its decent at certain things. But no wearable device out there is good at calculating calories burned or TDEE because every single person is different. Its essentially taking a best guess based on your weight and heart rate thats it.
I’m aware and I might just be dumb, but what other factors plays in except height, weight and heart rate?
I’m legit clueless at this
I’m not trying to eat calories back or anything, and I know the best way to estimate you TDEE is by eating a certain amount of calories and see if you lose or gain weight, but I’m curious why an Apple Watch can’t give a good estimate
its quite a bit honestly. How much you move daily, water intake things like exsisting muscle. Contrary to popular belief its hard to actually create new muscle. generally the muscle fibers growth and strenghten and then go through a process to expand. But point being everyones starting point is way different. There are tests you can do to analyze your metablisom and see what your true TDEE is. but honestly I wouldnt worry about it if your trying to lose weight just track your intake not burned
i totally agree. Its just super hard to be accurate is all! theres times where i go for a walk and my apple watch is like youve burnt 1000 calories and theres no way lol im not that big and it wasnt that hard lol
Let's say we both weigh 200 pounds. You are a bodybuilder and I work an office job. Using your muscles burns calories, which is why we exercise to lose weight. Who do you think is going to burn more calories between us? The person with more muscle will, but the watch may not be able to assess that and consider us the same.
Or, for a personal example, I have a mild heart defect that causes my heart rate to be high. Because of that fitness watches sometimes thinks I'm exercising when I'm not, and the number of calories it thinks I burn when I do exercise can be very high because it thinks my 170 bpm means I'm working super hard when I would call my level of effort mid.
All the calculations done to calculate actual calorie burn requires essentially being in a lab taking extremely precise measurements, and fitness watches just can't do all that. So they use a few simple inputs that the average person has access to like height and weight to give some rough estimates.
>but what other factors plays in except height, weight and heart rate
In one word, genetics.
In more detailed breakdown, your hormone levels, your body's sensitivity to the hormone signals, muscle mass, specific activation of muscles during specific activities and lots of tiny details at the cellular and molecular level such as how your body recruit energy and how efficient it is etcetera.
All these taken together are specific to you as an individual and no two person are exactly alike, but similar enough that you can guesstimate calories burned. However, the guesstimate is never going to be perfectly accurate. It can be very accurate for some people while completely off base for others.
Your gut biome, how well you slept, whether or not you sweat more than other people, whether certain foods are inflammatory to you, whether or not you’re fighting off an illness you don’t know you have, literally everything factors into the thermodynamic process of burning energy in your body.
Wearables are guessing based off of your weight and heart rate, two of a hundred factors.
Body fat makes a big difference. Fat burns fewer calories. Apple doesn’t know your body fat percentage. Also Apple uses its own method to determine calorie burn rather than one of the formulas that are known and researched. Apple doesn’t disclose its formula. Apple’s formula is fine for some people. Apple Watch over estimated my calorie burn by 300 to 400 calories a day.
I like it because while it may not be accurate in measuring calories- it’s the same amount of inaccurate every day, so if I’m comparing today with yesterday it’s worth something.
I believe what he means is that if one day it says you burned 2500 calories and another day it says 3000, you were probably more active on the second day- not that he burned an extra 500 calories.
Because height, weight, and heart rate are imperfect indicators of calorie expenditure. In a hospital/lab setting to get the most accurate estimate of calories burned they measure CO2 in the breath since most fat that is metabolized is released as CO2
in my experience using the ultra 2 for the past six months to help me lose almost 40 lbs, it's VERY good at figuring things out for walking and running at the very least. i haven't started strength training yet as we're waiting for a new gym to open in our area, so i can't speak to that particular aspect...but if you're just looking for an estimate of TDEE based on general daily movement, it's pretty damn good.
I sadly don’t have the ultra, I have the series 9 one
But I’m glad to know some of them can be accurate at least with a good estimate
I’m so glad to hear you’re lost so much weight, congrats!
thanks! can't wait for the gym to open so i can start throwing some strength training in with the cardio. i'm getting close to skinny fat territory at the moment.
anyway, back to topic: the S9 is new enough that it's probably close to the same (since the S9 and ultra 2 came out in the same release cycle). i would set yourself to sedentary and let your calorie tracking app adjust you upwards if you move more in a given day than expected. the catch with most of them (at least with lose it, which is what i use) is that it will give you more calories if the watch says you burned more than it expects, but it WON'T adjust you downwards if you fail to hit your target calorie burn.
i have mine set to the second activity level, but i'm also averaging 10k steps per day and only really resting one day per week, so i know i'm going to hit that number more often than not. if you're not sure, i'd start with sedentary and experiment for a bit. in my experience, my actual weight loss has tracked with what the apple watch for calories out and my food intake has expected pretty closely. usually within 0.5 lb each week.
