Carmin connect and myfitnesspal (Fenix 3 HR)

FenrikJakobsen

Hello everyone.

I just bought my first garmin watch a few days ago. A fenix 3 HR. Ive paired the Garmin connect with the app MFP.
Im wondering why the garmin connect app and MFP has difference remaning calories.

Garmin connect app it says under Calories in/out details:
Goal: 2 330 + active 524 = new goal 2 854.
New goal 2 854 - 1 399 calories used = remaning 1 455.

So here i got 1 455 calories left to eat today.

But on the other hand MFP says this.

Goal: 2330.
Food: 1 388 - workout 1 331 = remaning 2204.

Under workout i have the 524 calories as strength training AND garming connect calorie adjustment at 807.



I am trying to loose 0.5 kg a week, so im wondering if i should follow garmin connected and eat 1 455 the rest of the day or follow My fitness pal and eat 2204.

Thanks and hope someone can help me!

marthall

Hi, I use Garmin Connect as well as MPF and I struggle with the linked accounts and active calories values. In My experience Calorie counts from devices (even heart rate based ones) are never accurate. I usually mentally deduct at least 10% down, and sometimes disregard the Calorie adjustment element totally. The Garmin Calorie adjustment is because 'it' thinks you have been more active and burned more than your expected BMR, but 807 Calories is a lot - equivalent to over an hour of intense exercise, or 4 hours of increased activity (say house work vs sitting at a desk). Have you been more active than normal?

The objective here is to have a calorie deficit and loose weight, bigger deficit is better up to a point. That point being when your diet is unhealthy or leads to food cravings. I would not encourage you to eat more just to hit a number, I would instead try and eat to the lower value and It's not like 2200 Calories is particularly strict. Maybe you will find you need to eat a little more tomorrow. If you do feel hungry, try to delay eating for 30 mins and if you are still hungry then eat something. (The delay filters out actual body needs from what you mind would like you to have)

When I have more active days I try to stick to a similar food consumption, because i find that the routine helps (my body knows when to expect food, and roughly how much to expect). At the end of the day the body is designed to balance our energy needs by drawing on it's fat reserves.

The only exception I would have for this is if I was doing a lot of intense activity (eg I used to go on 4 hour+ cycle) rides, which I actively avoid whilst loosing weight as I prefer more consistent but less intensive exercising.

Hope this helps

TLDR: I would not encourage you to eat more just to hit a number.

NorthCascades

I think the discrepancy you're seeing comes from your activity level setting here.

FenrikJakobsen

NorthCascades wrote: »

I think the discrepancy you're seeing comes from your activity level setting here.

I tried to change the activity settings here to lightly active and also i changed the activity settings on garmin yesterday from 7 to 5. But unfortunately its still the same today.

What I have done also here is to set on the thing with negativ adjustment since i update the garmin app often. Ive also just removed on MFP that it should count the steps from the garmin app. So I hope that will remove all those extra calories tomorrow.

FenrikJakobsen

marthall wrote: »

HThe Garmin Calorie adjustment is because 'it' thinks you have been more active and burned more than your expected BMR, but 807 Calories is a lot - equivalent to over an hour of intense exercise, or 4 hours of increased activity (say house work vs sitting at a desk). Have you been more active than normal?

TLDR: I would not encourage you to eat more just to hit a number.

Hey, thanks for a nice answere!
And yes, ive been active as usual with my strength traning once a day plus a walk with my dogs.

I also think 807 is a lot. And its been that way since i got the watch. Thats why im wondering if i can eat the +800 in a day or not. Since I am always a little hungry.. Here are my last two days.




Like on the one day, I can see on garmin that ive burned 3492 calories, where as 2 516 is rest calories and the rest is active. But I dont see how it can go up to 4617? Where is that 1k + calories coming from?

I tought maybe it came from the steps of garmin app, so i just remove that option on my fitness pal. Hope this will change the calorie adjustment tomorrow but who knows. nothing have helped so far.

tinkerbellang83

Are you logging your exercise in MyFitnessPal in addition to your Garmin Adjustment? From you saying you have 524 Strength Training Workout calories and a calorie adjustment of 807 it sounds like you are double logging.

