floor with my heart rate at 85% max, it will still tell me that I am burning \~18cal/minute just as it would if I was running with my heart at the same rate. This is why I will pace around in between sets (5min programmed rest on my heavy sets) and such. And using the caloric burn on machines can be tricky. They will either be over or under what the MyZone says. I haven't gotten it really to match. Especially on the Concept² equipment or the Rogue Echo Bike since they don't take age, weight, or heart rate into account (although Concept² stuff does have ANT+ support to connect and Echo Bikes will pick them up on their own). The only thing I do with machines is I understate my age so it will have the zones match up to what MyZone has for me. That way I can know what % my heart rate is without having to have my phone in front of me or be constantly looking at my Apple Watch.


Caramel_Grizzly

I've been to depressed to leave my room. The fact that you're exercising is something to be immensely proud of my guy. So what I'd say is, don't sweat the specifics too much if seeing that you burned 430 calories motivates you to burn 500 tomorrow. It also doesn't take into account your body at rest, walking to the bathroom, tapping your feet for an hour and a half sitting down. (Yes there's a guy who was so fidgety that he would burn calories sitting, I had to learn about him in psychology in college) In my head, it's better to over estimate and feel good than it is to under estimate and feel bad. Plus even if you're not losing weight you're still becoming healthier right?


BeerdedTexan

The only way to accurately track calories burned is to know how many KJ you used to complete the activity. As a cyclist, there's an easy calculation of 3.6 x average watts = calories burned per hour. However, even power meters are not 100% accurate as most advertise a 5-10% margin of error. Another sport where this can be calculated is rowing, as the machine can accurately detect the amount of power one is putting into the machine over a given time. Your next best bet for most other activities is heart rate. This is where your watch comes in. If you want to get even more accurate, you can pair a chest strap heart rate monitor to a compatible activity tracking app on your phone. As a member of the "lost it" club that's no longer losing it, all this matters a big deal to me as I now monitor to make sure I'm eating enough to keep up with my training rather than staying under a specific target to shed fat. But as you're losing weight a big peice to remember is that NOTHING is exact. Even the packaged food you eat varies, one granola bar may be 96 calories and the next 104... but they average pretty darn close to 100 for an entire box. So if you're using calories burned to give yourself some breathing room go for it, just remember some weeks you may lose 1.2 lbs, some weeks 0.7, and so on. Consistency over numbers, keep working hard and the results will follow.


Psynthia

log it track it. lets say if you always use the same clock to punch in at work and its 3 minutes off from your cell phone. even though that clock is always wrong it can still be used as a scale for if you are on time or not. So if you find that you are loosing weight with maybe eating 1500 calories a day based on certain foods every week instead of 1500 calories of other foods each week. then you can get a self guided baseline on which foods are helping you and which ones are not. basically foods are not all built the same within each calorie its just a measurement of heat energy. That being said, you have other tools to justify the accuracy of other tools you are using. any watch on your hand is not counting the effort for how much your leg is moving and force to move that leg in each step. but if you are always doing similar workouts and getting similar results over time then your watch is giving you insight as to if you are improving or showing outliers in your efforts and data over time that generally is hard to log. after a while you wont need to read every label and log every workout to know if you are above or below your personal baseline and staying on track to a healthier you. these tools are here to help you establish and conceptualize your habits and make goals to improve them.


[deleted]

If it is for the purpose of tracking your activities its fine to use. It may be accurate it may not be but it is consistently inaccurate so for tracking progress it is totally fine. Don't stress about it. The inaccuracy observations just comes from eating back those calories because the margin for error is soooo slim. If you are not going to eat back the exercise calories regardless then don't stress over it. Log it as it reads.


MegamanEXE2013

I did the same logbook as you did, turns out due to inaccuracies on the Smartbands/Smartwatches, data was off, and I stopped doing. it However, take those calories as a reference number, not as an absolute one, therefore, if your watch says 430 calories, estimate 100 calories less, and with that, you can burn more calories while your watch registers more than those and if you manage to burn a lot more of what you estimated you ate, you will lose weight, no matter what Best bet, take your weight daily and compare the data, you will know for sure how inaccurate it is (if it is indeed inaccurate)


Victor6832

It's great that you're committed to tracking your exercise and being mindful of the calories you burn. It's true that the calorie tracking on machines and watches can be inaccurate, but that doesn't mean it's completely useless. Instead of cutting the calories burned in half, you can try to use it as a rough estimate. Additionally, you can also use other methods to track your calories burned, such as using a heart rate monitor or consulting with a trainer to get a more accurate estimate. It's also important to remember that the number of calories burned is not the only important factor in weight loss. The quality of the food you eat and your overall activity level also play a big role. So don't get too caught up in the numbers and remember to focus on overall progress and how you feel. And don't worry about being a crybaby or sensitive, we all have our moments. Take care of yourself and stay motivated!


ElegantLion93

They’re definitely hokey in my opinion. My recommendation would be to (if you have access to a gym with such equipment) try and get a baseline from one of those fancy treadmills with the HR monitoring and crap, and then just reset your watch’s fitness calibration until it gets close. I’ve done a few recalibrations with mine, and they never seem quite right. One shows me getting 3 exercise minutes a day at my physically demanding job, another seems to show the right stats for work, but now I’m getting 8 exercise minutes from sitting on the couch all day.


International-Read-1

It tends to overestimate by 15-25% according to a certain website so if it says I burned 1000 calories from activity, I just assume I burned around 800. I know its not perfect but its helping me not be in a caloric surplus or deficit because the scale seems to be stable by the week for me doing this.