Thank you, I always set them to sedentary
I try to aim for 10K each day, some days it’s only 6 or 8K, other days like today it’s 19K
On average I’m above 10K per day I think
getting extra steps is what really kicked my weight loss and overall health into gear. i've averaged 13k or something like that since jan 1. i make it a point to make sure i get at least a few mile walk in each day except for saturday, which i treat as a day to totally rest my legs as much as i can.
Same. I was doing ok at 10k steps. When I bumped to 20-25k my weight loss was about the same rate (with some stress related mini plateaus) but my body composition changed rapidly and drastically. I’ve since added cardio and strength training but really haven’t had the same wow as the steps. And my brain is so much quieter with 20+k
kudos to you if you're consistently averaging over 20k. i make sure i find the time to get myself over 10k every day but i just don't see the available time in my day to double that consistently...
There are days I say “eff this” and call it at 15k - especially when it’s 95 degrees and high humidity. That’s even to much to push inside on the treadmill. But for the month so far I’m averaging 19k.
And I get it. I’ve literally made my entire day about steps and working out. I don’t leave for work until I’ve logged 10k. Which means I’m walking by 5am.
For reference, my Apple Watch shows I burn about 1800-1950 resting and 400-500 active, with a few outliers as high as 800 or as low as 300 active energy. That puts me at 2350-2450 TDEE per my watch on average (more days at the higher end of that range).
MacroFactor with meticulous calorie counting and daily weigh ins puts me at 2500-2600 TDEE (it’s been slowly creeping up to 2600). This potentially could be higher due to slightly overestimating calories or because I’m in Texas and it’s super hot, so I’m burning more, or because I’ve been doing some resistance/weight training (in addition to cardio) and that burns more for the hours after the workout than cardio does, which the watch might not capture.
Basic TDEE calculators put me at 2457 for moderate exercise, but I think I’m in between moderate and heavy exercise (2734) despite being mostly sedentary outside working out, but I’ve been working out a lot.
I’d say that makes my watch pretty accurate, certainly accurate enough to feel reasonably good about the calories I burn from exercise aligning with my MF results, esp since it’s not overestimating them which is the usual complaint about watches tracking exercise calories.
It is good. Very good actually, and likely better than the alternative (estimating ourselves). People simply assert that it's not accurate. Mostly because:
1. People often fail at CICO and need something to blame.
2. Years ago, wearables were not that accurate.
I only use my Apple Watch on my hiking workouts. My heart rate gets up to 162 and I know I am burning the calories. Do I believe it is 600 calories for 90 minutes with the heart rate that high for at least 40 minutes of my hike? Perhaps. I track and I count those lost calories. But I do not eat them all back. I may use 100 or 200 if I need to. And the weight is coming off of me. So the accuracy may not be exact, but it is close enough for me.
One thing to note, I changed a setting on the watch to only track my exercise calories and nothing else. At the end of my hike it says 600 active calories and 800 total calories. I ignore the total calories because I do not believe those are correct. And if for some reason they are correct, then bonus.
It’s actually near impossible for anything to accurately measure your energy expenditure. It’s just far too complex a physiological process to measure. However, it can be calculated in arrears. This is how MacroFactor works. If you accurately track your calories and weigh yourself daily, your rate of weight changed can be used to determine how much energy you expended. Simply put, if you ingest 2500 kcal a day and week over week your weight doesn’t change, this is your daily expenditure. So, the best way to make use of this is to keep your activity level (exercise) relatively consistent week over week, then you can determine your actual TDEE based on the rate of weight change week over week. This way exercise CO is intrinsically included in your TDEE calculation. Or just use MacroFactor, which automates all of this.
I think Apple Watch is one of the best solutions for this in its price range. The problem is that the calories burned in physical activity aren’t such a great measure of anything because your body has ways of reducing caloric output at rest to compensate for calories burned in exercise. I think Apple Watch is a really good tool for measuring your activity, but what you shouldn’t do is take those calories and drop them into your ‘out’ column.
My Apple Watch is extremely accurate for me. I once did a two week experiment where I ate exactly the total daily calories burned, and my weight stayed the same. I was actually pretty surprised.
