Calories in versus calories out are more important to people who are much into losing weight. This Fitbit calories in vs out article is for them.
How Does Fitbit Monitor Calorie Intake And Outtake
How Fitbit introduces the calories in the meter vs calories out of the meter to help its users know whether they are on the right track to hitting their calorie deficit.
What is taken into account when tracking the calorie burn includes the time of day, the number of calories taken, calorie deficit, and the amounts of calories you have burned.
How Fitbit Calculates Your Calorie Target
Create a food plan through the Fitbit app or Fitbit.com dashboard. Provide your targeted weight and the present weight. Choose a planned intensity. These intensities include easier, medium, kind of hard, and harder.
Plan intensity tells Fitbit how to aggressively set your calorie deficit. In other words, the number of calories you need every day to lose or retain your weight.
The calculations are based on one pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. This suggests you will need to burn 3,500 calories or consume 3,500 fewer calories each week to lose weight. Calorie burn target can also be set manually.
Understanding Calorie Burn Estimate
Your plan gets set when you choose an intensity but don’t expect a fixed calories target in return. This might be the easiest way to control weight but it is not the most efficient way.
And that’s because the calories deficit does not change since it is the key number. Calorie target is unlike calorie deficit because it fluctuates with levels of activities.
Assuming your Fitbit is synced regularly, your daily calorie estimate will update throughout the day. Calorie estimates for the day may increase if a killer workout is logged.
On the other hand, if you spend more time inactive or seated Fitbit will suggest eating less to stay within the goal zone.
What do Calories In And Calories Out Mean On Fitbit?
Calories in simple terms mean the number of calories you get from food while you feed whereas calories out mean the number of calories you lose or burn. Basic metabolism, digestion, and physical activities are the three main ways our bodies burn calories.
Talking of basic metabolism (Basic Metabolic Rate, BMR), the body will get calories from food to ensure basic functions like a heartbeat are a success.
Digestion on the other hand will take from 10 to 15% of the calories you get from food to power the digestion process. The process varies depending on the type of food you take and is also referred to as the Thermic Effect of Food, TEF.
For physical activities, you get the remaining calories to power your activities. The activities include daily tasks like walking, running, cycling, reading, performing home chores, and working out.
The number of calories you take from food should match the number of calories you burn to sustain digestion, metabolism, and physical activities. That way, you will have a stable weight. A calorie deficit is key when losing weight.
How Accurate Are Calories In and Calories Out On Fitbit?
The calories in and calories out on Fitbit are not 100% accurate. This also implies other calories counters.
In 2017, Fitbit Surge was found to have a median error of 27% when counting the number of calories burned.
A 27 % median error sounds great but, Surge actually is one of the best Fitbit for Calories burned. Other smartwatches tested in the study included Mio Alpha 2, Samsung Gear S2, Apple Watch, Microsoft Band, Basis Pulse, and PulseOn.
Two years later the study was once again carried out but this time around Fitbit Charge 2 was the one on the test.
The smartwatch estimated calorie burn while walking and jogging to be 53.5% and 4.3% respectively. The best way to get results from Fitbit is by providing it with the right age, height, gender, and weight. And that is because they contribute much to the calorie input and output.
Stanford University also comes up with a wearable that they claim is much better at calculating calories burned.
Unlike Fitbit which is made to go around the wrist, the smartwatch by Stanford University is worn on the leg. We conquer with the idea because our legs are much more involved in movements than our wrists.
The smartwatch by Stanford comes with two sensors. The super watch is good for athletes but not for the ordinary consumer.
Fitbits are not 100% good for calculating calories burned but consider them the perfect baseline until wearables are revamped.
Why Does My Fitbit tell Me I’ve Burned So Many Calories?
Fitbit resets each midnight. The many calories you see on Fitbit, the Fitbit app, or the Fitbit website when you get up in the morning is the approximated value of calorie burn for the day so far.
Is Fitbit Accurate About Calories Burned?
Fitbit found their tracker to be accurate when calories are burned while running. The fitness tracker only estimated the calories burned results by 4% which is impressive.
Fitbit Charge 3 was somewhat not good when monitoring how many calories are burned while walking. Other models overestimated the value by 50% which is so far from the correct results.
While running the cheaper Fitbit models overestimated the real results by 40%. On the other hand, the models were also able to estimate the number of calories burned by 2%.
This implies that Fitbit smartwatches are much more accurate when tracking the number of calories burned when running.
Are Some Fitbit Models Accurate Than Others?
No, various studies suggest that there are Fitbit smartwatch models that are more accurate than others which is true. But Fitbit Surge beat them all including the well-known smartwatch brands.
Why is Fitness Tracker Inaccurate?
Why spend a lot of money on a smartwatch that frequently serves you inaccurate data? Well, it is time you knew that super watches are created to provide you with estimated values of the number of calories your body is burning.
There are algorithms on every Fitbit smartwatch that estimate the number of calories burned, it also considers a number of factors (we have named them above) that impact calories burned.
You may also want to know how accurate is Fitbit calorie burn.