If you are wearing your watch whilst you are working out you shouldn't be logging them in MFP as a seperate workout.

stanmann571

It looks like something is being double counted.

You may have another app or tracker pushing calorie info.

OR, GC and MFP are calculating for different WL goals.

NorthCascades

FenrikJakobsen wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

I think the discrepancy you're seeing comes from your activity level setting here.

I tried to change the activity settings here to lightly active and also i changed the activity settings on garmin yesterday from 7 to 5. But unfortunately its still the same today.

What I have done also here is to set on the thing with negativ adjustment since i update the garmin app often. Ive also just removed on MFP that it should count the steps from the garmin app. So I hope that will remove all those extra calories tomorrow.

FYI, Garmin's activity level setting is meant for older devices like the Edge 800. Your Fenix will ignore what you set and decide this for itself based on the exercise you record with the watch. (Source: Garmin.)

FenrikJakobsen

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

Are you logging your exercise in MyFitnessPal in addition to your Garmin Adjustment? From you saying you have 524 Strength Training Workout calories and a calorie adjustment of 807 it sounds like you are double logging.

If you are wearing your watch whilst you are working out you shouldn't be logging them in MFP as a seperate workout.

I never log anything manually. I only start the activity on the watch and when im done with training i turn the acitivity on the watch off. Then it goes like 10sec and it says that the app can be seen on GC. After I open GC and it syncs to the watch it appears on MFP.

stanmann571 wrote: »

It looks like something is being double counted.

You may have another app or tracker pushing calorie info.


OR, GC and MFP are calculating for different WL goals.

I only have GC and MFP. Nothing else.
The watch is new and both apps are new but thanks for informing me about the WL goals. I didnt know before now that I could set a weight goal on GC. Ive now set this the same as MFP and I hope this can explain why the GC calorie adjustment is way off. Guess we will find out tomorrow!


For tuesday the 18 of July i turned off step count in MFP. Doing that made the calorie adjustment go away in total. Only showing my training exercises. Right before the day ended i turned the steps back on and calorie adjustment came back. Once again showing me that I have +991 calories.

The garmin app says i have burned a total of 3176 calories yesterday.
Garmin calorie adjustment says its based on 3156 but it also says that the full day projection is at 4256. Its like 1100 more calories. And it said this when it was like 5min left of the day.
I cant understand where the +1k extra calories comes from. Does anyone know?

Im including some pictures for the stats. Garmin app is in norwegian and the picture got really big! Sorry about that:







Should I just do what GC tells me and think i can eat +664 calories, remove calorie adjustment (steps) from MFP or trust that calorie adjustment + MFP and think that i can eat +1,377 calories? :-)

Only change ive done so far in the apps is adding a goal weight to GC so its the same as MFP. Will be interesting to se the results after this day

tinkerbellang83

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

FenrikJakobsen

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

Hey Tinerbellang83, does your total adjustment stack with the same number on the garmin app?
For example, for the 19th of july now, i had also turned on the same goal weight as MFP but this did not change anything.
On garmin it says i have 2 516 Rest calories (as usual) + 1 282 active calories. That is a total of 3 798.

But on MFP it says 4874 ! I can not find out how MFP can add a about a thousand more calories. Does this happen to you also? And by the way, is there a way to see how many active calories your steps have given you alone? :-)

Here is a pic of today stats






So MFP says that if i wanted, i could eat + 1,106 calories yesterday.
Garmin connect says i could eat +398 calories. (2 350 + 1 282 = 3 632.) (3 632 - 3 234 = 398)

The difference is big ..

Richl85

FenrikJakobsen wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

Hey Tinerbellang83, does your total adjustment stack with the same number on the garmin app?
For example, for the 19th of july now, i had also turned on the same goal weight as MFP but this did not change anything.
On garmin it says i have 2 516 Rest calories (as usual) + 1 282 active calories. That is a total of 3 798.

