Can You Trust Your Fitness Tracker's Calorie Burn?

Nikkiey: Fitness trackers aren't evil. They aren't bad, like I said. A photo can't tell you how much oil was used to make that meal. It can't tell you the difference between four ounces of chicken and six ounces of chicken. It doesn't know if the rice is cooked, dry, half stuck under the sauce. It doesn't know that. That means that you're not tracking. You are pretending.

Yo, yo, yo. What's going on, you guys? Hey, everyone. Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 282. My friends, today we are going to get into something that's low-key driving me absolutely nuts.

I alluded to this in the last episode. So if you listened to the last episode, you probably know what I'm going to get into. If you didn't, drumroll, today's topic is fitness trackers. Or you probably already know because you read the title of the episode. So anyway, fitness trackers, calorie counters, these new AI food apps, all of it. And I want to say in preface, before we get into the episode, it's not that they're bad.

It's that most women are using them wrong, or worse, they're blindly trusting them like they are the gospel truth. And I'm talking Apple Watches, I'm talking Fitbits, I'm even talking things that I use, like Oura Rings. And now, like I alluded to in the last episode, apps that claim they can tell you how many macros are in your food just by snapping a photo of your plate. Yeah.

You guys didn't know? That is a real thing. So we're going to talk all about it today. Here's the problem. We've outsourced our bodies to algorithms, which is wild when you think about it in that context. And most women are struggling not because they're lazy or inconsistent, but because they're getting their information from the wrong source. So what I want to talk about with you guys today is what your fitness tracker can't tell you and what you need to know.

I want to talk about why AI apps are dangerous AF for your long-term goals, and how to start thinking for yourself again when it comes to food, when it comes to your fitness routine, when it comes to your progress. And what to track instead, the real data that actually tells the truth for you. And I've been there too, let me just say that. But if you've ever said, but I closed my rings, or I need to close my rings, or my app said that I'm still in a deficit, or I turned my exercise calories burned on in MyFitnessPal, and you still don't have results, this is for you, my friends. This is for you.

Okay. Let's get something straight out of the gate. Fitness trackers aren't evil. They aren't bad, like I said. As I said, I wear one. Plenty of WarriorBabes wear one. They can be absolutely freaking amazing for keeping you aware of things like your steps, your movement, your general activity levels. But here is where they fail. They don't know you. They don't know your body fat percentage.

They don't know how metabolically adapted your body is after 20 years of yo-yo dieting. They don't know the muscle mass on your body, how much you do have or how much you don't have. They don't know that you're on your period, or how stressed you are, or how little sleep you got last night. And yet, this is crazy, you're using it to decide how much food you should eat, or you're literally using it to tell you what to do for the next day.

Like, if you didn't get enough sleep, this is how you should act the next day. You're solely relying on these algorithms, this data and these apps to dictate your next move. And that's a problem. Because this is the thing. Most trackers are using a formula called METs, metabolic equivalents. It's based on things like your age, your weight, and your heart rate. They're trying to estimate how many calories you're burning in a day.

But if you dive even deeper, and maybe some of you guys already knew this, studies have shown that these devices can be off by as much as 20 to 80% when it comes to your actual calorie burn. So think about that. You think you burned 600 calories in a workout when in reality you maybe only burned 350. But now you're eating more because you quote-unquote earned it. And then the scale isn't moving.

And then you feel stuck. And then you feel like your body is broken. But really, you're just trusting a broken calculator. You're trusting an algorithm to know you. And the saddest part is, you guys are probably working your ass off. You're in the gym, you're meal prepping, you're putting in the time, putting in the work. And it's not paying off because your foundation is literally built on guesswork.

That's not your fault. That's what we've been taught. Track everything. Close your rings. Watch your burn. See how many calories you burned in a workout. Try to burn as many calories as possible. But you guys know that what I love to do is call BS on all of that. Because until you understand how your body works, no device can give you what you need. Okay, so let me take you behind the scenes for a sec and dive in a little deeper with you guys on this from a real human experience.

