Any Garmin users?
AmandaRose919
Posts: 9 Member
Hey just wondering if anyone else is using a Garmin and the Connect app in conjunction with MFP?
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Replies
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I am. I have a Forerunner 220 HRM, not an activity tracker. Connect automatically syncs my runs with MFP.0
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I have a forerunner as well I manually enter mine though because I follow if it fits your macros and I don't want it messing with my grams lol0
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I do! I have a Vivoactive and it automatically connects to MFP. I love it!0
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I am. I currently have the Vivoactive HR.0
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I have the Garmin Fenix 3. It auto syncs with Garmin Connect. Once auto sync'd, it goes directly to mfp.0
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I have the Garmin Vivoactive HR too. Does anyone understand the "exercise adjustments"? I have been trying to figure it out and am totally lost.........0
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I too just got one and am trying to figure this one out.0
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FR35 here, used it for a few weeks but only just synced to MFP so we'll see how well it syncs after my next workout.0
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Vivoactive HR here, I'm very pleased with it!0
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I recently purchased the Vivoactive and really like it. Lots of functionality and nice and thin so I can wear it to work. You can get factory refurbs on Amazon for $99.0
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NicholeAckerman wrote: »I have the Garmin Vivoactive HR too. Does anyone understand the "exercise adjustments"? I have been trying to figure it out and am totally lost.........
So you entered all your information to MFP and it spits out a daily calorie goal based upon how many calories it thinks you will burn today. Your Garmin records actual data and says what you are actually burning. Whenever you sync the two numbers are compared, and the difference is the exercise adjustment.
Some say it works better than others. I find it to be spot on. I set my activity level to sedentary In MFP. Be aware if you sync a lot during the day the number will always be changing. If you don't sync often and have negative calorie adjustments enabled you may be in for a surprise when you sync as the number can change significantly.
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I`ve been using Garmin products for years.......keeps my distances honest, tracks pace & HR and some of their models have a fairly reliable algorithm for estimating energy expenditure. (Santa`s not very good at keeping secrets, I know I`m getting a 920xt for Christmas)
Garmin Connect is very useful and I have my synched with MFP.0 -
singletrackmtbr wrote: »NicholeAckerman wrote: »I have the Garmin Vivoactive HR too. Does anyone understand the "exercise adjustments"? I have been trying to figure it out and am totally lost.........
So you entered all your information to MFP and it spits out a daily calorie goal based upon how many calories it thinks you will burn today. Your Garmin records actual data and says what you are actually burning. Whenever you sync the two numbers are compared, and the difference is the exercise adjustment.
Some say it works better than others. I find it to be spot on. I set my activity level to sedentary In MFP. Be aware if you sync a lot during the day the number will always be changing. If you don't sync often and have negative calorie adjustments enabled you may be in for a surprise when you sync as the number can change significantly.
I thought that was supposed to be how it worked....LOL Yesterday on my garmin I was at 1955 and mfp gives me 1200, so it should have been like 755 right? I got 660, so I guess it is somewhat accurate. I also don't sync all the time either. Thanks I appreciate the information!!!!!0 -
I have a Garmin Fenix 3 HR on order, plan to receive it and get switched over from Fitbit within the next week or so.1
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Do you wear your tracker all the time? If so, set your MFP activity to the lowest level. I've got a Vivosmart HR (don't recommend it, too many software issues) and through trial and error, I've found I need to set the activity level in Connect to 7 while setting MFP's activity to the lowest setting. I use a chest strap when using the treadmill, but I don't link t to MFP. So if I sync before and after I use the treadmill, I get one number in Connect that seems low, but the MFP number is close to what the chest strap shows. Seems counter intuitive for me but it's working.
Planning to replace mine if Garmin doesn't fix a couple of software issues with the VSHR. Waiting until the new year. Might get the VAHR, as it seems to have less issues, or go to a Polar. I want HR and real waterproof, may even get GPS if I start running outside.1 -
@grmckenzie -- Thanks for your reply.
While I am not the OP, but I do wear my VAHR tracker all the time. Originally, I had set MFP to Sedentary with 3 workouts/week and 30 mins per exercise as I did not have a tracker and was manually entering workouts into MFP. Now I have removed the exercise levels from MFP and let the GC do its thing. The calorie numbers showed between MFP and GC seem consistent but I suppose there is not an easy way of knowing if they are both accurate. On GC, my activity level is set to 6.
