LOL Garmin you cray-cray

dalhectar

So I have a Garmin Forerunner 610. Had it for years, use it to track runs. Last year I added an optical HR arm strap, to keep tabs on my heart rate and use for heart rate training. This winter to keep track of indoor mileage I added a foot pod, which seems to work well.

What changed this year is that I wanted to get more serious about losing weight. So I made a myfitnesspal account and now track calories with it. I've also adopted running every day, prior to mid January I was on a off cycle and only ran once or twice a week.

What the Garmin is doing is reporting that I'm over-training (I think because it's noticed the difference between running 4 times in 30 days to 30 times in 30 days) and is highly discounting calories burned. Today a leisurely 11 min/mile recovery run for 30 minutes only burned 147 calories. To compare, smashrun gives the same run 460 calories. The 147 is what myfitnesspal imports, and it's basically ruining the net calories calculations. The effects though are "interesting" to say the least.

Having a lower calorie goal to eat has shaped my eating, I'm losing much more than the 1/lb per week as entered even though I'm eating over 2k total calories a day, all while I'm shooting over the calorie targets. I've lost 10+ pounds when in reality I should have only lost 5 or so to date. It's not all fun and games though, 5RMs on lifts have stalled or decreased.

In the end, it really does help to lose weight by underestimating your exercise calories, even when your tracking devices does the underestimating for you. Just be mindful not to underestimate too much & a stable weight loss plan is a good weight loss plan.