A Complete Guide to Calories Burned Accuracy on Fitbit Devices

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Is your Fitbit underestimating or overestimating your calories burned?

Co-authored by Cory Stillman Reviewed by Stan Kats

Last Updated: August 1, 2023 Fact Checked

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Is Fitbit "Calories Burned" accurate?

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Checking Your Fitbit's Accuracy

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Improve Your Fitbit's Accuracy

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Tips

Are you wondering how accurate the calories burned calculator is on your Fitbit? The accuracy of each Fitbit tracker varies, although you can largely rely on the number to help support your exercise and dieting habits. Although your calories burned may be off by 200-300 calories per day, fitness experts say that Fitbit can still help you reach the necessary calorie deficit for weight loss, or calorie surplus for weight/muscle building. This wikiHow article will teach you everything you need to know about Fitbit's Calories Burned accuracy and provide tips to make your calorie calculations more accurate.

Things You Should Know

Your Fitbit's Calories Burned feature is pretty accurate, but not perfect.
Fitness trackers cannot take your individual metabolism into consideration when providing calorie burn data.
Even without 100% accuracy, using your Fitbit to track your burned calories is still a great way to develop a fitness routine.

Section 1 of 3:

Is Fitbit "Calories Burned" accurate?

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A meta-analysis of several studies compared estimations from Fitbit's suite of devices to a measure of calories burned. Fitbit scored a 0.64, with a 1.00 being a perfect score.^{[1]
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Fitbit's accuracy differs depending on the type of exercise you are doing. A study found that Fitbit devices can measure within 8% accuracy of calories burned while sedentary. However, the devices can drastically underestimate calories burned while taking steps around the house, up to 74%.^{[2]
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Trustworthy Source

PubMed Central
Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health

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- For other activities:
  - Calories burned during weight training can be overestimated by 12-48%
  - Calories burned while walking can be overestimated by 26-61%
  - Calories burned while cycling can be underestimated by 37-59%
  - Calories burned while jogging can be overestimated by 25-39%
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Some Fitbit models are more accurate than others. Depending on your Fitbit model, your tracker may be overestimating or underestimating your calories burned:
- The Fitbit Versa 2, 3, and 4 models are mostly reliable in tracking your calories burned. The Versa 2 and later have enough technology and features built-in to allow it to accurately track your calories burned. Versa models are more likely to overestimate calories burned rather than underestimate.
- In comparison, models like Inspire 2 and 3 are less accurate and tend to overestimate calories burned. Of course, these are cheaper models that lack built-in GPS, so they're not designed for ultimate accuracy. Still, fitness enthusiasts looking for a cheap fitness band shouldn't shy away from Inspire 2.
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While imperfect, your Fitbit can still be useful for your fitness journey. While the accuracy isn't perfect, it is most essential that the numbers remain consistent, allowing you to develop healthy habits and routines.
- You may want to avoid building your diet around the numbers presented, but your exercise routine could be developed alongside your calories burned.

Section 2 of 3:

Checking Your Fitbit's Accuracy

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Understand how your Fitbit calculates data. While Fitbit does use your personal data (height, weight, gender, age, etc.) in calculating your calories burned, the number also comes from more general calculations that rely on assumptions about how humans burn calories while resting.^{[3]
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- Fitbit combines your calories burned while resting with another number that begins to accumulate whenever your heart rate increases. Fitbit assumes an increased heart rate can account for an additional amount of calories burned.
Consider using an app like MyFitnessPal in conjunction with your Fitbit to better understand your caloric outtake vs. intake.
If you suspect that your Fitbit is inaccurately tracking your calories burned, try wearing another fitness band. You can try wearing another Fitbit, or you can test out a different line of products altogether. If there is a large discrepancy between the numbers, you may consider a few measures to improve your Fitbit's accuracy.

Section 3 of 3:

Improve Your Fitbit's Accuracy

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Wear your Fitbit properly. Wearing your Fitbit too high up on your wrist or too loosely can lead to improper tracking of your heart rate and other key data that contributes to your calories burned. You may also want to wear your Fitbit on your non-dominant hand, so activities like writing do not inflate your statistics.
- This wikiHow article can help you learn to wear your Fitbit properly.
When you weigh in, don't forget to update the Fitbit app with your new weight. This data point is essential to your Fitbit properly calculating your calories burned.
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Stay active. It may sound obvious, but the more activity you perform while wearing your Fitbit, the more the device will come to understand your activity level and measure your calories burned accordingly.
- However, extreme activity can lead to an overestimation of calories burned. If accuracy is your primary concern, you may consider moderate rather than frequent physical activity.^{[4]
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Tips

What is most important in using a fitness band is not accuracy, but consistency. The numbers will always be close enough to provide a snapshot of your fitness journey, but never perfectly accurate.

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While you can provide personal info to help the device understand your metabolism, most fitness trackers either overcompensate for fast metabolism or undercompensate for low metabolism.

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