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sailermon

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2015
67
8
Northern California
I've been using a non-HR Fitbit for 3.5 years and find the calorie burn numbers to be accurate. Fitbit uses the Mifflin St Jeor equation for calorie calculation. Try experimenting with the calculator here:

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

My BMR is 1091 (skinny female)
Sedentary (ie resting): 1309 and
Moderately active: 1691

The moderately active 1691 is almost the same as my Watch 1658 'resting' cals, whilst my Fitbit average TOTAL calorie burn for last 30 days is 1690. I do an average 12k steps daily, Watch and Fitbit are fairly close.

On the Health app Resting Calories are described as 'an estimate of your basal metabolic rate (BMR) [...]' Then why don't they call them BMR?!

So Watch 'resting' calories should be BMR but are more like BMR x 1.5 - moderate activity already included - and then the Activity calories are added on.

Really don't get how they got this so wrong. It's not that difficult, you start with BMR. Then you add the Activity picked up by the Watch to it.

I believe you have hit the nail on the head here. Apple apparently is incorrectly adjusting the BMR by an activity level factor. If we all entered an activity level as "sedentary," the BMR would be correct. The problem is that I don't know how to change that initial activity level.
 

BlueMoon63

macrumors 68020
Mar 30, 2015
2,055
959
I believe you have hit the nail on the head here. Apple apparently is incorrectly adjusting the BMR by an activity level factor. If we all entered an activity level as "sedentary," the BMR would be correct. The problem is that I don't know how to change that initial activity level.

I tried to comment on this earlier that the numbers you are getting are correct for resting calories. It assumes sedentary and "should" add in your active calories from the heath app. You can see things like Active Calories for the day showing up from your phone/watch which will be added to the resting/sedentary calories.

That is how I understand it. I do not claim to be someone who knows for certain you need to add anything more, but my point originally was the numbers he was getting were correct.

Hope that makes sense?
 

sailermon

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2015
67
8
Northern California
I tried to comment on this earlier that the numbers you are getting are correct for resting calories. It assumes sedentary and "should" add in your active calories from the heath app. You can see things like Active Calories for the day showing up from your phone/watch which will be added to the resting/sedentary calories.

That is how I understand it. I do not claim to be someone who knows for certain you need to add anything more, but my point originally was the numbers he was getting were correct.

Hope that makes sense?

I don't believe it's correct unless you go about you daily activities without using the workout app or counting steps.
 

BlueMoon63

macrumors 68020
Mar 30, 2015
2,055
959
I don't believe it's correct unless you go about you daily activities without using the workout app or counting steps.

At least in my head it does sound correct. :) Total calorie burn per day starts with the base level for your body type and then all tracked calories with or without the workout. The minimum calories needed for you to maintain your weight would be the resting calories/sedentary. You can't change this to somewhat active or active or very active because the watch will figure that out for you. I see the calories for sedentary equal to resting calories plus all activity calories in the health app coming from the phone and watch. If you add in a workout, those should also be counted.

Anyway, I am somewhat guessing of course but it is very accurate for me so far as it combines the numbers. Will need to read up I think. I do not believe the resting calories is off at all. Compare to any app online with sedentary as the setting. :)
 

alxz1194

macrumors member
Sep 30, 2007
99
13
I tried to comment on this earlier that the numbers you are getting are correct for resting calories. It assumes sedentary and "should" add in your active calories from the heath app. You can see things like Active Calories for the day showing up from your phone/watch which will be added to the resting/sedentary calories.

That is how I understand it. I do not claim to be someone who knows for certain you need to add anything more, but my point originally was the numbers he was getting were correct.

Hope that makes sense?

The resting calories should be BMR only, which as mentioned earlier is a measure of how many calories you burn "to survive". The algorithm in the activity app is multiplying your BMR by an activity factor, so in fact, the presented "resting calories" number is more like an estimated "total calories"! It's completely off right now and I wouldn't use it as a guide until Apple gets this fixed :)
 

stoomc

Suspended
May 11, 2015
104
5
The resting calories should be BMR only, which as mentioned earlier is a measure of how many calories you burn "to survive". The algorithm in the activity app is multiplying your BMR by an activity factor, so in fact, the presented "resting calories" number is more like an estimated "total calories"! It's completely off right now and I wouldn't use it as a guide until Apple gets this fixed :)


Agreed!

The active calories are pretty accurate I would say (pay attention to those, lol!) but don't go by the total amount whatever you do!
 

