Garmin Connect steps no calorie adjustment in MFP

johnhunter03

Hello all I've been having an issue in MFP lately getting info from GC. I have a VivoactiveHR and GC gets all the data it should from MPF including my food calorie consumed etc. and MFP does get the exercise data from GC but while it does show my GC steps it doesn't do any calorie adjustment for them.

Example: MFP app shows I walked 1330steps according to GC (yes it is selected as the counter) but gives 0 calorie adjustment for this. My GC correctly adjusts calories using data.

MFP: 1790 Goal - 1160food + 160exercise= 790 remaining

GC: 1790 Goal - 1160food + 305 activity = 935 remaining

MFP is only tracking the calories burned from my exercises (the 160) but not step adjustments. Does anyone know of a fix? I've tried resync and closing the apps and reopening them and the web versions and nothing seems to work.

Thanks.

StaciMarie1974

if it works the same way Fitbit/MFP works: this means you have not earned any calories above what MFP expected you to burn. Do you have negative calories enabled? If not try turning that on to see how far behind you are. You may want to choose a lower activity level in MFP.

Long explanation:

When using MFP alone, you enter your stats and select an activity level. Based on gender/height/weight/age and activity level MFP estimates you will burn X calories per day. Lets assume it is 2400 for the sake of this example. If you want to lose 1 pound per week, MFP tells you to eat 1900. You are somewhat guessing at 'activity level'.

When you use a tracker - the tracker uses your stats and your actual movements to estimate your calorie burn thru the course of the day. MFP gets that information, compares to what it expected: if you're ahead you gain calories. If you're not ahead you either see a 0 adjustment or a negative adjustment if you have that enabled.

Going back to the example of 2400 per day being what MFP expects you to burn, which of course does not count exercise. Lets say your BMR is 80/hour. At 6am you wake up, you were not sleep walking, and your device says you've burned 80 x 6 = 480 calories. You sync, and MFP gets the 480. But thinks you should be at 600 (2400/day = 100/hr) because MFP can't really know that you're more active some hours and less active others like when you're asleep. So MFP shows you are behind by 120. Then you sync at 8am. Perhaps from 6-7 you did misc stuff around the house and your tracker showed you burned another 95, and then from 7-8 you go for a run and burned 400. So now at 8am your tracker shows you've burned 480 + 95 + 400 = 975. MFP expected you to be at 800 so now you have an extra 175. Each time you sync, MFP does this. Compares your tracker # for actual burned against what it expected you to be at right now.

If you log exercise in MFP it gets a little more complex. Say you logged a 300 calorie swim. Now MFP expects you to burn 2400+300 today, or 2700 total. It will then use this new 2700 value up against the tracker # burned. So logging exercise in MFP can make it take longer to see an adjustment from the tracker.

To earn tracker adjustment calories you must move enough that you are ahead of what MFP predicted based on your activity level.

johnhunter03

Why then does Garmin's software account for all of this and adjusts based on every step? Also before I purchased the tracker I used my phone to count my steps in MFP and it adjusted my calories based on any step amount as well?

Thanks

kendahlj

It doesn't record regular steps you take during the day, as has been explained. If you go for a long walk and that's your exercise and you want to record it and have it count as an activity and have it sync to MFP, you have to start and stop and save it. Let me know if you need help knowing how to do this...