Same here with the accuracy. I had a lot of older historical data from logging in mfp before getting one too and have done similar “experiments” (basically me not feeling up to sticking to my cal goal lol)
The watch is fine as a general metric but you shouldn't trust it to be accurate enough to try and eat back calories.
The primary way it calculated calorie burn is based on heart rate for your height and weight. So it's good to figure out if you had a good workout but it's not accurate enough too base your calorie budget off of.
In order words the apple watch says you burned 400 Cals that's good, but you don't want to eat 400 extra calories in the day because it's not that accurate.
I didn’t like my Apple Watch (granted it was an older model) but I love my Fitbit. Comparing calories in vs calories out (I weigh and track everything) to my weight loss it is pretty damn accurate.
Because in some testing, accuracy has been off by over 20 percent, and in some cases off by as much as 90%.
Beyond that, calorie expenditure is a complicated equation that involves many factors and systems. Things like stress, poor sleep, hormone imbalance, body composition can have a huge impact on the actual numbers. A watch just can’t accurately measure all of the factors required for accurate measurements.
the apple estimates seem to vary by up to 50% from day to day for me for the same walk. overall, I would guess that it overestimates calorie burn by 20%.
In general ppl overestimate how many calories/day they burn. Most ppl burn between 1400-1900 calories/day just by being alive. The chances of doubling that are unlikely unless you're biking in the Tour De France. I mean that most ppl who use a treadmill and walk a dog won't burn 4000 calories/day...
I'd continue to use the Apple Watch but use the steps as a gauge. Like 20K steps/day would be a good goal.
If you start adding calories because the Apple Watch says you've burned them, that's where you get into trouble.
Yeah I’m not gonna eat back calories burned, my watch estimates my TDEE is 1500 which is believable
It estimates that I usually burn 250 on an average day, today I walked 19K steps and it estimates that I burned 700kcal which I doubt
How big are you?
On average 2000 steps = 1 mile
200 lb person burns 84 kcal per mile (average)
19,000 steps = 9.5 mile (average)
9.5 miles X 84 kcal= 798 kcal
In conclusion it could be accurate depending on your weight.
I don’t doubt it for 19k steps. 19k is a lot. I hit 13k one day and it was 800 cal for me according to my watch which tracks with my other stats (see my other comment).
My Apple Watch has my TDEE at ~4,350 calories per day over the last six months. My actual TDEE has been ~3,800
It’s an inexact science that bases steps to energy and a lot of “workouts” are tracked at the same calorie burn as walking. Me sitting down and lifting for 30 mins does not burn the same amount of calories as if I was having a brisk walk outside for 30 mins
They would rather over estimate than under estimate
Because evidence has shown that it isn't any good at it. For example, it assumes if your heart rate is up you are exercising, but that's not necessarily true. My personal favourite crazy activity tracker day was when I sat around, drive a bit and had a short supermarket trip. 1000 extra calories, supposedly. And that's not just me underestimating, I could tell by my rate of loss how much I burnt each day on average.
There is also an issue when people calculate their calorie target using exercise, then add in heartrate tracking data for even more calories. A good 2/3 of people asking for help because they aren't losing weight are overestimating activity
>There is also an issue when people calculate their calorie target using exercise, then add in heartrate tracking data for even more calories.
the apps are pretty good at separating this out now. i have lose it set to moderately active (as i am averaging 10k+ steps per day), and it only adds calories in if the watch says i'm going to go over the target burn for that day...which lose it calculates on its own depending on the activity level you set.
for example: lose it says my TDEE at moderately active is 2700 and my calorie goal is 2200. it only adds calories for me if the watch says i'm going to burn more than 2700 on that day...if i just go about my business normally and the watch verifies that i'm burning as many calories as lose it thinks i'm going to burn, it doesn't add anything. if i do my usual routine and then go out and run 5 miles on top of that, it'll give me a few hundred calories extra because the watch can see that i'm probably burning 3000+ calories rather than the 2700 lose it thought i was going to burn.
its decent at certain things. But no wearable device out there is good at calculating calories burned or TDEE because every single person is different. Its essentially taking a best guess based on your weight and heart rate thats it.
