Garmin recording and calorie adjustments

richiechowns

So today like most days I've a calorie allowance of 1560 minus food cals and plus exercise cals. I use Garmin to record my exercise and it also records steps.

Today if done 13k steps, with no adjustment in MFP, other days I do less and get an adjustment, so what triggers it? The adjustment is usually less than 100 cals.

Today I have 58 cals left on MFP but according to my Garmin it is 500 left.

Lietchi

Those 13k steps, was that exercise or regular steps? I often find that if I log a walk or run as exercise, my calorie adjustment for regular steps goes down.

richiechowns

Lietchi wrote: »

Those 13k steps, was that exercise or regular steps? I often find that if I log a walk or run as exercise, my calorie adjustment for regular steps goes down.

I'd say around 4k was regular steps and the rest were during a exercise walk. Maybe that's it.

Garmin has my target of 1560 pulled from MFP, so it is using that, but has a massive calories difference. I've just completed my diary a few cals over on MFP with garmin have 400+ to have.

Lietchi

I always have some minor differences in how many calories I have left (different BMR formulas, I think), but never that much unless the My Connect app hasn't synced yet for my food.

Have you compared the calories in and out in the My Connect app and in MFP, to see where the discrepancy lies?

Duck_Puddle

Garmin connects calories in/out ads whatever your watch recorded as “active calories” to your mfp base goal (I’m thinking this is your 1560). Then subtracts however many calories you have logged in mfp. That is how it determines how many calories you are over/under.

What mfp does is takes the total calories your Garmin says you have burned for the day (active plus resting) and subtracts out what it thinks you burned for the day (plus any workouts that have carried over). The difference is the number that shows up on your “steps” line in your mfp diary.

So it’s two different systems. Use mfp. Do not use Garmin connect’s calories in/out as a gauge of that to eat. The two numbers might be sort of kind of close if your activity level setting on mfp matches up sort of to your activity level setting on Garmin connect (which is one of 10 vs MFP’s 4?). But they are two different systems.

You can click on the Garmin steps adjustment in your mfp diary, then click a second time to see the details of how mfp calculates your Garmin adjustment.

In Garmin connect, go to health, then calories to see the calories you’ve burned (in total) for the day. This will show you how many are “resting” vs “active”.

At the end of it all, you lose weight when you eat fewer calories than that (total burned in the day). Following mfp will be the better option there.


Based on the numbers you’ve given, I’m guessing you’ve got yourself set at a fairly high activity level in mfp. Therefore, you’ll need to do quite a bit of activity to get an adjustment. On the flip side, Garmin connect is taking the calories you’ve burned doing something other than resting (which will be quite a few if you’re generally active) and adding those to your mfp goal.

seeahill

I don't know which Garmin device you have, but mine works this way: if I enter an "activity" --- say, running or walking --- those calories get transferred to MFP. But if I chose not to log an activity, Garmin will count my steps, movements etc and come up with its own calorie count. That calorie count is not transferred to MFP.

I think the Garmin count is more accurate, but I'm told by experts that it's not a good practice to "eat back your exercise calories."

RunsOnCoffee_

I use my Garmin to automatically transfer my activity to MFP but I have my Garmin steps turned off in MFP. I find it to be consistently incorrect and either double counting an activity or giving me erroneous calorie counts.

richiechowns

Duck_Puddle wrote: »

Garmin connects calories in/out ads whatever your watch recorded as “active calories” to your mfp base goal (I’m thinking this is your 1560). Then subtracts however many calories you have logged in mfp. That is how it determines how many calories you are over/under.

What mfp does is takes the total calories your Garmin says you have burned for the day (active plus resting) and subtracts out what it thinks you burned for the day (plus any workouts that have carried over). The difference is the number that shows up on your “steps” line in your mfp diary.

So it’s two different systems. Use mfp. Do not use Garmin connect’s calories in/out as a gauge of that to eat. The two numbers might be sort of kind of close if your activity level setting on mfp matches up sort of to your activity level setting on Garmin connect (which is one of 10 vs MFP’s 4?). But they are two different systems.

You can click on the Garmin steps adjustment in your mfp diary, then click a second time to see the details of how mfp calculates your Garmin adjustment.

In Garmin connect, go to health, then calories to see the calories you’ve burned (in total) for the day. This will show you how many are “resting” vs “active”.

At the end of it all, you lose weight when you eat fewer calories than that (total burned in the day). Following mfp will be the better option there.


Based on the numbers you’ve given, I’m guessing you’ve got yourself set at a fairly high activity level in mfp. Therefore, you’ll need to do quite a bit of activity to get an adjustment. On the flip side, Garmin connect is taking the calories you’ve burned doing something other than resting (which will be quite a few if you’re generally active) and adding those to your mfp goal.