Gimmi

macrumors regular
Jun 16, 2010
134
44
Central London UK
I believe you have hit the nail on the head here. Apple apparently is incorrectly adjusting the BMR by an activity level factor. If we all entered an activity level as "sedentary," the BMR would be correct. The problem is that I don't know how to change that initial activity level.

Exactly. Compare your BMR and Moderately Active calories using the calculator I mentioned: http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

The latter will probably be the same as your Apple 'resting calories'.

I reset my Watch to the lowest activity level available but it still gives me resting calories which are 500 too high. There isn't a sedentary option as far as I can remember. I just wish there was one for BMR.

i tried decreasing my weight and increasing my age to bring down the resting calories number. It works but probably reduces the Active Calories too much. Can't win!
 

ParishYoung

macrumors 6502a
Mar 18, 2008
644
5
Bristol, South West UK
Just to put this out there:

Is the watch "guessing" to account for the hours that you aren't wearing the watch (like when you're asleep) so as to give you a full day picture?

If you say, cycle to work. Then sit at a desk. You're resting, but your calorie burn will be higher because of the activity you just completed. That could have an effect on its calculation over time.


What's really interesting, is that maybe the Apple Watch is about to expose the population of the world as even more unhealthy than we originally thought....
 

pjschmid

macrumors member
Apr 16, 2015
44
0
It's just plain wrong!!!

There is no way to account for the numbers I'm seeing for resting burn rate. It's calculating over 4200 calories a day. I'm not telling you my height or weight but suffice to say, that a 4200 calorie resting rate is IMPOSSIBLE! If I could burn that many calories doing nothing I would be a size 8 in no time. I assure you that is not the case ;)

As someone stated earlier, Apple has acknowledged that there is a bug in the calculation and we all just have to wait for the fix and stop speculating how it could be correct.
 

ditzy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 28, 2007
1,719
180
At least in my head it does sound correct. :) Total calorie burn per day starts with the base level for your body type and then all tracked calories with or without the workout. The minimum calories needed for you to maintain your weight would be the resting calories/sedentary. You can't change this to somewhat active or active or very active because the watch will figure that out for you. I see the calories for sedentary equal to resting calories plus all activity calories in the health app coming from the phone and watch. If you add in a workout, those should also be counted.

Anyway, I am somewhat guessing of course but it is very accurate for me so far as it combines the numbers. Will need to read up I think. I do not believe the resting calories is off at all. Compare to any app online with sedentary as the setting. :)

The resting calorie rate on the activity app is around 1000 calories higher than my BMR rate. It's around 600 calories more than My Fitness Pal says I should eat while being sedentary. If I took notice of the calories it has said I used and ate that amount I would put on at least a pound a week. The resting calories are not accurate at all.
 

Zeep

macrumors newbie
May 7, 2015
13
0
1.0.1 fixed the resting calories. at least they are _way_ more realistic now.

image shows yesterday/today before/after 1.0.1

VmVsgqS.png
 

stoomc

Suspended
May 11, 2015
104
5
1.0.1 fixed the resting calories. at least they are _way_ more realistic now.

image shows yesterday/today before/after 1.0.1

Image

Your image is not showing up for me for some reason, but I'm willing to bet it's still not working.
Your resting calories are added up throughout the 24 hour day... check back on it later and see.

EDIT: Can see it now, and it looks like what I said was correct.
You havent finished the day yet and you are at 2564 calories. As I say, wait till midnight and see if the resting calories are the same for both days.
 

Zeep

macrumors newbie
May 7, 2015
13
0
Your image is not showing up for me for some reason, but I'm willing to bet it's still not working.
Your resting calories are added up throughout the 24 hour day... check back on it later and see.

Yeah. Stupid me. The day has still 4,5h left.
You're right.

Resting calories are totally off, i simply can't understand how apple could have missed this.
 

stoomc

Suspended
May 11, 2015
104
5
Yeah. Stupid me. The day has still 4,5h left.
You're right.

Resting calories are totally off, i simply can't understand how apple could have missed this.

It's an easy mistake to make :D It's just remembering that the resting calories are not all added at midnight, but over the course of the day.

I believe Apple are aware of this issue (accoring to the Apple support forum)
 

Planepics

macrumors regular
Apr 27, 2015
153
33
Nevada
How to get to this screen??

No, this explanation does not explain.

Depending on algorithm used, I get a BMR of 1847 (from here: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bmr_calculator.htm) and a resting metabolic rate of 2049 (from here: http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/resting-metabolic-rate-calculator.aspx).