I’m aware and I might just be dumb, but what other factors plays in except height, weight and heart rate? I’m legit clueless at this I’m not trying to eat calories back or anything, and I know the best way to estimate you TDEE is by eating a certain amount of calories and see if you lose or gain weight, but I’m curious why an Apple Watch can’t give a good estimate
its quite a bit honestly. How much you move daily, water intake things like exsisting muscle. Contrary to popular belief its hard to actually create new muscle. generally the muscle fibers growth and strenghten and then go through a process to expand. But point being everyones starting point is way different. There are tests you can do to analyze your metablisom and see what your true TDEE is. but honestly I wouldnt worry about it if your trying to lose weight just track your intake not burned
Thanks I am tracking my intake and not eating calories burned back,but it’s nice to have an idea about how much I’ve burned
i totally agree. Its just super hard to be accurate is all! theres times where i go for a walk and my apple watch is like youve burnt 1000 calories and theres no way lol im not that big and it wasnt that hard lol
My calories burned are usually somewhat accurate but I’m not sure, I walked for 2,5 hours today, 19K steps and it said 700kcal burned
Let's say we both weigh 200 pounds. You are a bodybuilder and I work an office job. Using your muscles burns calories, which is why we exercise to lose weight. Who do you think is going to burn more calories between us? The person with more muscle will, but the watch may not be able to assess that and consider us the same. Or, for a personal example, I have a mild heart defect that causes my heart rate to be high. Because of that fitness watches sometimes thinks I'm exercising when I'm not, and the number of calories it thinks I burn when I do exercise can be very high because it thinks my 170 bpm means I'm working super hard when I would call my level of effort mid. All the calculations done to calculate actual calorie burn requires essentially being in a lab taking extremely precise measurements, and fitness watches just can't do all that. So they use a few simple inputs that the average person has access to like height and weight to give some rough estimates.
Thanks for the explanation! Makes sense
>but what other factors plays in except height, weight and heart rate In one word, genetics. In more detailed breakdown, your hormone levels, your body's sensitivity to the hormone signals, muscle mass, specific activation of muscles during specific activities and lots of tiny details at the cellular and molecular level such as how your body recruit energy and how efficient it is etcetera. All these taken together are specific to you as an individual and no two person are exactly alike, but similar enough that you can guesstimate calories burned. However, the guesstimate is never going to be perfectly accurate. It can be very accurate for some people while completely off base for others.
Your gut biome, how well you slept, whether or not you sweat more than other people, whether certain foods are inflammatory to you, whether or not you’re fighting off an illness you don’t know you have, literally everything factors into the thermodynamic process of burning energy in your body. Wearables are guessing based off of your weight and heart rate, two of a hundred factors.
Body fat makes a big difference. Fat burns fewer calories. Apple doesn’t know your body fat percentage. Also Apple uses its own method to determine calorie burn rather than one of the formulas that are known and researched. Apple doesn’t disclose its formula. Apple’s formula is fine for some people. Apple Watch over estimated my calorie burn by 300 to 400 calories a day.
I like it because while it may not be accurate in measuring calories- it’s the same amount of inaccurate every day, so if I’m comparing today with yesterday it’s worth something.
From what I have seen in different articles testing different devices, that’s not actually the case. They can estimate high one day and low another.
It most certainly isn't. If it was, you could get the right value with a simple linear transformation.
I believe what he means is that if one day it says you burned 2500 calories and another day it says 3000, you were probably more active on the second day- not that he burned an extra 500 calories.
Yep. It’s just me vs me.
Because height, weight, and heart rate are imperfect indicators of calorie expenditure. In a hospital/lab setting to get the most accurate estimate of calories burned they measure CO2 in the breath since most fat that is metabolized is released as CO2
Thanks!
So all we need is for Apple watches to come with a rebreather or something…sounds doable
in my experience using the ultra 2 for the past six months to help me lose almost 40 lbs, it's VERY good at figuring things out for walking and running at the very least. i haven't started strength training yet as we're waiting for a new gym to open in our area, so i can't speak to that particular aspect...but if you're just looking for an estimate of TDEE based on general daily movement, it's pretty damn good.
I sadly don’t have the ultra, I have the series 9 one But I’m glad to know some of them can be accurate at least with a good estimate I’m so glad to hear you’re lost so much weight, congrats!
thanks! can't wait for the gym to open so i can start throwing some strength training in with the cardio. i'm getting close to skinny fat territory at the moment. anyway, back to topic: the S9 is new enough that it's probably close to the same (since the S9 and ultra 2 came out in the same release cycle). i would set yourself to sedentary and let your calorie tracking app adjust you upwards if you move more in a given day than expected. the catch with most of them (at least with lose it, which is what i use) is that it will give you more calories if the watch says you burned more than it expects, but it WON'T adjust you downwards if you fail to hit your target calorie burn. i have mine set to the second activity level, but i'm also averaging 10k steps per day and only really resting one day per week, so i know i'm going to hit that number more often than not. if you're not sure, i'd start with sedentary and experiment for a bit. in my experience, my actual weight loss has tracked with what the apple watch for calories out and my food intake has expected pretty closely. usually within 0.5 lb each week.
