Step calculator suddenly giving lower calorie burn?

RedheadedPrincess14
RedheadedPrincess14 Posts: 415 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So it used to say I burned about 100 calories with 11k steps and now it's saying around 20 calories. I haven't changed any settings. Any idea why this has changed? It's synced to my garmin connect

Replies

  • crooked_left_hook
    crooked_left_hook Posts: 364 Member
    11K steps only gives you 100 calories (when it's working)!!! I get 300 calories for that many steps (I'm 5'6", 132lbs). Your getting cheated.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
    Have you updated your weight recently? Did you have a birthday? Both of these can affect your calories!
  • bluefire301175
    bluefire301175 Posts: 24 Member
    I think Garmin connect has some weird syncing intricacies. Search the forum for Garmin connect and the most recent post should help.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    crooked_left_hook wrote: »
    11K steps only gives you 100 calories (when it's working)!!! I get 300 calories for that many steps (I'm 5'6", 132lbs). Your getting cheated.

    I was about to say the same thing!
    I don't know what the technical problem is OP, but 100 calories for 11k steps is just as wrong as the 20 calories.

  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    My guess is op has a default activity setting higher than sedentary
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    tomteboda wrote: »
    My guess is op has a default activity setting higher than sedentary

    Ooh good catch.

  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Yep, your activity on MFP must have changed.
  • 30kgin2017
    30kgin2017 Posts: 228 Member
    Can also be an indicator that its on its way out. My blaze started dropping its battery life, now I've noticed that only 1 heart rate light is working. My morning catalogue delivery earnt me 275cal for 40min walking but my 10km run tonight gave me 99 (but while i was running at about 8km it said 499 cal so not sure what happened) and it almost took 1.5hours. The pace and distance were right.
  • susannekb
    susannekb Posts: 31 Member
    RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
    So it used to say I burned about 100 calories with 11k steps and now it's saying around 20 calories. I haven't changed any settings. Any idea why this has changed? It's synced to my garmin connect

    Is this the number of exercise calories that it gives you in MFP when it syncs with your Garmin? This can be because you weren't quite as active as your activity setting had you. I sometimes find that I can do the same number of steps over a day but if one set of steps were due to day to day activity versus steps because I went for a walk I see a difference of up to 100 calories between the two days. Took me a while to see the correlation between the two.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    crooked_left_hook wrote: »
    11K steps only gives you 100 calories (when it's working)!!! I get 300 calories for that many steps (I'm 5'6", 132lbs). Your getting cheated.

    I was about to say the same thing!
    I don't know what the technical problem is OP, but 100 calories for 11k steps is just as wrong as the 20 calories.

    IT will depend on your activity level setting in MFP so you really can't compare person to person without that.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    My Garmin, I think it's a problem specific to my model, hugely lowballs my steps. I did 20'000 yesterday and got 400 calories. And that's ignoring that about 18'000 of those steps were during a cross country hike.

    Any fix I've tried hasn't worked and it's very annoying! I just logged yesterday manually in the end and will contact support. It wasn't an issue before because I usually don't get many steps but hopefully that will be changing and I don't want to have to manually enter everything, defeats the purpose of my device.

    I have a Vivoactive FYI. Proper exercise burns have always been spot on, just steps that are wacky.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    Did you update your weight recently?
  • RedheadedPrincess14
    RedheadedPrincess14 Posts: 415 Member
    edited May 2017
    tomteboda wrote: »
    My guess is op has a default activity setting higher than sedentary
    No, it's sedentary or "not very active". And I didn't update my weight either . I think people are right, it's the garmin
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
    tomteboda wrote: »
    My guess is op has a default activity setting higher than sedentary
    No, it's sedentary or "not very active". And I didn't update my weight either . I think people are right, it's the garmin
    Yeah sounds like it's the Garmin. If you're set to not active it should be giving you tons of extra calories.... When I get 8000 steps it usually gives me about 300 or 400 more calories for the day...
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    different weight entered?
    other activities that it is adjusting around (it will attempt to negate stuff the step tracker doesn't measure - like cycling, dancing, etc)? (The step tracker part of the garmin site estimates a total calorie burn using step data, then applies an adjustment to make that match what is on MFP -- this can result in large negative adjustments if you cycle, for instance).
  • AllSpiceNice
    AllSpiceNice Posts: 120 Member
    I am having the same issue, and I use my iPhone to track steps. I went back and looked at my log from last year. MFP used to give me a burn of at least 200 Cals for 9k steps...this weekend it gave me 118 Cals for over 11k steps!

    I've always had my profile set to sedentary. I'm the same weight as before, walked the same hilly route, but all of the sudden I get less calories burned in MFP.

    Not sure how to fix it...just wanted the OP to know she's not the only one who is experiencing this.

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