[posting this here bc the fitness comm is pretty dead]
I'm tryna track my calories more closely and I've got a solution for tracking the calories I eat (shout out to the Nutritionix app) but its functionality for tracking calories spent is very rudimentary and I want to get something more precise than just going to an online calculator like this.
If any of yall have recommendations on cheap wearables that'll keep track of the calories I burn while exercising, I'd hugely appreciate it. I don't need it to do anything else and I don't even need it to connect to my phone, since I'm willing to manually input the number of calories burned every day.
Death to America
Wearables are just making the same rudimentary guesstimate as that calculator but with the convenience of some of the inputs being entered for you.
Just as your nutrition apps are just based on averages from measured samples that can be considerably different than the food you actually ate.
Trying to measure calories precisely is a fool's errand. Best to just accept that it's all a guesswork and use it only as a rough guide.
does heart rate measurement not allow more accurate estimates of calories burned than a calculation based on weight and distance run? i know nothing about biology so im open to being educated here, but i assumed a wearable that monitors your heart rate would be able to get better results than a calculator
Death to America
not the answer you are looking for but i have nothing better to contribute
On the privacy aspect specifically, you could try finding a wearable that is supported by gadgetbridge: https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge
That way at least you know that your info is not being sent to some corporation. You would still need to use your phone though.
Gadgetbridge is such a fantastic privacy-preserving option for health trackers and it supports so many devices. Definitely check this list to find a compatible device
https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/wearables/
Some of them used to work even if you didn't connect them to the app.
Calorie measurements are super sketchy though. Afaik you mostly want to look at excercise as making gains and calorie control and macros for managing weight and body composition. With the reminder that muscle is much denser than fat so if you can shift your body comp towards muscle you'll be "slimmer" without your weight changin as much.
I've heard that measuring food calories is difficult even in lab conditions
Tbh if you are tracking your intake and weight and adjust accordingly it'll get you to where you want to be all the same, unless you're measuring CO2 exhalation in a computer you're not going to accurately track burn anyway.
MacroFactor is good for this