Thank you, I always set them to sedentary I try to aim for 10K each day, some days it’s only 6 or 8K, other days like today it’s 19K On average I’m above 10K per day I think
getting extra steps is what really kicked my weight loss and overall health into gear. i've averaged 13k or something like that since jan 1. i make it a point to make sure i get at least a few mile walk in each day except for saturday, which i treat as a day to totally rest my legs as much as i can.
Same. I was doing ok at 10k steps. When I bumped to 20-25k my weight loss was about the same rate (with some stress related mini plateaus) but my body composition changed rapidly and drastically. I’ve since added cardio and strength training but really haven’t had the same wow as the steps. And my brain is so much quieter with 20+k
kudos to you if you're consistently averaging over 20k. i make sure i find the time to get myself over 10k every day but i just don't see the available time in my day to double that consistently...
There are days I say “eff this” and call it at 15k - especially when it’s 95 degrees and high humidity. That’s even to much to push inside on the treadmill. But for the month so far I’m averaging 19k. And I get it. I’ve literally made my entire day about steps and working out. I don’t leave for work until I’ve logged 10k. Which means I’m walking by 5am.
For reference, my Apple Watch shows I burn about 1800-1950 resting and 400-500 active, with a few outliers as high as 800 or as low as 300 active energy. That puts me at 2350-2450 TDEE per my watch on average (more days at the higher end of that range). MacroFactor with meticulous calorie counting and daily weigh ins puts me at 2500-2600 TDEE (it’s been slowly creeping up to 2600). This potentially could be higher due to slightly overestimating calories or because I’m in Texas and it’s super hot, so I’m burning more, or because I’ve been doing some resistance/weight training (in addition to cardio) and that burns more for the hours after the workout than cardio does, which the watch might not capture. Basic TDEE calculators put me at 2457 for moderate exercise, but I think I’m in between moderate and heavy exercise (2734) despite being mostly sedentary outside working out, but I’ve been working out a lot. I’d say that makes my watch pretty accurate, certainly accurate enough to feel reasonably good about the calories I burn from exercise aligning with my MF results, esp since it’s not overestimating them which is the usual complaint about watches tracking exercise calories.
It is good. Very good actually, and likely better than the alternative (estimating ourselves). People simply assert that it's not accurate. Mostly because: 1. People often fail at CICO and need something to blame. 2. Years ago, wearables were not that accurate.
Thank I’m getting a lot of mixed answers on here
Honestly I think it’s pretty good. Just based on my own experience of course.
I only use my Apple Watch on my hiking workouts. My heart rate gets up to 162 and I know I am burning the calories. Do I believe it is 600 calories for 90 minutes with the heart rate that high for at least 40 minutes of my hike? Perhaps. I track and I count those lost calories. But I do not eat them all back. I may use 100 or 200 if I need to. And the weight is coming off of me. So the accuracy may not be exact, but it is close enough for me. One thing to note, I changed a setting on the watch to only track my exercise calories and nothing else. At the end of my hike it says 600 active calories and 800 total calories. I ignore the total calories because I do not believe those are correct. And if for some reason they are correct, then bonus.
It’s actually near impossible for anything to accurately measure your energy expenditure. It’s just far too complex a physiological process to measure. However, it can be calculated in arrears. This is how MacroFactor works. If you accurately track your calories and weigh yourself daily, your rate of weight changed can be used to determine how much energy you expended. Simply put, if you ingest 2500 kcal a day and week over week your weight doesn’t change, this is your daily expenditure. So, the best way to make use of this is to keep your activity level (exercise) relatively consistent week over week, then you can determine your actual TDEE based on the rate of weight change week over week. This way exercise CO is intrinsically included in your TDEE calculation. Or just use MacroFactor, which automates all of this.
I think Apple Watch is one of the best solutions for this in its price range. The problem is that the calories burned in physical activity aren’t such a great measure of anything because your body has ways of reducing caloric output at rest to compensate for calories burned in exercise. I think Apple Watch is a really good tool for measuring your activity, but what you shouldn’t do is take those calories and drop them into your ‘out’ column.
My Apple Watch is extremely accurate for me. I once did a two week experiment where I ate exactly the total daily calories burned, and my weight stayed the same. I was actually pretty surprised.
