“Calories in vs. Calories out.”

You have probably heard this phrase before pertaining to weight loss. It’s all about getting that energy balance right. In order to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit. End of story. If you want to know how to be in a calorie deficit click here.

Accurately tracking the calories you put into your body can be hard enough as it is, but should you be keeping track of the calories you burn?

If you have ever stepped on a treadmill, an elliptical, or the stair-master, you might notice that among many other features, the machine also tells you how many calories you are burning or burned during your cardio session. All of the new fancy fitness devices like the Fitbit and Apple watch also possess this feature, and if you are not careful, MyFitnessPal ( a calorie tracking app ) will actually add calories back into your calorie goal to make up for the calories that you supposedly burned throughout the day. If you are trying to stay in a calorie deficit, this can be particularly problematic.

Before we go any further: If you are tracking your food/calories/macros with MyFitnessPal do yourself a solid and turn off the feature that adds your calories burned back into your calorie allowance.

Go into MFP Click on settings. Then, click on goals.

At the bottom you will see something that says Fitness goals. Click on that.

Then you will see that you can turn the exercise calorie adjustment feature off.

Did you turn it off?

I’ll wait.

Okay, good. Let’s move forward.

Let’s talk about the accuracy of these “calories burned” features.

Calorie expenditure can differ from person to person depending on your individual metabolism. This is why it can be problematic to rely on the accuracy of a fitness tracker.

When it comes to “calories in”: It can be a little easier to control/track, but the “calories out” side of the energy balance equation is more complicated.

“Calories out” is also known as your “Total Daily Energy Expenditure” (TDEE) and consists of 4 basic components:

Basal Metabolic Rate:
The amount of energy your body requires to run basic processes.
Non Exercise Adaptive Thermogenesis (NEAT) and Non Exercise Physical
Activity (NEPA):
NEAT: is the amount of energy you spend doing unconscious little movements throughout the day that aren’t actually exercise like fidgeting, or wiggling your toes, or etc.
NEPA: These are more conscious/voluntary movements like standing, walking etc. that are not designated as exercise throughout your day.
Exercise activity (EA): The amount of calories burned during exercise activity.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). The amount of calories your body burns just digesting food. ( Yes, you do burn some calories digesting food but don’t go thinking you are going to burn off that burger just by digesting it. ). Different foods have different thermic effects. Generally foods higher in fiber and protein require more energy to digest and therefore have a higher thermic effect. Eat your veggies and protein kids.

To make things even more complicated, your TDEE can vary from day to day depending upon your activity, food intake, and many other factors. That doesn’t mean you should totally discount the “calories out” side of the equation, it just means that you shouldn’t depend on that number being 100% accurate.

If you have been trying to lose weight and are heavily weighing in the number of calories burned that you are being given by your fitness tracker but you are not seeing any progress, chances are you are not in a calorie deficit. This could be for a few reasons.

You are not burning as many calories as your tracker is estimating for you.
You are not tracking your food/calories as accurately as you might think.
Are you using a food scale and logging absolutely everything? ( Even those chips you ate while deciding if you wanted to eat chips? Or, that handful of granola you swooped up while you decided what to make for breakfast? ).
Your original calorie estimation is too high and you will need to drop your calories. ( see my last post on how to figure this out. )

If you are starting to feel overwhelmed by all of this information, and are feeling the urge to want to throw your fitbit off a roof and say fuck it…take a deep breath. We don’t want to or need to rely on these devices to tell us if we are in a calorie deficit. That is what tracking your progress is for. Which I laid out for you in my last post.

The bad news: The accuracy of your fitness trackers may be off by about 25%

The good news: You don’t need a fitness tracker to lose weight or get fit.

I am not against fitness trackers. I think they can be a great way to keep yourself accountable and encourage you to create new healthy habits, but just like with the scale: Don’t get too obsessed over the numbers. The data is just a tool but sometimes the numbers don’t give you the whole picture.

My favorite feature of a fitness tracker is the step counter because it encourages you to get more movement throughout your day. ( More steps throughout your day is part of the NEAT category I talked about earlier ).

More movement throughout your day = more calories burned…or as the fitness industry likes to say: “It boosts your metabolism.” ( metabolism is a whole other article topic ).

Don’t obsess about your “calories burned” estimations. Your biggest indicator that you are on the right track is always going to be keeping track of your progress.

When it comes to fitness trackers, the accuracy of the numbers isn’t the main focus— it is YOUR consistency.

Even if your fitness tracker isn’t 100% accurate— let’s say you consistently get in “10,000 steps” per day. Maybe you actually had more steps and it slightly undercounted them, or maybe it slightly over-counted your steps. You are still hitting that number within 25% each day. Hitting your steps consistently within 25% each day is still going to burn a lot more calories than not hitting any steps at all. ( Or very minimal amounts. )

You are much better off focusing on tracking your progress while tracking your “calories in” and then adjusting when needed. Don’t over complicate it, and stay consistent.