For some background, I have been emailing, and talking to Whoop support for the past week about how inaccurate their calorie calculations are. It has gone nowhere. I’m about 20 days into my Whoop Life membership. I’m 6 feet tall and weigh about 190 lbs. My main activities are weightlifting, and some sort of cardio, which I mostly rotate. I have averaged over 12,000 steps a day since I have had my Whoop. My calculation example for 8/2/26 will be at the end of this post. I will update this daily (for my prior day) going forward. I will do this daily until Whoop fixes this well known problem. My goal was to replace my current fitness tracker (Garmin Fenix) with Whoop. But I need Whoop to have something that closely resembles a calorie burn estimate. Whoop could not be more flawed. It will be obvious below. This is a well discussed topic on this board. I find it mind blowing that it has not been addressed by Whoop.
What I have learned, and things I feel pretty confident about-
Calories are grossly undercounted. I’m worried about the public using this to manage calorie intake. A genuine risk to the public.
The base BMR calculation does not work. It’s so easy to see. I had Whoop set my base BMR to 2,000 kcal. Mine really should be 1,749 kcal. But I wanted to set a hard number so I could compare my BMR base to incremental activity. It could not be more flawed. It is easy to prove. Just look at my numbers from yesterday below.
Whoop is all heart rate based. In theory it makes sense, but in practice it does not work.
Whoop does not give credit for steps. It is obvious that while in Zone 0 or Zone 1 type heart rate. Incremental calories do not happen while taking steps. It is a well known fact that a step equates to 0.04 to 0.06 kcal per step. This doesn’t happen on Whoop.
Relative to my Garmin Fenix, Whoop consistently comes in 500 to 700 calories light.
Based on my weight changes and calorie intake, it is easy to see that Garmin is way closer to correct than Whoop. I count them meticulously.
Going forward I will update this post daily to prove my point. I hope someone at Whoop will finally notice, and take action. My posts will be much shorter in the future.
The metrics I use will be simple, but easy to comprehend. How I will do it-
My base BMR has been set to 2,000. That is the calories my body would burn if I just stayed in bed all day, and did nothing other than just breadth and have my heart beat.
What incremental activities I logged on Whoop, and their calorie burn calculated on Whoop’s own metrics in the app. Times when I manually start an activity.
Compare that number to the calories total calories displayed in Whoop. I will subtract out my steps during activities. For my weightlifting days I can’t get that exact number, as it is not in the activity. I will subtract out 1,000 which should be on the high side because I lift in a garage gym.
Day 1 Blog 8/2/26-
What I did-
Base BMR: 2,000 kcal
Activity on Whoop: Weightlifting, 219 kcal
Steps: 8.636. Less 1,000 during weightlifting. 7,636*.05 = 381 kcal
My base BMR is 2,000. Whoop told me that is hard coded on my profile. According to Whoop’s final number it said I only burned 68 kcal above my BMR.
Yet their own weightlifting activity has me at 218 kcal.
I did an incremental 7,636 steps outside of the activity log.
I also did yard work, and went to the beach. It’s not like I did nothing.
How could my total calories be only 2,068 when my base BMR is hard coded at 2,000? It makes no sense. Not even close to reality. Very disturbing,
If my BMR is 2,000 there is no scientific way my total yesterday can only be 2,068 calories. I weightlifted, did yard work, went to the beach, 8,636 steps, and all that only burned 68 calories above my BMR? Whoop’s own app said I did a 219 kcal weightlifting activity.
Whoop total kcal on my app for the day was 2,493 kcal which is about 548 kcal light.
In interesting to note- Just my baseline BMR of 2,000 kcal plus the 567 kcal from weightlifting alone should be 2,567 kcal. This is data logged on their own app. That just shows once again that baseline BMR plus the activity I logged on their app is higher than what their total kcal showed me. How is that even possible? Whoop can’t even add my baseline BMR plus a logged activity together? Not to mention all the calories from the steps. This needs to be fixed ASAP. The public is at risk if managing calorie intake based on Whoop numbers. Nothing works, and people could be at risk of running too large of a deficit.
Once again Whoop is off by a significant margin. It is clear there are no calorie credits for steps. It is a well known fact that steps account to 0.04 to 0.06 kcal per step. I also believe that movement activity while in zone zero, gives very little, if any, calorie credits for movement above your BMR. I’m even starting to question if baseline BMR works properly.
Notable conclusions as I dive deeper-
I generally do two buckets types of activities. Weightlift one day and do an incline walk the next day. I often rotate that throughout the week.