Same here with the accuracy. I had a lot of older historical data from logging in mfp before getting one too and have done similar “experiments” (basically me not feeling up to sticking to my cal goal lol)
The watch is fine as a general metric but you shouldn't trust it to be accurate enough to try and eat back calories. The primary way it calculated calorie burn is based on heart rate for your height and weight. So it's good to figure out if you had a good workout but it's not accurate enough too base your calorie budget off of. In order words the apple watch says you burned 400 Cals that's good, but you don't want to eat 400 extra calories in the day because it's not that accurate.
Oh no I’m not gonna eat the calories back
I didn’t like my Apple Watch (granted it was an older model) but I love my Fitbit. Comparing calories in vs calories out (I weigh and track everything) to my weight loss it is pretty damn accurate.
There's no way for any wearable to accurately measure calories without wearing a mask that tracks how much carbon dioxide you're breathing out.
Because in some testing, accuracy has been off by over 20 percent, and in some cases off by as much as 90%. Beyond that, calorie expenditure is a complicated equation that involves many factors and systems. Things like stress, poor sleep, hormone imbalance, body composition can have a huge impact on the actual numbers. A watch just can’t accurately measure all of the factors required for accurate measurements.
Because it’s a watch. No Watch is that accurate
the apple estimates seem to vary by up to 50% from day to day for me for the same walk. overall, I would guess that it overestimates calorie burn by 20%.
In general ppl overestimate how many calories/day they burn. Most ppl burn between 1400-1900 calories/day just by being alive. The chances of doubling that are unlikely unless you're biking in the Tour De France. I mean that most ppl who use a treadmill and walk a dog won't burn 4000 calories/day... I'd continue to use the Apple Watch but use the steps as a gauge. Like 20K steps/day would be a good goal. If you start adding calories because the Apple Watch says you've burned them, that's where you get into trouble.
Yeah I’m not gonna eat back calories burned, my watch estimates my TDEE is 1500 which is believable It estimates that I usually burn 250 on an average day, today I walked 19K steps and it estimates that I burned 700kcal which I doubt
How big are you? On average 2000 steps = 1 mile 200 lb person burns 84 kcal per mile (average) 19,000 steps = 9.5 mile (average) 9.5 miles X 84 kcal= 798 kcal In conclusion it could be accurate depending on your weight.
I’m 165 cm and 61kg So it’s probably less than 700kcal then
Agreed. Probably about 600 kcal or so.
I don’t doubt it for 19k steps. 19k is a lot. I hit 13k one day and it was 800 cal for me according to my watch which tracks with my other stats (see my other comment).
Oh interesting, thanks!
My Apple Watch has my TDEE at ~4,350 calories per day over the last six months. My actual TDEE has been ~3,800 It’s an inexact science that bases steps to energy and a lot of “workouts” are tracked at the same calorie burn as walking. Me sitting down and lifting for 30 mins does not burn the same amount of calories as if I was having a brisk walk outside for 30 mins They would rather over estimate than under estimate
A TDEE of about 4000? Im so jealous, mine is about 1500
Because evidence has shown that it isn't any good at it. For example, it assumes if your heart rate is up you are exercising, but that's not necessarily true. My personal favourite crazy activity tracker day was when I sat around, drive a bit and had a short supermarket trip. 1000 extra calories, supposedly. And that's not just me underestimating, I could tell by my rate of loss how much I burnt each day on average. There is also an issue when people calculate their calorie target using exercise, then add in heartrate tracking data for even more calories. A good 2/3 of people asking for help because they aren't losing weight are overestimating activity
>There is also an issue when people calculate their calorie target using exercise, then add in heartrate tracking data for even more calories. the apps are pretty good at separating this out now. i have lose it set to moderately active (as i am averaging 10k+ steps per day), and it only adds calories in if the watch says i'm going to go over the target burn for that day...which lose it calculates on its own depending on the activity level you set. for example: lose it says my TDEE at moderately active is 2700 and my calorie goal is 2200. it only adds calories for me if the watch says i'm going to burn more than 2700 on that day...if i just go about my business normally and the watch verifies that i'm burning as many calories as lose it thinks i'm going to burn, it doesn't add anything. if i do my usual routine and then go out and run 5 miles on top of that, it'll give me a few hundred calories extra because the watch can see that i'm probably burning 3000+ calories rather than the 2700 lose it thought i was going to burn.
Oh yeah that’s not accurate at all lol Thanks