Garmin calorie deficit too high what to do?

obrienfamily42

I’ve been using my garmin vivoheart and it seems to be giving me off the chart calories burned. Has anyone had this problem and how do you fix it?
Thanks!

Leannep2201

Just posted in another thread, lol. I’m having the same issue with my new Fitbit!

ETA- no idea how to fix it!

tinkerbellang83

What do you consider off the chart calories and what are your stats?

jjpptt2

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

What do you consider off the chart calories and what are your stats?

Agreed. We need more info.

What do you mean by "off the chart"?
Are you talking about calories for an entire day, or for a specific workout?
If the latter, what was the workout, how long, and how many calories did it give you?

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Leannep2201

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

What do you consider off the chart calories and what are your stats?

Hope it’s ok for me to respond to this too, OP?
Well, for me, “off the chart” calories are anywhere between 600-1,200. MFP puts this as exercise calories gained from syncing with my Fitbit device- but it’s not from specific exercise, just from my daily steps. This has only been over 3 days however, as I have only just bought my Fitbit.

Stats: F 5’2”, w 98kg. My resting HR seems to be around 65.

I do have my Fitbit set to sedentary, and I’m aware that’s likely part of the problem. I’ve come to realise that during the week I’m not sedentary, but I still think that I am during the weekend and school holidays (I’m a teacher).

I eat around 1,500cal per day on average, and have been consistently losing about 1kg per week since the beginning of the year. Am happy with this as I have a lot to lose. I’m not hungry or low in energy, so the 1,500 suits me well. I’m a little scared to change MFP to lightly active, as I know that will give me more calories and as I said- I’m happy with the rate of loss I experiencing and the calories per day I’m eating.

I guess I just wonder how many of those extra calories I should eat back, if any? Or should I just ignore them and complete my diary each day with heaps of calories left over?

Maxxitt

With my apple watch2 and FITiv exercise app, I have set it to "give" me 75% of the active calories it "thinks" I burned, and then I don't eat all of them back. The bottom line is is use what your data tell you with regard to calories in/calories out and scale weight over time. If you believe you are being as accurate as possible with the calories-in part of the equation and your scale weight trend over time is not what you think it should be, then adjust the calories-out estimates you are using.

Francl27

Leannep2201 wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

What do you consider off the chart calories and what are your stats?

Hope it’s ok for me to respond to this too, OP?
Well, for me, “off the chart” calories are anywhere between 600-1,200. MFP puts this as exercise calories gained from syncing with my Fitbit device- but it’s not from specific exercise, just from my daily steps. This has only been over 3 days however, as I have only just bought my Fitbit.

Stats: F 5’2”, w 98kg. My resting HR seems to be around 65.

I do have my Fitbit set to sedentary, and I’m aware that’s likely part of the problem. I’ve come to realise that during the week I’m not sedentary, but I still think that I am during the weekend and school holidays (I’m a teacher).

I eat around 1,500cal per day on average, and have been consistently losing about 1kg per week since the beginning of the year. Am happy with this as I have a lot to lose. I’m not hungry or low in energy, so the 1,500 suits me well. I’m a little scared to change MFP to lightly active, as I know that will give me more calories and as I said- I’m happy with the rate of loss I experiencing and the calories per day I’m eating.

I guess I just wonder how many of those extra calories I should eat back, if any? Or should I just ignore them and complete my diary each day with heaps of calories left over?

For 98kg, that doesn't sound crazy at all to me. I'm 65kg and typically get 600-700 calories adjustments.

It doesn't matter what your activity setting is, fitbit just adds less steps if you're set at sedentary.

jennifer_417

If you just got it, give it some time to "learn" your movements. If it's been more than a few days, then I'd see if you can troubleshoot through the site.

PAV8888

You never mentioned how many steps you clock but for an active person getting a 1k adjustment over sedentary is most certainly possible especially at a higher weight.

Tacklewasher

Leannep2201 wrote: »

I’m a little scared to change MFP to lightly active, as I know that will give me more calories and as I said- I’m happy with the rate of loss I experiencing and the calories per day I’m eating.

Just a note, if you have negative adjustments turned on, and have MFP set to lightly active, it will take away calories on days you move less and the net it gives should be the same. So start higher and have some taken away or start lower and have it add on active days.

I, personally, have MFP set to sedentary and allow it to add on active days as I don't like seeing the negative numbers, but I know that's all in my head and the net is the same.

Leannep2201

Thanks for the replies everyone.
I’ve typically been averaging about 10,000 steps during the working week- I know that’s not sedentry, but as I said, I think I’m more likely sedentry in the weekends and school holidays. I’ve just started the school holiday break, so will see how it goes.

PAV8888

10K steps is classified as active. How close are your total calories after adjustment when compared to what your calories would have been had you been setup as Active instead of sedentary?

Negative adjustment will take away calories, if necessary, on days that you don't reach your MFP setting.

Leannep2201

PAV8888 wrote: »

10K steps is classified as active. How close are your total calories after adjustment when compared to what your calories would have been had you been setup as Active instead of sedentary?

Negative adjustment will take away calories, if necessary, on days that you don't reach your MFP setting.

Active seems to give me about 500-600 more calories. Fitbit adjustments seem to be giving me between 600-1,200 extra calories. So I guess if I set to active, I’d still get around 100-700 extra calories after adjustments. Still seems a bit off!

I guess I’ll just keep an eye on the scales, and give my Fitbit a couple of weeks and see what happens.

heybales

First couple weeks the HR-based devices are still trying to figure out when to use the correct step-based calorie burn math for daily activity, and when to switch into HR-based calorie burn math for exercise.
If HR goes high enough for daily stuff - it'll slip into HR-based burn and that is inflated on the lower end of the range where it's likely at.

During that time they also improve the formula for the HR-based exercise calories.

But if your stride length is decently off, with that many steps - your daily step-based math could be off decently too.

Test walk a known distance track at your avg daily pace (not grocery store shuffle, not exercise pace walk) and see if the distance matches - may have to correct the stride length stat.

But other than those slight improvements - your adjustment actually doesn't sound that far off as active as you are.

If you got to bed early - or hit the couch early for that matter dealing with school work - there is a bad effect for being set to higher than Sedentary even though it's true.
MFP is still estimating the remaining hours to midnight at that higher calorie burn rate.
Your eating goal will reflect that higher estimate.
In the morning on first sync, Fitbit will inform MFP you were actually at BMR level burn with no steps.
MFP will correct prior day, and if you exactly hit eating goal night before - you'll be over the next morning.

Either figure out what that correction amount is if you stop moving about the same time, or lessen the effect by setting to Sedentary. Or stay up till midnight and eat near then. Sorry, not an option for a teacher!