How to find out how many calories you burn with Apple Watch
Thinking about increasing, or decreasing the amount of food you eat?
Before you do, it’s helpful to know how much energy your body is using every day. We can call this total energy.
It’s easy to find out your total energy # with online calculators or apps like myfitnesspal. But if you own an Apple Watch, you have access to much more accurate data.
To find out your total energy, you need to sum your Resting Energy and Active Energy, two stats that Apple Watch tracks.
But first, a few definitions.
Resting energy: Your body uses up energy no matter if you don’t exercise. Breathing, thinking etc. Your resting energy expenditure is roughly 60 - 75% of the calories you burn in a day.
Active: This is what most people think of when you Mens Health says “torching calories”. Everything from walking your dog, household chores to throwing down a triathlon.
For me, on average, the total energy my body is using every day is about 3300 calories.
The easiest way to find these stats is in the “Health” app on your iPhone. You can see daily, weekly, monthly and yearly averages for both.
• Example active energy chart
Once you’ve had the watch for 6 months or so, check your averages, sum resting and active energy and you’ll have a really clear picture of your total energy.
And if you want to lose weight, it’s as simple as consuming quite a bit less than that number.