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Is “total calories” even closely accurate?

AE_stc

AE_stc

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Feb 25, 2020
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I’ve been using an Apple Watch since last summer, I love it, love everything it does. I think it’s very accurate for calorie counting for resting energy as well as when I exercise

but I can’t understand this move ring and the “total calories” number

Usually in a day it shows I burn 1,000 calories in my move ring. This might include lifting weights where it said I burned around 250

I eat 1500-2500 calories a day. My “total calories” amount usually goes from 3200-4000. So if this is to be believed I should be wasting away to nothing as I barely consume enough to stay alive

now the resting energy shows I burn 25-2600 in a day. That I can believe.
Any insight into this total calorie thing?

yes I’ve calibrated it, all my info is updated etc
 
AE_stc said:
...
now the resting energy shows I burn 25-2600 in a day. That I can believe.
Any insight into this total calorie thing?
...
Click to expand...

resting energy of 2,500 - 2,600 per day is an astonishingly high amount.
 
niji said:
resting energy of 2,500 - 2,600 per day is an astonishingly high amount.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. When I stay at 1500 cals per day of food I lose weight. That's about a 1000 cal deficit. Makes sense to me?

I'm a big guy, not fat just tall and large proportions.
 
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AE_stc said:
But I’m more looking for insight into the total calories feature of the watch...
Click to expand...

The Apple Watch likely uses the Harris-Benedict Equation which uses your age, height, weight and gender to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate. The caloric figure from this equation is then added to your Active calories to get your Total Calories.

Cult of Mac has an article about how the Apple Watch / Apple Health app figure your Total Calories.
 
CWallace said:
The Apple Watch likely uses the Harris-Benedict Equation which uses your age, height, weight and gender to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate. The caloric figure from this equation is then added to your Active calories to get your Total Calories.

Cult of Mac has an article about how the Apple Watch / Apple Health app figure your Total Calories.
Click to expand...

Interesting thank you for that

I just can’t wrap my head around my total calories count though. On heavy exercise days it’ll say 4,000 total burned, just seems so high and my body fat should be approaching 0%
 
While one pound of human body fat provides 3500 calories of energy, an obese person will burn "fat calories" more effectively than a lean one. So if you have a BMI close to your optimum, your body is more likely to burn muscle than fat and you will lose weight slower than an obese person (who starts with burning body fat and as they lean-up, start to shift to muscle mass).
 
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You can log your calories and see how it adds up. I use LoseIt which integrates with Apple Health and the Workouts. You may be eating more or less than you think.
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niji said:
resting energy of 2,500 - 2,600 per day is an astonishingly high amount.
Click to expand...
That’s normal for resting calories. If you look at the nutritional information on food packaging, it usually says based on a 2,500 calorie per day diet, which it’s using as a baseline to maintain your current weight. If you workout, you can eat more to maintain (or gain) the weight. If you don’t, you should eat less to lose weight.
 
AE_stc said:
I eat 1500-2500 calories a day. My “total calories” amount usually goes from 3200-4000. So if this is to be believed I should be wasting away to nothing as I barely consume enough to stay alive
Click to expand...

I have exactly the same problem! For example, on one of the recent sedentary days, my Apple Watch showed that I climbed 15 flights of stairs. Didn't climb any stairs that day. When I was still able to go to the office, I usually climbed about 10 flights of stairs a day but my Apple Watch usually showed that I climbed 60, or sometimes even nearly 100 flights.

On one of the recent days, I was sitting pretty much the whole day (working) and went out for a very slow walk three times (4km altogether). I never climbed any stairs and did any exercise, yet my watch still showed that I climbed 19 flights and spent 2866 calories. That's about 30% more calories burned that an average TDEE calculator says.

If I do exercise, then my watch usually shows that I spend around 4000 calories a day while still on a sedentary day (mainly a sitting job). That includes weight lifting of around 500-600 calories according to the watch.

That said, my Apple Watch seems to be calculating my resting calories and climbed flights very inaccurately. Any suggestions or comments about this problem?
 
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Margus Sütt said:
I have exactly the same problem!

If I do exercise, then my watch usually shows that I spend around 4000 calories a day while still on a sedentary day (mainly a sitting job). That includes weight lifting of around 500-600 calories according to the watch.
Click to expand...

Same ha, sedentary job and if I work out even once boom my total cals shoot up to 4,000 for the day
 
One odd thing - For "Resting Energy" under the "D" (day) tab, I show my resting energy is at 2300 kCal (with 2.5 hours to go in the day). It's like that every day. When I get up tomorrow, the previous day will show around 2,000 kCal of "Resting Energy". How can my resting energy decrease from the night to the next day?
 
Here's my question - where do you see Total Calories? Whether on my AW or Health app on my phone, I only see Active and Resting. I don't mind adding them to get the total, but it sounds like y'all are seeing it combined as Total somewhere.
 
Try here:

IMG_0814.jpg
 
Ah! Thank you! I'd somehow missed that, mostly because I mostly check my rings on my watch. So is that Total not stored and tracked as such in the Health app???
 
gregorcic said:
No, only in activity
Click to expand...

That is so weird to me! I mean, it's clear that on some level Apple gets that it's worth knowing. They put it into Activity as you pointed out. And Active and Resting are both measured and tracked. Not like it would be difficult to add it as a metric in Health. Maybe it's just a me thing :)
 
Coming from fitbit where the info was so readily available this drove me crazy. I’ve been using HealthFace to display total energy intake (calories from MFP) and total deficit (active energy + resting energy - calories).

Works incredibly well.
 
I recently shared my activity rings on the watch with someone and started a 7 day competition. You can watch their progress with the rings, and man.. with minimal effort they get way more move calories than me with no green ring involvement and lesser distance walked. Like I really gotta work to catch up. I could have 15 exercise minutes and twice as many miles walked and they have less stand hours no exercise ring movement but more red ring and calories burned? Made me wonder about this topic too?

It’s not like they weigh twice as much as I do or anything throwing off the stats that much. I am more sedentary as I’m stuck at home with kids and they work a job (but pretty sedentary too). If I don’t get out of the house I just make 300 move ring cals and 450-550 if I walk or go to the store. Does the red ring add more to the total than exercise ring ones? Cause I’ve got way more exercise (Walking) time than them but less total move cals.

Not sure how exactly everything gets calculated on the end. But, my info has even consistent over the years, so I assume its about right.
 
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