Thanks for this, I am going with MFP on the basis that, each week I'll see what I lose and if it is a bit too much too soon, I can adjust it. I want it to be sustainable and hopefully ease the niggles I've had so I can get back to serious running again..

richiechowns

seeahill wrote: »

I don't know which Garmin device you have, but mine works this way: if I enter an "activity" --- say, running or walking --- those calories get transferred to MFP. But if I chose not to log an activity, Garmin will count my steps, movements etc and come up with its own calorie count. That calorie count is not transferred to MFP.

I think the Garmin count is more accurate, but I'm told by experts that it's not a good practice to "eat back your exercise calories."

Sounds about right for my experience with it. I do eat the exercise calories back for activities I transfer, this approach has given me a 2kg weight loss in 2 weeks, which is spot on to what I've set in MFP. I think the tricky bit will be when I hit target and want to maintain my weight, but that is about 3-4 weeks off yet.

richiechowns

foodie4run wrote: »

I use my Garmin to automatically transfer my activity to MFP but I have my Garmin steps turned off in MFP. I find it to be consistently incorrect and either double counting an activity or giving me erroneous calorie counts.

I had concerns for double counting, but then activities don't count steps on mine, just calories. I'm not sure it double counts calories??

I've looked back and the highest calorie adjustment recently was 183, then some days just 9 or 10. I'm not sure ref Garmin what it was on those days.

Lietchi

I've never had double counts using my Garmin. I have it synced with MFP without any issues, except from minor differences with regards to how many calories I have left.

richiechowns

@Duck_Puddle, just looking at Garmin Connect;

Daily goal pulled from MFP 1560 calories.

Calories burned yesterday 2,719, resting 2,005 and active 714. Daily average is 2,836

1,809 (consumed) - 714 (active) = 1,095 (NET) which left 416 remaining.

MFP had 242 (exercise) which means I was -7 calories for the day.

Lietchi

But what are the details of your calorie adjustment on MFP? If you tap on the calorie adjustment in your diary, and then tap again on Calorie Adjustment, you should see your Garmin Calories compared to MFP Calories burned.

Lietchi

To illustrate:

Avidkeo

So from what I've figured out, MFP simply adds your estimated Tdee (based on what you set as your activity level - so doesn't change from day to day) and adds the calories from tracked exercise. If you don't have negative adjustments on, that's as far as the maths go.

So example, I set myself as lightly active. MFP estimate my Tdee to be 1770. It then subtracts 500 to give me 1270 for the day.

If I go for a 5k run, I burn 300 calories, so MFP adds that on, giving me a goal of 1570 for the day - assuming that I will burn 2070 total.

But I actually spend the rest of the day sitting around doing nothing, so I actually only burn 1970 for the day.

Without calorie adjustments, I would only have a deficit of 400 calories. But calorie adjustment recognises that I did nothing for the rest of the day, and offsets that.

It does work in reverse, if I go for a 5k run that I don't track, it will recognise that I burned an extra 200 calories than normal, even if I sat around for the rest of the day, so you see a positive adjustment.

Duck_Puddle

richiechowns wrote: »

@Duck_Puddle, just looking at Garmin Connect;

Daily goal pulled from MFP 1560 calories.

Calories burned yesterday 2,719, resting 2,005 and active 714. Daily average is 2,836

1,809 (consumed) - 714 (active) = 1,095 (NET) which left 416 remaining.

MFP had 242 (exercise) which means I was -7 calories for the day.

Lietchi wrote: »

To illustrate:

You need to be looking at the mfp side and mfp adjustment (As this picture shows). The Garmin connect is using a different system and adding the active calories to your mfp goal (which is figured from a different system).

Ignore the calories in/out in Garmin Connect.

Also-Garmin/mfp doesn’t double count. If a workout has been transferred to mfp from Garmin, those calories are not added again in the steps adjustment.

And you should be eating your exercise calories (which you are but others may not be).

Duck_Puddle

Here are screen shots of my mfp and Garmin connect calories in/out for Saturday. My workouts are logged in Garmin (and transferred to mfp) and my overall adjustment is 23 extra calories. Aside from workouts, I barely moved.

Also-on the Garmin connect side, you can see that the active calories were added to my mfp goal. Since that’s not really how it works, it results in a different (and inaccurate) calorie number.

You can also see how the adjustment is calculated in mfp - which results in the correct number of calories I should be eating.

Just ignore the calories in/out in Garmin Connect. Follow MFP and you’ll be fine.

richiechowns

Thanks @Duck_Puddle and everyone who has contributed. I have and will continue to follow the MFP calorie count, if I find that I am losing more than a kg a week, I'll make slight adjustments from there - the important thing is to not feel overly depleted to the point that it is detrimental to getting my shape and fitness back again. At the moment so far so good.

Thanks again!

heybales

foodie4run wrote: »

I use my Garmin to automatically transfer my activity to MFP but I have my Garmin steps turned off in MFP. I find it to be consistently incorrect and either double counting an activity or giving me erroneous calorie counts.

When you actually have a synced account - that selection of Step Source is what causes the activity tracker to send to MFP your Total Daily Calorie burn (TDEE), and steps as merely a figure to display.