My resting calories as displayed by the Apple Watch are 3424. So that's giving me a multiplier of 1.67 to 1.85--which makes absolutely no sense.

Furthermore, if they're calculating EER instead of resting calories, it's still buggy--the app clearly shows them adding active calories to their resting calories to show a total calorie burn. EER already takes into account active calories.

Image

This is what I'm seeing. This is wrong. It's clearly wrong.

Someone please tell me how to get to this screen???????????
 

baarkingmadman

macrumors newbie
May 23, 2015
15
2
weight watcher

I've been in maintenance on Weight Watchers for more than 2 years (male, 48, 5'7", 152lbs). I have neither gained nor lost a pound, on average, for the past 24 months. I say that, not to brag, but to establish a basic fact: my body's energy equation is balanced: input = output. Thanks to Weight Watchers, I know my intake very well, and so I can give an opinion of Apple Watch's resting calories from that perspective. Without a doubt Apple Watch is calculating total calories (output) for me nearly 1000 more than I eat. For those of you who know WW, fruits and veggies are not tracked, but I also know I eat no more than 100-200 calories of fruits and veggies a day. Rounding error and half points amount to maybe another 100-200 calories (that's plus OR minus, but let's do the math worst case). That leaves the Watch calorie counter 600-800 off. The workout app does a great job with exercise calories, so I conclude the resting calories calculation is way off. I realize this is like 6-7 pages into a long thread. I'm just chiming in, hoping to add a voice of urgency for Apple to fix this ASAP, because to my disappointment 1.0.1 did not fix it. Yes, I have reported the feedback to Apple, twice, once before 1.0.1 and once after.
 

stoomc

Suspended
May 11, 2015
104
5
I've been in maintenance on Weight Watchers for more than 2 years (male, 48, 5'7", 152lbs). I have neither gained nor lost a pound, on average, for the past 24 months. I say that, not to brag, but to establish a basic fact: my body's energy equation is balanced: input = output. Thanks to Weight Watchers, I know my intake very well, and so I can give an opinion of Apple Watch's resting calories from that perspective. Without a doubt Apple Watch is calculating total calories (output) for me nearly 1000 more than I eat. For those of you who know WW, fruits and veggies are not tracked, but I also know I eat no more than 100-200 calories of fruits and veggies a day. Rounding error and half points amount to maybe another 100-200 calories (that's plus OR minus, but let's do the math worst case). That leaves the Watch calorie counter 600-800 off. The workout app does a great job with exercise calories, so I conclude the resting calories calculation is way off. I realize this is like 6-7 pages into a long thread. I'm just chiming in, hoping to add a voice of urgency for Apple to fix this ASAP, because to my disappointment 1.0.1 did not fix it. Yes, I have reported the feedback to Apple, twice, once before 1.0.1 and once after.

I understand this is off topic, but well done on being a weight loss maintainer!
Far too many people out there losing weight and expecting to go back to the way they were eating before!
I'm MUCH more interested in people that have maintained a loss.

How much did you weigh at the start?

Back on topic... I'm surprised it's taking them so long to fix this. I'm guessing here, but it's surely something simple!
I agree with regards to the active calories though, they have them nailed IMO. Far too many trackers etc. out there that are leading people to believe they're burning thousands of calories per hour.
 

baarkingmadman

macrumors newbie
May 23, 2015
15
2
How much did you weigh at the start?

Thanks, stoomc. Let's just say it was more than 50 that I lost. Haha. BTW, my main activity during my loss period and maintenance is walking. Nearing the big "5 oh" high intensity exercise is not practically sustainable. But wow, can I walk. I have averaged approximately 70,000 steps per week for the past 100+ weeks. With Watch's heart rate monitor I am planning to add some higher intensity exercise to my life, in a controlled and safe manner. No use having a heart attack getting healthy! But seriously, walking is great but takes time. If I can earn the same activity value in shorter periods of time Apple Watch may "change my life" by letting me reclaim some prime time hours during my evenings.
 

Phily

macrumors member
Jan 13, 2010
68
20
Same problem for me. The AW gives me a BMR of 2700 kcal, every other calculator gives me 1700-1900. That is absolutely ridiculous!
Just sent a feedback to Apple. Hope many of you do the same and Apple gonna fix that soon.
 

Ray Hogarth

macrumors newbie
Jun 2, 2015
2
0
Bucks
My BMR is about 1000 calories too high as well. I have also noticed that the resting calories are not recording in the health app, but the other related data is.
 
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