Active calories vs total calories

I am still struggling to understand and use this process. The other day I spent 70 min on my stationary bike. A few minutes after the start my watch showed about 20 active calories and 40 total calories. At the end of my ride the watch showed 300 active calories and 400 total calories. What's going on and which is supposed to indicate calories burned on the ride? They both increased, but total calories increased faster than active.


Apple Watch Series 5, watchOS 7

Posted on Jan 22, 2021 12:27 PM

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4 replies

Jan 22, 2021 1:21 PM in response to Randy-12

Isn't it called active calories if burned because of excercise? I just think it's been complicated too much. I just want to know how many calories were burned as the result of the excercise, 300 or 380. For example in the MyFitness diet tracking app it has an input for the calories burned for a given exercise. What do you put there. It's not clear at all.

Jan 22, 2021 12:37 PM in response to infodave

Resting Calories


Your resting calories per day is the amount of energy (in the form of calories) that your body needs to function while resting. This is also known as BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate. This number of calories reflects how much energy your body requires to support vital body functions. In fact, your BMR is the single largest component (upwards of 60 percent) of your total energy burned each day.

Basically, your body burns calories just by doing nothing, and this is the number those calories are.


Active Calories


These are the calories you burn by being active, such as walking, hiking, playing sports, etc. These calories are vital to losing weight, as the only way to burn more calories than you eat while maintaining a healthy diet is to burn active calories.


Total Calories


This is the sum of the Resting Calories and Active Calories you burn in a 24 hours. This is the number of calories you should be focusing on each day when factoring in how many you burned. Combining both Active Calories and Resting Calories gives you the most complete picture of your day.

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Active calories vs total calories

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