Confused about activity-using garmin vivofit

stephc002

Hey everyone. So I am new here and just discovered em2wl, but so far I love it. I don't feel like I am starving like I do with mfp calorie calcs, but I am still losing (so far, only been a week). I confused about the activity calories and could use some guidance...

I use a garmin vivofit tracker. Garmin and mfp won't sync correctly for some reason, and my activity calories right now are showing up as lower in mfp than garmin. For example, today my garmin shows I have over 400 active, while mfp shows 300 some (based on thr number of sreps i have today). I am not sure what to use to track my activity. Should I use the garmin active calorie numbers, the mfp calculated numbers, or enter my time I spend actually walking on mfp (often calorie burn is higher when I do it this way). Anyone else having similar issues? Thanks!

jlanderson_12

Mine used to sync fine and then an update happened on both apps and now they don't talk to each other on mine either. I personally don't worry about activity calories. I just go by the calories burned when I wear my HRM and am actually working out. I feel like if I go by all activity then I would be over calculating.

Now that I said that, starting this week I stopped counting or even worrying about calories burned. I don't eat them back anyway so now I use it more for motivation. I also have my daily calories set at over 1800 and pay more attention to my macros.

This is just me though.

stephc002

Thanks for the input! I was just confused as to whether I should be eating some back or not based on what I have found on em2wl. And i see a lot about fitbit on here but havent seen anything from anyone using a garmin. Was wondering how accurate everything is. I have been trying not to eat my exercise calories, but sometimes it is nice to be able to use a few extra calories to indulge (like the ice cream I had today...lol).

heybales

Doesn't the Vivofit give a figure as far as total calories burned daily?
With means to review at weekly intervals?

I'd use that to come up with a static figure to eat to daily - rather than guessing from 5 rough levels.

Just need what the average daily burn is to find your weekly average TDEE.

Could adjust that if desired, 100 extra on workout days, 100 less on rest days - as long as those 2 cancel each other out equally.

LAMypie

The way I understand it is that vivofit calculates your active calorie burn, then compares that to what MFP says you should burn and it gives you calories back based of the difference between the 2. I don't have the HRM, and I don't log any walking on MFP, since that is calculated in already. I also take it off if I'm on any cardio machines at the gym. It doesn't track right, and I want that to be seperate. I don't know if that helps at all.