Garmin vivosmart & MFP exercise calorie problem

Rpeat1

Could anyone help?

I've used a vivofit with MFP previously with no problems but I'm now using the (excellent) Vivosmart but am getting extremely high exercise calorie allowances e.g. 10,000 steps might give rise to 1,000 exercise calories. Whereas previously that might have been 200.

I can post settings, details and an example day if it would help but would really appreciate advise from anyone who has had a similar problem.

Thank you!

MeanderingMammal

Switch off the HR and see what that does. I've seen similar, and it seems that the activity tracking estimation takes HR into acount, which is likely to skew the result.

Disappointing that they succumbed to the marketeers on this one.

jamesha100

I have a Vivoactive HR and get exactly the same problem as you describe.
I am not sure how it could be fixed - I guess some form of calibration but how would you measure calories burnt accurately to do this.
I just accept that the figures are inaccurate and rarely eat back any exercise calories. If I did then I would never eat more than 50% of them.
Not very helpful I guess. I will be interested to see other peoples replies.

darkenergie

The Garmin watches wont take into account your calorie deficit goals from MFP, just adds in your active calories. I have to look at my estimated daily rest calories from garmin connect, subtract my calories from that(-250/-500/-750/-1000 etc), then set that number manually as my calorie goal in MFP. It is the only way I've gotten around this issue.

Tacklewasher

I moved from a VivoSmart to a VivoActive. But neither have the issue you are talking about. I did 15K steps yesterday for 730 Cals. On the treadmill walking last night (watching hockey) my VAHR gave me 261 cals and my Polar H7 gave me 245, so pretty close to each other. I check this regularly as I use the chest strap any time I'm on the treadmill.

I'm set as sedentary in MFP and activity level 4 in GC. I know I played with the GC level to get my numbers this close.

Be careful on the VSHR to not use the activities. So don't turn on a walking activity on the watch. It has an issue where it will count both calories from the activity and calories from the steps counted, so it will double count if you use activities. The VAHR doesn't and this is the main reason I switched.

Also, I'm not sure what @darkenergie means. If I look in GC, it shows about the same number of calories remaining (it is off a little) that MFP shows. I have them linked and they seem to talk to each other fine.

Post an example, but also what are you set for activity level in each.

ehaleyhoward2778

I have the opposite problem. VSHR never gives me extra calories no matter how many steps I do. It also seems to estimate my TDEE well below what Fitbit and online calculators seem to think. I wonder if it's because my heart rate stays pretty low even during HIIT. My average resting sits in the low 40s. Hmmmmmm...