Accuracy of calories burned??
 

Do you find the calories burned in the Activities section to be accurate? I realize that calories burned will vary depending on the person but I walk on my treadmill for 40 minutes at 3.2 mph and an incline of 6 with wrist weights. The closest thing I could find in the Activities was "brisk, walking for exercise (3.5 mph)". Neither fitday or my treadmill account for the wrist weights. That aside, fitday says my calories burned equals 151 while the treadmill indicates over twice that. :confused:

People that wear the heart monitors when they work out seem to get accurate results. Maybe that is the way to go?? Never used one myself!

WW has approximates that I used to use, but I'm not sure if you'd want to follow that either.

I have no idea if they are accurate or not, seriously how would I tell? The best guess I have is based on how often I lose weight. I usually sort of do a weekly check to see if my weight loss and my calorie deficit make sense. If they don't then I try and figure out what might be wrong with my activities. You might want to add a second exercise for the wrist weights like "weightlifting" or something. Now on your treadmill, does it ask for your weight? Because the calories you burn are dependent on your weight, so if it doesn't ask then I'm going to guess it's giving you some sort of average calorie burn based loosely on the weight of the average person.

I feel that the calories burned in the Activities section is too high at least for me. That is the thing says I burn more calories than I feel I do.

Accuracy
 

It is, indeed, hard for a single program to account for all of the variables each of us bring to a work out. I have a couple of sources of calorie burn for various activities. In some cases FitDay underestimates, in others it over estimates. Since running is my main thing and I have a Garmin Forerunner that I have a lot of experience with, I tend to adjust the FitDay calculations to match whatever the Forerunner says.

Otherwise I am totally in agreement with Almeeker - if at the end of the week all the fancy-schmancy Fitday calculations say you should have lost weight and you didn't... adjust how you use the calculations. For the most part as long as you are honest, the calories you eat are correct, so it is the calories you expend that needs to change. ;)

According to fit day, a person having vigorous sex is using less calories than someone doing absolutely nothing (sedentary lifestyle). I suspect that most activities don't take into account your weight which will affect almost every activity, most likely the activities are based around a 150lbs person. The different lifestyle choices DO take into account your weight. I don't know if gender is considered in any of the calculations. Some of the activities seem to be pretty generous with calories burned (could indicate they considered my weight) so there are some that are definitely low and some that are probably high.

The treadmill is probably not very accurate unless your bodyweight is close to the presumed level or it has some other way to measure your body weight. A lot of people swear by heart rate monitors but so far I haven't personally shelled out the cash for one, simply keeping a consistent workout schedule is all I need to be able to look at.