But on MFP it says 4874 ! I can not find out how MFP can add a about a thousand more calories. Does this happen to you also? And by the way, is there a way to see how many active calories your steps have given you alone? :-)

Here is a pic of today stats






So MFP says that if i wanted, i could eat + 1,106 calories yesterday.
Garmin connect says i could eat +398 calories. (2 350 + 1 282 = 3 632.) (3 632 - 3 234 = 398)

The difference is big ..

My guess is you have your activity set as not active in MFP, so it adds calories back a lot faster. I work a desk job so I keep that setting, so I know what I can eat on days I can't get away from my desk.

jennybearlv

That is odd. I get a discrepancy of about 50 calories between the two apps because they use different formulas to calculate my BMR. Are your current weights, height, anything else you can think of set differently between the two apps? I set my activity level to "not very active" in MFP and just let the two apps add on calories from there. Not sure if that could make a difference. It also may help to let everything run without any changes for a full day to let everything sync back up. Things can get out of wack for a day by making small changes.

tinkerbellang83

FenrikJakobsen wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

Hey Tinerbellang83, does your total adjustment stack with the same number on the garmin app?
For example, for the 19th of july now, i had also turned on the same goal weight as MFP but this did not change anything.
On garmin it says i have 2 516 Rest calories (as usual) + 1 282 active calories. That is a total of 3 798.

But on MFP it says 4874 ! I can not find out how MFP can add a about a thousand more calories. Does this happen to you also? And by the way, is there a way to see how many active calories your steps have given you alone? :-)

Here is a pic of today stats


So MFP says that if i wanted, i could eat + 1,106 calories yesterday.
Garmin connect says i could eat +398 calories. (2 350 + 1 282 = 3 632.) (3 632 - 3 234 = 398)

The difference is big ..

At the end of the day it is the same, but if you're checking half way through it's only going to be a projection based on your activity up to that point. What activity level did you settle on in MFP? Before I changed mine to Lightly Active I was getting some really high numbers, you may need to set yours to Lightly Active/Active to see the numbers settle a bit, make sure you have negative adjustments enabled, that way if you have a less active day, it will adjust down.

FenrikJakobsen

jennybearlv wrote: »

That is odd. I get a discrepancy of about 50 calories between the two apps because they use different formulas to calculate my BMR. Are your current weights, height, anything else you can think of set differently between the two apps? I set my activity level to "not very active" in MFP and just let the two apps add on calories from there. Not sure if that could make a difference. It also may help to let everything run without any changes for a full day to let everything sync back up. Things can get out of wack for a day by making small changes.

I have checked my stats with both apps many many times and they are the same. Now I havent made any changes in two days now. The results are the same. MFP thinks a total of 3 360 calories but i get a +825 because the calorie adjustment says 3 168 but the number is 4 185..

If I just could find out what the 4 185 number comes from i would be so happy. It must + 1000 calories from something, but i cant find out what.

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

At the end of the day it is the same, but if you're checking half way through it's only going to be a projection based on your activity up to that point. What activity level did you settle on in MFP? Before I changed mine to Lightly Active I was getting some really high numbers, you may need to set yours to Lightly Active/Active to see the numbers settle a bit, make sure you have negative adjustments enabled, that way if you have a less active day, it will adjust down.

The last posts here where I have answer you guys I have waited for the clock to hit 00.01 so the day is over and the numbers will remain the same.
I have set it to lightly active and it has been that way all the time.
Negativ adjustment is also enabled.

I have been thinking of two things to do after this weekend. 1. reset the fenix 3 HR, uninstall both GC and MFC. Make a new account, let the default settings be turned on. See if anything improves
or I return the watch and get a new one. Still have some days on the free warranty.


Anyhow, what I have done so far, is just using the number MFP gave me for my WL. Then the only calories extra i add on is the ones that i train for and the garmin app gives me. (Just adding the number that says +active calories).

This is normally like +200 calories that just comes normally in each day. I guess it might be steps and the housework I do at home.
I also work out each day so i get a total of 700 - 1000 extra calories so i in fact can eat something, im a little hungry many hours of the day.