Is my Apple watch calculating insane calorie burns or what?

[Soulweaponry]

I've been using Fitbit for awhile and I find it tends to lowball my calories burned but I'm cool with that. Now that I have my Apple watch, the calories are all over the place. All I did today was go for a short walk and get about 4,000 steps the entire day. My Fitbit app says I burned about 2100 calories. My Apple watch? About 3000. And that was a few hours ago at like 8pm or something. Now it's actually up to like 3400

And just for reference, I'm a 31 year old guy that weighs 230lbs at 5'8.

The top is the Fitbit calculation and the bottom is my Apple watch. Wow.

http://i.imgur.com/JJAhyHV.jpg

 

[skyking517]

Doesnt fit bit automatically add 1900 calories burned per day automatically? They say this is how much you burn in a day just living, my fitbit app does that.

 

[aziatiklover]

That is insane! You burn more calories resting than me going lifting some weights, and I go Mon-Fri!

 

[Beaverman3001]

I've been concerned about how high my resting calories burned have been on mine as well. I wished Apple would post how they are calculating these exactly. I usually come 200-400 over in the resting calories burned section over what most online BMR calculators say.

 

[ElctrcJellyfish]

This is a known issue with the Apple Watch, and apparently they're working on a fix. See this thread here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1873354/ or this one on Apple support:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/28230153#28230153

The problem is with Apple's calculation of resting calories. My guess is that the active calorie burn is probably pretty close to accurate, and if Apple were correctly calculating resting calories, the two numbers would be pretty close to identical.

Basically: Apple's total calorie burn is wrong, they know it, they're supposedly trying to fix it, and for now you're better off calculating your BMR yourself and adding active calorie count to that as compared to looking at their total calorie numbers.

 

[Beaverman3001]

Seems odd that it would release with a huge defect in calculating, especially after all the PR mumbo jumbo they showed with testing it at a health facility and constantly tracking people using it. I can't see how no one would have noticed.

 

[Trent0341]

As briefly mentioned earlier... wouldn't body fat percentage play a fairly significant role in the amount of resting calories burned daily?

6% body fat vs. 25% would cause a fairly significant variation. Hopefully apple allows us to add BF percentage in the future.

 

[tivoboy]

different formulas

There are so many different formula for calculating BMR. RMR and AMR. Not sure which one each of these devices use.

Also, some have more variables for the "how active" question, some three some five. Make sure you selected the same thing between both products to get a closer estimation.

At your size, weight and age any of the formulas could yield between 2150 and 2650 calories for RMR (resting, sitting around not doing nothing!)

If the apple daily RMR is really that high, you must have put in ACTIVE or VERY ACTIVE when making a selection. And the fitbit is probably on normal and using one of the Harris Benedict formulas. (some of the most highly used)

For a man your size you could easily be burning 100 cals an hour average per day (2400 a day) and then anything you put on top is bonus, running 30 minutes, add another 300 ,etc..

 

[jtrue28]

As briefly mentioned earlier... wouldn't body fat percentage play a fairly significant role in the amount of resting calories burned daily?

6% body fat vs. 25% would cause a fairly significant variation. Hopefully apple allows us to add BF percentage in the future.

More muscle will burn more calories while at rest than fatties. I assume that is what you are trying to say.

 

[matty.p]

I have the opposite problem, between Fitbit and MyFitnessPal it says I burn like 3200 calories a day but I eat like 2200ish and still am not gaining or really losing any fat/weight.

 

[5105973]

I feel cheated. I've been working like a pack mule on over an acre of land with restoring gardens in various stages of chaos after my new house had been empty for almost a year while on the market. I've been digging and pulling and hauling and carrying and chopping and crawling and going through all kinds of exertion and my watch is so stingy I'm lucky if it credits me 200 calories after several hours of hard work that leaves me sore and dirty. Sometimes it's generous and I get 400 calories. I had to set my activity goals really low to make them. I know I'm on this forum a lot lately, but I'm still out and working, too.

I don't really want to have to choose between exercise for exercise sake and exertion that accomplishes something for my family and others (will be working on other properties when I finish clearing out mine).