But I'm liking my VAHR so far. It's only been three days but hopefully the motivation will continue.0 -
Gonna bump this to ask if anyone has the data coming from Garmin Connect to MFP accurately?
As of Black Friday, I've got the VAHR. And I've been playing with the settings in GC to see how close I can get to what my Polar strap says. Still have MFP set at the lowest level with minimal exercise.
So, set GC to 10. 25 mins on the treadmill. Polar shows 246 cals. GC & MFP shows 294 for the same activity. I've got my weight the same in all 3 (MFP, GC & Polar). ~20% difference.
HR recorded are:
Polar Max 137, ave 126
GC Max 137, ave 122
Am I chasing my tail or can I get it closer then this?
And rprr, feel free to pick your forum to respond in
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grmckenzie wrote: »Gonna bump this to ask if anyone has the data coming from Garmin Connect to MFP accurately?
As of Black Friday, I've got the VAHR. And I've been playing with the settings in GC to see how close I can get to what my Polar strap says. Still have MFP set at the lowest level with minimal exercise.
So, set GC to 10. 25 mins on the treadmill. Polar shows 246 cals. GC & MFP shows 294 for the same activity. I've got my weight the same in all 3 (MFP, GC & Polar). ~20% difference.
HR recorded are:
Polar Max 137, ave 126
GC Max 137, ave 122
Am I chasing my tail or can I get it closer then this?
And rprr, feel free to pick your forum to respond in
I just transitioned from Fitbit to Garmin less than 24 hours ago and haven't had a logged activity yet. However, I can tell you from almost 2.5 years with Fitbit and MFP that activity trackers will not show the same calorie burn as MFP's estimate. I always assumed that the activity tracker is more accurate because it knows about differences such as running at 6.196 mph for 41:44 rather than logging a MFP activity to run at 6 mph for 41 min. Also, MFP doesn't figure HR, which is a way for elevation changes to become included. So I would automatically assume MFP is of lowest quality of data. As for Polar vs. Garmin, I'm not sure.0 -
My Garmin is connected to MFP. So I'm not estimating calories in MFP, but it is taking the Garmin numbers and making it's own adjustments.0
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grmckenzie wrote: »My Garmin is connected to MFP. So I'm not estimating calories in MFP, but it is taking the Garmin numbers and making it's own adjustments.
Isn't that the entire day, then? The way mine is connected to MFP takes all activity reported to MFP for the entire day and then MFP makes adjustments based on everything... not just a single activity.0 -
grmckenzie wrote: »Gonna bump this to ask if anyone has the data coming from Garmin Connect to MFP accurately?
As of Black Friday, I've got the VAHR. And I've been playing with the settings in GC to see how close I can get to what my Polar strap says. Still have MFP set at the lowest level with minimal exercise.
So, set GC to 10. 25 mins on the treadmill. Polar shows 246 cals. GC & MFP shows 294 for the same activity. I've got my weight the same in all 3 (MFP, GC & Polar). ~20% difference.
HR recorded are:
Polar Max 137, ave 126
GC Max 137, ave 122
Am I chasing my tail or can I get it closer then this?
And rprr, feel free to pick your forum to respond in
Are you asking how to make your Garmin estimate the same number of calories as your Polar? If so, that's not possible because they use different algorithms.
Why do your two recordings disagree about your average heart rate over the course of 25 minutes? If you can find the answer to that, it might have something to say about the calorie difference.0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »grmckenzie wrote: »My Garmin is connected to MFP. So I'm not estimating calories in MFP, but it is taking the Garmin numbers and making it's own adjustments.
Isn't that the entire day, then? The way mine is connected to MFP takes all activity reported to MFP for the entire day and then MFP makes adjustments based on everything... not just a single activity.
It shows both if you look at the exercise tab in MFP. You have to turn on an activity in the watch and record it. Then what comes through to MFP will be the specific activity plus the other calorie adjustments for the day. It was the main problem I had with the VSHR, in that if I turned on an activity, it counted both the activity and the step calories. Was a software issue that the VAHR does not seem to have.
If I look at Exercise on MFP for yesterday, it shows 3 activities (they were 2 treadmill sessions and 1 walking the dog) plus a 300 calorie Garmin adjustment for the rest of the day. Total calories burned from the Garmin of 1,163.