When you do not have a synced account - that selection allows MFP app to ask the device for steps - then MFP attempts to get a distance, figure extra calories, recalc if workouts show up.

Latter is very rough estimate and easy to lose anything regarding a decent estimate.

Former is the way described above and works great. Because you want MFP to adjust itself based on what your tracker has seen as actual activity level.

There is no double-counting possible.
Screen shot above shows how MFP accounts for every workout synced over and removes it from the math. What's remaining is merely the extra daily activity above what MFP assigned for the rough 4 levels.

If MFP had 20 levels and you nailed the exact one correctly - there wouldn't be an adjustment.

richiechowns

@Duck_Puddle something really odd today, I had a 602 cal adjustment and 479 remaining for the day, will screen shot tomorrow. I did do over 10k steps and a couple of exercise sessions but still seems a bit off.

RunsOnCoffee_

@heybales I understand now. Yes, my accounts are synced and I turned step counter back on now. It makes sense now, thank you!

Duck_Puddle

richiechowns wrote: »

@Duck_Puddle something really odd today, I had a 602 cal adjustment and 479 remaining for the day, will screen shot tomorrow. I did do over 10k steps and a couple of exercise sessions but still seems a bit off.

When you do your screenshots, do the screenshots like I have of mfp. So show what’s in your mfp diary and the mfp screen that shows the adjustment calculation. We’ll need both to know what we’re looking at.

richiechowns

richiechowns

@Duck_Puddle I cannot seem to get yesterday's 'Daily Summary' however, hopefully enough there to go on.

Lietchi

Have you looked at the Connect app too?

My daily summary on the Connect website doesn't have the same issue as you.
But I just looked at my "Calories remaining" stats and I found a discrepancy of several hundred calories.



For yesterday it says 400 calories left, while it says around 150 calories left on the app. To me it looks like faulty integration of MFP on the Connect website. The difference just 'happens' to be the deficit needed for my chosen weight loss rate.
Maybe the Connect website is giving you the number of calories left to achieve maintenance, instead of your chosen weight loss rate?

richiechowns

Hi @Lietchi I just checked the last few days and calories remaining are the same both on the web and app platforms.

Today, so far, I've had an adjustment of 25 calories - it is just strange how some days I don't have any, unless I'm missing the really active days and the not so active days. I'm still losing weight and looking more toned, so I guess the old fashioned visual is good enough

Lietchi

Your screenshots don't show your step count, but 1000 calories from being active (I'm not counting your exercise, since MFP adds that separately) is a very large adjustment indeed.

A few days ago I had around 11000 steps (not including exercise such as running) and that gave me an adjustment of 215 calories. Another day I had 13000 steps which gave me about 180 calories extra. And I'm set at the lowest possible activity setting.
Nowhere near 1000 calories.

richiechowns

Lietchi wrote: »

Your screenshots don't show your step count, but 1000 calories from being active (I'm not counting your exercise, since MFP adds that separately) is a very large adjustment indeed.

A few days ago I had around 11000 steps (not including exercise such as running) and that gave me an adjustment of 215 calories. Another day I had 13000 steps which gave me about 180 calories extra. And I'm set at the lowest possible activity setting.
Nowhere near 1000 calories.

Exactly, when I run easy for around 5 miles I'll burn around 450 calories, so I'm not sure what is causing the massive adjustment.

The adjustments prior to this never went about 150 or so.

richiechowns

Today has just changed from 91 cal adjustment to 54.

Duck_Puddle

Can you do a screenshot of your mfp diary with the Garmin calculation for yesterday-but with the full day actual? The screenshot you have still shows an estimate as it’s based on what you burned through 8:30 PM.

You can skip the Garmin connect screen shots as mentioned before-that’s adding your “active calories” to your mfp base calorie goal-which isn’t how your goal is calculated nor is it relevant as it’s an attempt to use two entirely different systems together.

Meaning-whatever that says has nothing to do with anything. It MIGHT be kinda sorta a little bit close if your activity level settings on mfp and Garmin connect are the same. But even that is not likely because mfp has 4 choices and Garmin has 10. So your Garmin connect could say you’re over 193958696060 calories or -700 and it makes no difference. It’s adding apples to oranges and then telling you how many bananas you can eat.

But if you can give us a screenshot of your mfp just as you did above-but for the whole day (meaning the Garmin calories burned will say “based on calories burned as of 11:59PM”)

Duck_Puddle

richiechowns wrote: »

Today has just changed from 91 cal adjustment to 54.

You adjustments will change some throughout the day. Until the end of the day, they are based on an estimate for the full day (calculated from what you have burned so far and maybe some learning about your typical patterns).

So your adjustment amount will change a little every time you sync your Garmin. 91 to 54 is not a big difference. That means you took a few flights of stairs earlier in the day than you have since. Or you moved around for an extra 5 minutes earlier in the day. If you move around more, it’ll go up again. But that’s 37 calories. Which looks to be about 1% of your total for the day. There’s more error than that inherent in any numbers involved anywhere in this process.