The days I weightlift, and still do a large amount of steps, the calorie deficit on Whoop becomes larger than the days I do an incline walk. My widest margins have been closer to 700kcal, and yesterday was the closest I have seen in three weeks.
While I weightlift, my heart rate mostly stays in a low zone, like zone 0 and 1.
This is probably a very similar to the zones I’m in while making my normal steps throughout the day.
Baseline BMR calories should only be what it takes your body to breadth, and make a heartbeats. Basically just to stay alive.
While taking steps etc, that is excess, even if in zone 0.
Whoop does not give direct calorie credits for steps, it is way more heart rate based. If not going to give direct credits for steps, Whoop needs to give more calorie credits for while your heart rate is above your resting heart rate (even if in zone zero)
In my opinion the easiest fix would be to give a 0.04 to 0.06 kcal credit per step based on your body composition. It would instantly close the gap between Whoop theory and reality. Use only the steps outside of logged activities.
Details from 8/5/26 below-
Baseline BMR manually set by Whoop = 2,000 kcal (I had Whoop do this)
Completed total activities logged on my Whoop app = 711 kcal
Completed steps on Whoop app= 13,412
Complete steps on Whoop app outside of activities= 6,054
Once again Whoop total calories are below my baseline BMR, and the logged activity calories on their own app. How is that possible? That doesn’t even include all the other movement I did throughout the day.
Most of the gap once again is the calories from steps. BTW my Garmin Fenix was within 50 calories of my personal numbers above. Whoop - please fix this. The public is at risk if managing intake based on Whoop’s calorie estimate.
Whoop was only 161 kcal above my set BMR in Whoop, and 698 kcal light
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE with a 348 kcal weightlifting activity logged on their own app and 10,671 steps???
I also compared my first hour of my weightlifting activity, and compared that to my BMR kcal per hour which is 83.3 kcal. How could one hour of weightlifting be only be 21kcal above my BMR.??? I posted a separate detailed post on that yesterday which includes screen shots of that. It also showed what my kcal burn on Garmin was during that same hour. Garmin was 100k kcal above my BMR which makes sense (how about common sense). WHOOP is so flawed.
Details from 8/6/26 below-
Baseline BMR manually set by Whoop = 2,000 kcal (I had Whoop do this)
Completed total activities logged on my Whoop app = 376 kcal
Completed steps on Whoop app= 10,671
Complete steps on Whoop app outside of activities= 9,671
WHOOP total calories came in significantly below my BMR and an activity that was logged on their own app. That should be IMPOSSIBLE!!! Pictures and calculations attached to prove it-
My calculated calorie burn: 2,915 kcal
Whoop displayed total calorie burn: 2,285 kcal
Whoop is 630 kcal light. But more significantly- How can my baseline BMR be set to 2,000 kcal and I completed a 494kcal activity and my total calories come in at 2,285 kcal on the app? WHOOP manually set my BMR to 2,000kcal. Plus all my additional steps??? I am mathematically proving WHOOP is flawed.
Details from 8/10/26 below-
Baseline BMR manually set by Whoop = 2,000 kcal (I had Whoop do this)
Completed total activities logged on my Whoop app = 494 kcal (screen shot below)
Completed steps on Whoop app= 9,416
Complete steps on Whoop app outside of activities= 8,416
One step is 0.05 kcal for my body composition.
Step calories = 8,416 * .05 = 421 kcal
Total calories burned = 2,000 BMR + 494 activity + 421 steps = 2,915 kcal
WHOOP total calories displayed on their app: 2,285 kcal
WHOOP came in 630 kcal light. WHOOP is mathematically FLAWED with both their own logged numbers, as well as in comparison to my calculated numbers.
Even if you just added my baseline BMR to my logged activity, it should be 2,494kcal and WHOOP
had me at 2,285 kcal. That isn’t even including all my steps. THIS SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE!!!
WHOOP needs to fix this before they put someone in a hospital who is managing their calorie intake from WHOOP’s calorie numbers. WHOOP is drastically off.
I have spoken to WHOOP on this calorie topic quite a few times. Please see my blog for 8/10/26 above. I’m confident they are aware of it. But the more members that email them, and call them on the flawed calorie calculation, the better. As a community, we have strength in numbers. They told me that. If you are having this problem, please email them and call them at the email and phone number below. The more complaints they receive the better chance this is fixed. Emailing them, and calling them logs the topic/complaint. I’m confident this is flawed for everyone. Thank you.
