Burn Meter WAY too high, what's up with that?

When I input my daily activities hour by hour/minute by minute, etc. My burn meter jumps clear up to 3900!

I couldn't possible burn that many calories in a day.

I do cardio 60 mins/day, weights 30 mins 3x's week, several hours studying each day, and most of my day is spent driving places around town, grocery shopping, taking kids here and there, volunteer work and other errands.

I literally counted each activity, even if it was only 5 minutes, including sleep time. I also added up all the minutes to make sure it all totalled 24 hrs.

Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong?  I have been eating about 1200 calories a day, and after losing 28 lbs, rather quickly, I have been stuck at 210 for 6 weeks. This is why I decided to log each activity, because I must be doing something very wrong here, and I'm trying to figure out what it is.

First, I would guess that 1200 cals a day is way too low for you and this can cause weight loss to stop. And secondly, is your activity level set to sedentary?

Hi - the burn meter on calorie count already takes into account the activities that you do on a regular basis.  Our bodies take a minimum of 1,000-1,200 calories a day to FUNCTION, and that is why it is so important to eat at least that much.  So, based on your weight, age, and gender, calorie count already logs at least that much (more if you are heavier) and THEN when you add your activities, it adds them ontop of that. 

For instance, if your body requires about 1,800 calories just to function, and you eat 1,800 calories each day for a week, you will maintain your weight. 

If you eat 200 calories per day less OR you exercise each day to burn about 200 calories, then you body will start using calories that are stored as fat to make sure it has energy to survive - and weight loss will happen.

So it sounds like calorie count is already logging your daily needs (1,800 for example) and THEN you are adding all the activities that it already took into account ontop of it...PLUS your exercise.  The only things you need to log are the unusual or purposeful activities that will burn extra calories.

I hope this helps.

trhawley,

Yes, I set my activity level to sedentary before I logged all my activities for the day. However, I had my activity level at moderate before. I thought that description suited my lifestyle pretty closely.

That was my issue. I was keeping what I thought to be a 1000 cal deficit, based on moderate activity, and I lost weight at a little over 2 lbs per week. Then, I quit losing anything. I've been sitting at the same weight for 6 weeks.

I have logged in my activities for all 24 hours on several days, and each time, it tells me I burn somewhere between 3500-3900 calories. That just seems unreal to me.

Any ideas?

Original Post by geminipeace:

Hi - the burn meter on calorie count already takes into account the activities that you do on a regular basis.  Our bodies take a minimum of 1,000-1,200 calories a day to FUNCTION, and that is why it is so important to eat at least that much.  So, based on your weight, age, and gender, calorie count already logs at least that much (more if you are heavier) and THEN when you add your activities, it adds them ontop of that. 

For instance, if your body requires about 1,800 calories just to function, and you eat 1,800 calories each day for a week, you will maintain your weight. 

If you eat 200 calories per day less OR you exercise each day to burn about 200 calories, then you body will start using calories that are stored as fat to make sure it has energy to survive - and weight loss will happen.

So it sounds like calorie count is already logging your daily needs (1,800 for example) and THEN you are adding all the activities that it already took into account ontop of it...PLUS your exercise.  The only things you need to log are the unusual or purposeful activities that will burn extra calories.

I hope this helps.

this is an excellent explaination.

geminipeace & iletitshine;

I understand what you are saying, however, I literally logged all 24 hours of my activity, and the total of that log was exactly what my burn meter read at the end of the day. Therefore, CC's burn meter did not add any calories to that amount.

When a person logs an activity, the amount of burn from that activity replaces an hour of the usual burn, it doesn't add the entire calorie burn from the activity to the total.

In example, if your burn before activity is 1800, then you do an activity that burns 300 calories, it will not add 300 to 1800. It will replace about 75 calories with 300 calories. Thus making your total burn up to about 2025, not 2100.

Check it out. Write down your current burn and divide that amout by 24 to get your average hourly burn, then add an hour of activity that you know the hourly burn of. Subtract the amount you calculated for average hourly burn from the hourly burn for the activity. This amount is approximately what will be added to your burm meter, not the full burn for the activity. Now check your burn meter for the results.