I’m work security in a 20+ story building, when I do my rounds I walk up the stairs to each floor and my new smart watch I got myself today is now telling me I am walking a little more than phone normally says I do. As for the calories it’s saying I’m burning nearly double what my phone pedometer says I do, how accurate is this data? Just to clarify, my phone’s pedometer does have my weight and height so it can better track my performance.
In: Technology
The calorie burn numbers from watches is an interesting problem. It basically uses your age, heart-rate, weight, height, etc. to figure out your calorie burn. Heart-rate is the biggest part of this formula. (If it didn’t ask you for any of this other data — then the formula is basically junk).
But there’s a catch…. You burn calories just sitting around doing nothing. For example, just laying on the couch taking a nap, you’re going to burn 70 to 120 calories an hour.. This is called your “resting metabolic rate” (RMR). Fitness watches tend to INCLUDE THIS NUMBER in your total calorie burn data they show you!!!!!!!!
This means if your watch says you burned 200 calories doing a workout, you ACTUALLY only burned ~100… Because you would have burned the other 100 even if you were taking a nap. “Active calories” vs. “Total calories” (Watches like the Apple Watch actually DO report these numbers separately — but even then… they’re wrong.)
Here’s how you can know they’re wrong……. Put your watch into “Workout mode”… Now go lay down and watch TV. Look at the total calorie burn it reports. Yup… it says you burned calories while you were laying down doing absolutely nothing.
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