As I alluded to in the last podcast, I was just at a conference in DC. Super cool event, put on by one of my good friends. As I was speaking, it was a very interactive speaking engagement. People in the audience were talking about this new app, Cal AI, and how it's the future of food tracking. And the way it works is pretty freaking wild. You take a photo of your plate and it tells you how many calories are in it, how much of it is protein, fats, and carbs, all of that. And people were obsessed.

It turned into this whole room downloading this app. And guys, I love innovation. I'm the first person to be on board with innovation. I'm always down for using tech to make life easier when it's accurate. But here's what made me want to flip the damn table. After about a week of downloading this app, putting it to work, trying it for myself, and keep in mind, I know what my breakfast macros and calories are, because I've been eating pretty much the same breakfast for the last two and a half years.

When I took a picture of my breakfast with this app, it was completely wrong. My egg whites, my whole egg, and then oatmeal, or sometimes I have a bagel with cream cheese. It told me I had 12 grams of protein. I was like, this is bonkers. And then I went on to take a picture of my yogurt and fruit at the next meal.

It told me that I had 16 grams of protein. And I know that has 22, maybe even 25 grams of protein in it. I'm like, this is fucking bonkers. And this is the thing, guys. They're marketing it to the general population. That includes women who are already overwhelmed. They're confused. They're unsure what or how to eat. And now you're going to tell them to take a picture of their lasagna and that's enough to get the numbers right? No.

It drives me up a wall. Let me break this down for you. A photo can't tell you how much oil was used to make that meal. It clearly couldn't tell from what I took a picture of, with the egg whites. It can't tell you the difference between four ounces of chicken and six ounces of chicken. It doesn't know if the rice is cooked, dry, half stuck under the sauce. It doesn't know that. It doesn't factor in food density. It doesn't factor in moisture.

It doesn't factor in sauces mixed in. And you guys know what that means, right? That means that you're not tracking. You are pretending. And then when you don't get the results you thought you would by following it, you think that you failed, when really you never had the right data to begin with. It is a digital illusion. And honestly, my friends, it's so dangerous, because for women who have spent years under-eating or yo-yo dieting or trying every diet under the sun, tools like this just further disconnect you from your body.

You're not learning anything. Anything. You're outsourcing your responsibility and it's just keeping you stuck. You guys can probably feel how this stuff is driving me nuts. Because the real problem is you start using these tools because they seem easier. They give you quick answers, the dopamine hits.

You're getting this confirmation that you're doing good. Like, I just took a picture of my food, and I'm tracking my food and logging all of my meals in here. You're going to find yourself relying on these tools, relying on these apps, and you're not going to make any decisions without them. You're not tuning into your actual hunger. You're not checking in on how you feel. You're not even celebrating non-scale victories anymore because your tracker didn't log it.

It's like this. You could have an amazing strength workout. You could PR your squat. You could push even harder. But if your Apple Watch says you only burned 180 calories, now you're disappointed. I have heard so many women say, why am I only burning 200 calories during an arm or shoulder workout? And I'm like, okay, let me break it down for you. It's not just only 200 calories. You need to take into consideration that these are smaller muscle groups. So the calorie expenditure may not be as elevated as you going for a five-mile run or doing a leg day.

But what matters most is, did you push yourself in that workout? Did you have amazing strength gains? Did you PR anything, a shoulder press? You see what I mean? When did we start valuing these fake numbers more than your real progress? This is why so many women come to WarriorBabe feeling so stuck, because they've been so focused on what their tracker says that they forgot to focus on what actually matters.

How is your energy today? Are you getting stronger over a period of time? Is your sleep better? Are you showing up consistently? Are you eating more and still dropping inches? That is real transformation, not red, green, blue, whatever color the rings are on your wrist.

