Why Apple Fitness Shows You 'Total Calories' and 'Active Calories'

We might say, for example, that a half hour jog burns 300 calories.

Remember, it takes quite a few calories just to keep your body alive and functioning.

(Yes,there is data on this.)

This is what Apple is trying to communicate with the active and total calorie labels.

Apple reports that I burned 351 total calories, of which 294 were active calories.

How do we burn calories that are not active calories?

It takes a lot of energy to keep a human body alive!

it’s crucial that you keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing, and your brain thinking.

Each cell of your body has to do lots of microscopic maintenance work to stay alive.

It stops defending itself against germs and fungi, and begins to fall apart.

And all of that takes energy, which we measure in the form of calories.

I discussed this a bit more inthis article on how many calories we burn each day.

That isbeforecounting any exercise activities or even daily activities like walking around the house and brushing your teeth.

RMR plus the activities we dosuch as exerciseequals our total calorie burn for the day.

Take that number with a grain of salt, though.

You know the oneits the greenish-yellow icon with the little running person.

But my active and total calories are the same for workouts logged through other apps.

Strength training from Whoop?

58 calories active, 58 total.

A five-mile run with Strava?

695 active, 695 total.

My morning walk, picked up by Oura?

68 active, 68 total.

Since the Apple Fitness app doesnt know the split, it just reports the same number in both spots.

Calorie burn, as measured by wearables (anywearables, not just the Apple Watch)isnt always reliable.

So the most correct answer is: neither.