I'm just trying to figure out how close that 1,163 is. Going by my one comparison, it looks to be 20% high or so. But that is after a bunch of fiddling on the Garmin side. I'm not eating them all back (or drinking them all back in my case) so this really is a bit academic, but that's how I'm wired.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Are you asking how to make your Garmin estimate the same number of calories as your Polar? If so, that's not possible because they use different algorithms.
Why do your two recordings disagree about your average heart rate over the course of 25 minutes? If you can find the answer to that, it might have something to say about the calorie difference.
How different are the algorithms? Is a 20% discrepancy simply how they do their math, or can I fiddle more to get it closer?
And I'm not sure how to figure out the why of the difference in the average HR.
And I know I'm nit-picking at this point.
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grmckenzie wrote: »midwesterner85 wrote: »grmckenzie wrote: »My Garmin is connected to MFP. So I'm not estimating calories in MFP, but it is taking the Garmin numbers and making it's own adjustments.
Isn't that the entire day, then? The way mine is connected to MFP takes all activity reported to MFP for the entire day and then MFP makes adjustments based on everything... not just a single activity.
It shows both if you look at the exercise tab in MFP. You have to turn on an activity in the watch and record it. Then what comes through to MFP will be the specific activity plus the other calorie adjustments for the day. It was the main problem I had with the VSHR, in that if I turned on an activity, it counted both the activity and the step calories. Was a software issue that the VAHR does not seem to have.
If I look at Exercise on MFP for yesterday, it shows 3 activities (they were 2 treadmill sessions and 1 walking the dog) plus a 300 calorie Garmin adjustment for the rest of the day. Total calories burned from the Garmin of 1,163.
I'm just trying to figure out how close that 1,163 is. Going by my one comparison, it looks to be 20% high or so. But that is after a bunch of fiddling on the Garmin side. I'm not eating them all back (or drinking them all back in my case) so this really is a bit academic, but that's how I'm wired.
Hmm... I haven't tried an activity yet on Garmin. Probably will do that this afternoon / evening. I know Fitbit did not transfer an additional diary item when logging an activity, so I will be interested in seeing how this appears.0 -
The algorithms are completely different because they were written by different people at different companies at different times with different ideas about exercise science.
You must have recorded the treadmill session with both devices, right? I'm not sure how you'd know your average and maximum heart rate without having recorded it. Do you have heart rate graphs from both recordings? How do they compare when you look at them? Do both recordings agree about how long you exercised, or did one of them start or stop at the wrong time, or maybe use auto-pause or anything else?0 -
@grmckenzie -- Looks like you are having fun with the numbers.
I just personally feel that the GC exercise calories are a bit of an overestimate. Unfortunately, I don't have any hard evidence to back this up. For now, I'm just going to try to not eat or drink
back those exercise calories completely. 0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »The algorithms are completely different because they were written by different people at different companies at different times with different ideas about exercise science.
You must have recorded the treadmill session with both devices, right? I'm not sure how you'd know your average and maximum heart rate without having recorded it. Do you have heart rate graphs from both recordings? How do they compare when you look at them? Do both recordings agree about how long you exercised, or did one of them start or stop at the wrong time, or maybe use auto-pause or anything else?
Yes. I recorded both. Both start and stop within a second or 2. That part is hard, start the treadmill, watch and phone all at the same time. I need a third hand. I'll look at the graphs tonight and see what the differences are.0 -
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grmckenzie wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »The algorithms are completely different because they were written by different people at different companies at different times with different ideas about exercise science.
You must have recorded the treadmill session with both devices, right? I'm not sure how you'd know your average and maximum heart rate without having recorded it. Do you have heart rate graphs from both recordings? How do they compare when you look at them? Do both recordings agree about how long you exercised, or did one of them start or stop at the wrong time, or maybe use auto-pause or anything else?
Yes. I recorded both. Both start and stop within a second or 2. That part is hard, start the treadmill, watch and phone all at the same time. I need a third hand. I'll look at the graphs tonight and see what the differences are.
If you find the answer, you should post it here, might be useful for other people to know too.0 -
I just personally feel that the GC exercise calories are a bit of an overestimate.
FYI, the calories you see listed for exercise on Garmin Connect aren't all calculated the same way. Example:
This walk is almost certainly an over-estimate. It's 85 % over, based on the Runners World formula.
This bike ride is an under-estimate. It's about 10 to 15 % too low. The particular Garmin I used doesn't convert kJs to kCals, it just changes the label.0
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