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So if your tracker can't be trusted for calories, then what should you guys focus on instead? I'm probably going to sound like a freaking broken record at this point with all of these episodes that I've shared with you guys, because it literally just comes down to the basics. You need to be taking progress photos weekly, biweekly, or monthly, depending on your relationship with the photos. It's totally different starting out versus being six months into your journey versus a year into your journey. Because the scale lies. But you know what doesn't? The mirror doesn't. You need to be taking measurements: waist, hips, thighs.

Even when the scale stalls, you might still be losing inches. You need to be focusing on your lifts. Are they improving? That means your body is building muscle. How is your biofeedback? Are you sleeping better? Do you know what it feels like to be hungry? How's your energy? How's your mood? How's your recovery? Are you really sore the next day? Are you recovering really well? These tell you what your metabolism is really saying.

That's something a fitness tracker cannot tell you accurately. I would say, if I had to pick one, because it's just coming to me right now, the only fitness tracker I have used that is accurate is the Oura Ring. But that is only on sleep. And sometimes it's not, I would say it's about 80%. Because sometimes it picks up when you sit down on the couch and you're relaxing, and it logs that as the time you fell asleep. And for women, we can track our periods on it, and sometimes it's inaccurate about when it thinks your period is coming. But out of all of the things I've used, that's probably the most accurate, and that's only for sleep. It's not making any recommendations for how many calories to eat. It does show calories burned and how many steps you're doing, but me personally, I don't even look at those numbers anymore, because I know they're probably not 100% accurate.

But these fitness trackers aren't telling you, most importantly, what your metabolism is saying. It doesn't know you. It doesn't know your body fat percentage. It doesn't know your stress levels. It doesn't know if you are on your period. It doesn't know a lot of things.

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Okay. Another thing you should be tracking is your consistency. This last one is an absolute game changer. Are you hitting your macros 85 to 90% of the time? You're not eyeballing it. You're not guesstimating. You're actually tracking and actually logging your food. Because if you're not consistent, you can't adjust. And if you're not adjusting, then you're not progressing.

And for anyone wondering what I even mean by adjusting: if you are just guesstimating and you're like, oh, I need to eat less today, you can't do that, because you don't have accurate, consistent data to go off of, the kind you get from tracking your meals on a daily basis consistently, 85 to 90% of the time.

For those of you inside of WarriorBabe, maybe you go to your coach and say, I haven't been consistent in the last week. Or maybe you don't even say that, because we're the ones who have to detect that. And you're like, I think we should slash calories. The coaches on that team are going to look you straight in the eyeball and say, I hear you, but that's not going to happen. Because if we do that, we are only going to wreck your metabolism even more, because you haven't been consistent.

So what can we adjust? We can't adjust anything, or else you're still going to be eating less and working out, and you're still not going to get the progress that you want. You're not progressing. And most women don't need to eat less or move more. What you guys need is better habits. You need better awareness. You need better data. You need real data, not AI fantasies.

And this is the direction the world is going, which just boggles my freaking mind. Because firsthand, being in that experience of everyone talking about Cal AI and craving and raving and loving it, and then me actually putting it into play and being like, holy shit, this is crazy, this is not good. It's only going to make things worse for women who are not progressing, who have spent years yo-yo dieting, spent years under-eating. Because think about it that way. If that app is not accurately tracking how many macros are actually in the meal you're eating based off of a freaking photo, come on, guys. Logically, how does that make sense? It doesn't make any sense. And if it's not accurate, you're either under-eating or you could be overeating. And that could be the cause of why you're not seeing the progress that you want. Okay?

This is what I want you guys to think about if you are relying on your trackers for all the things I'm talking about today. What we do inside of WarriorBabe is we teach our babes how to use tools without depending on them. Because our ultimate goal is to give long-term success to our clients. We know they have been in this frustration, this confusion. What do I eat? How do I eat it? I'm not getting the results I want, even though I'm putting in the work. Or, I think I'm eating healthy, but I'm still not getting the results in my body.

We give them these types of tools I'm talking about, but we help them not depend on them. What I mean by that is we use MyFitnessPal to track macros. But what these babes are doing on a daily basis is weighing their food. They're not eyeballing it or photo-snapping it and putting it into MyFitnessPal. They're wearing trackers like an Apple Watch, like I do, for steps and movement, but they're not eating back their calories burned.

