Why are my calories burned so high on my Fitbit?

Updated on


We use affiliate links and may receive a small commission on purchases. Read more about us

Home » Fitbit » Why are my calories burned so high on my Fitbit?
Photo of author
Written By Dinu Sri

Dr H. T. D. S. Madusanka is an electronic expert with 10 years of experience, involved in the research and development of SMART HOME systems.

The Fitbit smartwatch is one of the best calorie-burning detecting instruments for a user, with the highest accuracy. 

We have been able to identify the Fitbit smartwatches and bands to be delivering calorie-burning data with up to 4% of accuracy. We could see that users came about an increased level of calorie burning overnight. 

The best possible reason is Fitbit’s assumed calories burned for the day and giving it as an estimation. The calorie burn count per day happens at midnight. Although your calorie burning is slow during sleep, the clock will automatically calculate it for the entire day and show it as an average. 

When you see the calorie burning in the morning or any time of the day before midnight, then you will always see an increased calorie burning. 

However, we also found more reasons for having a higher calorie-burning indication in your Fitbit smartwatch. 

1. One Of The Calorie Burn Detecting Sensors Is Malfunctioning

The sensors include movement detection, heart rate calculation, and excess tracking. Also, they perform excellent work to keep an accurate calorie burn calculation. We saw that the calorie burning could go wrong when one of these three sensors did not work. 

2. The Software Is Not Up To Date

Among the 56 cases we got about having an increased calorie burn on Fitbit, we found 08 cases that had occurred due to updating. Every one of them had not installed the latest Fitbit version on their smart devices. Since Fitbit is sending updates to provide more accurate data through the involvement of more sensors, it is vital to install updates. 

Note: We found that users had complained about the increased calories burnt after updating the Fitbit. We recommend you install Version 1.88.11 as the latest Fitbit version. 

3. You Are Getting Old

Although you think that the Fitbit smartwatch is showing inaccurate details, maybe it is not. You might have already forgotten that you are getting older day by day. If you kept your eyes really strict on calorie burning a couple of years ago, then you will not get the same calorie-burning reading again. 

Not only that, your gender, age, profession, and mentality levels are causing the fluctuating calorie burning.  

4. You Frequently Have High Heart Rates

The Fitbit device takes your heartbeat to give an accurate reading. This happens as the smartwatch assumes that you have higher heart rates than helpful as you do homework. But, those who have higher heart rates will get an increased heart rate in the calorie burning. 

We can count 60 to 100 beats per minute as the average heart rate of a healthy person. When you are on or after a fever, have a low red blood cell count due to anemia, have an overactive thyroid condition, or due to genetics, you may get an increased heart rate. 

Note: We found that women have higher heart rates than men. Also, that can be more than 03 beats than a healthy man. 

5. You Have Not Updated Your Weight On Fitbit

If you are a person who lost weight suddenly, then you might have got a sudden weight increase reading. Since the Fitbit device calculates the calorie burning based on your weight, along with the other usual criteria, you must update your new weight on the device.  

6. You Have Just Had A Long Sleep With Movements

We found out that sleep is one reason for delivering an increased calorie-burning reading. If you have had a long sleep with lots of movements, you might get increased calorie burring estimation for the entire day. 

Note: If you are a remote worker, you will face this scenario more than anyone as your remaining half of the day doesn’t involve many physical activities. However, the estimation will be fixed at the end half of the day. 

How To Fix Fitbit Calories Burned?

We found the following methods that can fix your fault on Fitbit calories burned reading.

Update Your Fitbit Devices

You must update your Fitbit device to the latest version. We recommend you follow the below steps.

  • charge the Fitbit device up to 75% at least
  • Update the Fitbit app on your smartphone
  • open the Fitbit app when the device is around
  • Get to your profile image. You may get there by tapping on the Today tab and your profile picture

C:\Users\NINU\Downloads\rtaImage.png

  • You must click on the pink update button. 

C:\Users\NINU\Downloads\download.jpg

Note: If you don’t see a pink update button, you don’t have new updates to install. 

If you have trouble with updating the Fitbit device, we recombined you to use the following link to access a valuable article. 

Update Your Weight On Your Fitbit Device

You must update your weight on the smart device regularly to get the most accurate readings. The following steps will help you to do that. 

  • Tap on the Today tab and then tap on the weight tile
  • Tap the plus (+) icon on the top
  • Update the new weight and then hit save

Avoid Calorie Estimation

The calorie burning estimation is not an error but a better way to see the entire calorie burning you will have completed the entire day. Simply, you don’t want to wake up at midnight to see the calories burnt for the day. 

 If you are either uncomfortable or want to see the calories burned at a specific time, we recommend you disable the calorie estimation.

The following steps will explain how to disable calorie estimation on Fitbit

  • Open the Fitbit app and Log into your dashboard
  • Tap on the gear symbol, which is listed in the upper right

C:\Users\NINU\Downloads\gear.PNG

  • Tap Settings
  • Get to Preferences which is at the bottom
  • Disable the calorie estimation

Note: you don’t have to disable the calorie estimation when you have logged any activity or synced data on the Fitbit device. 

Conclusion

We hope that you must have understood what has gone wrong to have increased calorie burning and sorted that out already. If you still can’t fix the problem, we suggest you contact the Fitbit customer care center.