And when I look at my Apple Watch while I'm working out, I could give a rat's butt about how many calories I burn in a workout. The only thing I'm looking at is the time, because I want to be efficient and I don't need to be there for three hours. And I'm looking at my heart rate so that I can keep it in a solid zone, so that I'm not just going through the motions at 95 beats per minute or 105 beats per minute. I'm up in the 120s, 130s, 140s, maybe even sometimes 150.

Another thing we help these babes do is log their strength sessions after they work out, to monitor their performance. And what they're learning is to tune into their recovery. They're not obsessing over the calorie burn. They're watching, okay, I pushed this much weight, and tracking that in the app. We even rate the workout one to ten. Was it strong? Was it good? Or was it pretty simple and pretty easy? And that helps them tune into their recovery.

Because over time, what we're teaching them, and what fitness trackers and apps aren't doing if you're relying on them, is to build body awareness. You learn what hunger actually feels like. You can estimate portion sizes better because you practiced. That's what drives me nuts about Cal AI. I shouldn't say these people have never, but they maybe haven't practiced weighing their food and seeing what XYZ looks like on a plate, so they can learn what portions look like. But what babes can do, because we don't have them depend on these things, is estimate portions better, because they have practiced weighing things on a scale, putting them on a plate, and seeing what it looks like.

For those of you who think weighing or tracking is restrictive, I want you to change that narrative and be aware of what it's actually helping women do, which is introducing them to food freedom, because of all the things they're able to learn by developing the skill set of tracking and weighing their food on a daily basis. You don't need to do it for the rest of your life, but you need to do it just like you're developing a new skill.

And these women also stop obsessing over 1,200 calories, and they start building a body that feels powerful and alive and so strong. Because here's the truth. You are not a robot, and your transformation isn't a formula. It's about, as I've always said, becoming a new version of you, one habit, one skill set at a time, on a regular daily basis, consistently over time. And when you do that, it's all going to compound, and you're going to look back a year later at where you started and be like, wow, I'm a drastically different person. I've obtained so much more education, so much knowledge, and so much understanding. And that is that new version of you.

Okay, so I'll leave you guys with this one. If your fitness tracker disappeared tomorrow, would you still know how to take care of your body? Would you know how much to eat? Would you know how to structure your workouts? Would you know how to check in on yourself? Would you know what hunger feels like? Would you know what portions you're putting on your plate if you couldn't track in an app? If not, then that's your starting point. Because once you take back that power and understand how to do those things, once you take the power back from the devices and the fancy apps, that's when you finally start seeing results that last.

And I don't want you to get confused, because you guys know that I love data, and data is important. But it's data that you don't depend on. You look at it, you take it into account, but you don't rely on it to tell you how to make your next moves. When you are able to stop relying on those things, stop playing the guessing game, stop overthinking every meal, stop blaming your body and start trusting it, that is a true, real flex.

And when you develop these skill sets I'm talking about, away from depending solely on your fitness tracker, that is a real flex. When you know and understand these tools but don't depend on them, and you have body awareness, you know what hunger actually feels like, you know what portion sizes look like, you know how well you slept, you know what stress you're under, there ain't nobody else in this world, or any AI device, or any fitness tracker, that knows you better. But that's what these things try to do. They try to say that they know you. They don't know you. So don't let those run the show. Remember, you do, and you know what's best for your body. Okay?

All right, guys. I hope this episode helped you all. If it did, screenshot it and tag me on Instagram at The WarriorBabe Show and at Nikkiey Stott. Let me know what device you rely on, if you're someone who relies on one. There's no judgment at all. I hope this podcast helped you, but I want to know, because I read every single one of those stories I get tagged in. Which fitness tracker is it for you, which one do you solely rely on, and how are you going to build more body awareness for yourself? Okay. Love y'all. See you next episode.

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