[tech/medical] What is it with walking calories and MFP/trackers?
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I walked 14km yesterday. There were a few stops for photos and playing a game, but anyway, Garmin gave me a total of 837kcal. Which is a lot for flat terrain. Though to be fair, my old Fitibit Charge 2 would have given me closer to 1400
I still suspect Garmin is actually giving gross calories even though the workout overview states net. But that's still a rather high overall.
Where does it say that it's net calories? I'm sure the calorie burns given by Garmin are gross, judging from the chunk taken out of my calorie adjustment every time I take long walks, partially compensating the relatively high calorie burn of the walk itself.
Hmm.. I can't find it anymore now on the app. It might only show up once the activity gets transferred. Odd one as it now only says calories burned. But when I transferred exercise to MFP 2-3 weeks ago I got the whole chunk of calories in a workout and no correction.
I looked up my last long walk, to illustrate:
Of those 33k steps, 5k were not included in my walk. And 5000 steps would usually be enough to have a positive calorie adjustment, hence my conclusion that Garmin shows gross calories.
Which is confirmed when I see that my active calories for the whole day is a lower number than the calorie burn for my walk:
More on-topic, my walking calories seem inflated as well. For the above walk, the 0.3 formula plus BMR gives me about 800 calories. The walk was actually hilly and quite fast, but it seems a stretch to go from 800 to 1200 calories for that.0 -
I walked 14km yesterday. There were a few stops for photos and playing a game, but anyway, Garmin gave me a total of 837kcal. Which is a lot for flat terrain. Though to be fair, my old Fitibit Charge 2 would have given me closer to 1400 I still suspect Garmin is actually giving gross calories even though the workout overview states net. But that's still a rather high overall.
Where does it say that it's net calories? I'm sure the calorie burns given by Garmin are gross, judging from the chunk taken out of my calorie adjustment every time I take long walks, partially compensating the relatively high calorie burn of the walk itself.
Hmm.. I can't find it anymore now on the app. It might only show up once the activity gets transferred. Odd one as it now only says calories burned. But when I transferred exercise to MFP 2-3 weeks ago I got the whole chunk of calories in a workout and no correction.
I looked up my last long walk, to illustrate:
Of those 33k steps, 5k were not included in my walk. And 5000 steps would usually be enough to have a positive calorie adjustment, hence my conclusion that Garmin shows gross calories.
Which is confirmed when I see that my active calories for the whole day is a lower number than the calorie burn for my walk:
More on-topic, my walking calories seem inflated as well. For the above walk, the 0.3 formula plus BMR gives me about 800 calories. The walk was actually hilly and quite fast, but it seems a stretch to go from 800 to 1200 calories for that.
Your adjustment at the bottom is a whole day tdee adjustment.
The 0.3 formula generally yields a lower result than met based formulas.
Almost every fitness tracker and most apps use met based formulas.
There was one article on runerworld that examined and proposed the 0.3 formula. I can't say that I've seen that research plastered all over the place beyond that one article.
Thus I don't know (and don't believe) that the preponderance of evidence supports 0.3 vs met values
Met values calculate gross calories and there exist corrected met values for certain situations.
Net calories from MFP should not only exclude 1x BMR calories.
They should exclude the MFP base calories value for the same time frame, and this starts from BMR * 1.25 for sedentary/not very active and tops at BMR * 1.8 at very active1 -
I ate back my Fitbit cals (almost all) and lost as expected or more when I did (I walked a decent amount during the average day, although also usually got cals from other exercise too).
I now have an Apple watch and ignore the cals since I'm doing TDEE averaged over the week, but the numbers seem pretty reasonable for walking.1 -
There was one article on runerworld that examined and proposed the 0.3 formula. I can't say that I've seen that research plastered all over the place beyond that one article.
Yeah, most other sources, including others at RW, are higher. It always seemed lower than what is correct for me also. (Rather than trying to estimate cals from specific walks, I do find it easier to use the activity multipliers or a step tracker, however, as both have generally worked fine for me.)2 -
I walked 14km yesterday. There were a few stops for photos and playing a game, but anyway, Garmin gave me a total of 837kcal. Which is a lot for flat terrain. Though to be fair, my old Fitibit Charge 2 would have given me closer to 1400 I still suspect Garmin is actually giving gross calories even though the workout overview states net. But that's still a rather high overall.
Where does it say that it's net calories? I'm sure the calorie burns given by Garmin are gross, judging from the chunk taken out of my calorie adjustment every time I take long walks, partially compensating the relatively high calorie burn of the walk itself.
Hmm.. I can't find it anymore now on the app. It might only show up once the activity gets transferred. Odd one as it now only says calories burned. But when I transferred exercise to MFP 2-3 weeks ago I got the whole chunk of calories in a workout and no correction.
I looked up my last long walk, to illustrate:
Of those 33k steps, 5k were not included in my walk. And 5000 steps would usually be enough to have a positive calorie adjustment, hence my conclusion that Garmin shows gross calories.
Which is confirmed when I see that my active calories for the whole day is a lower number than the calorie burn for my walk:
More on-topic, my walking calories seem inflated as well. For the above walk, the 0.3 formula plus BMR gives me about 800 calories. The walk was actually hilly and quite fast, but it seems a stretch to go from 800 to 1200 calories for that.
Your adjustment at the bottom is a whole day tdee adjustment.
The 0.3 formula generally yields a lower result than met based formulas.
Almost every fitness tracker and most apps use met based formulas.
There was one article on runerworld that examined and proposed the 0.3 formula. I can't say that I've seen that research plastered all over the place beyond that one article.
Thus I don't know (and don't believe) that the preponderance of evidence supports 0.3 vs met values
Met values calculate gross calories and there exist corrected met values for certain situations.
Net calories from MFP should not only exclude 1x BMR calories.
They should exclude the MFP base calories value for the same time frame, and this starts from BMR * 1.25 for sedentary/not very active and tops at BMR * 1.8 at very active
For the bolded : I know. I'm not sure what message you're trying to convey though, sorry 🙂 I was just using the active calories part to illustrate that Garmin gives gross calories for exercise sessions (since those active calories, with my long walk and 5000 steps on top of that, were lower than the burn for my walk).
As for MET values for walking, totally new territory for me. If you think the 0.3 formula isn't correct, what alternatives do you propose?
I tried the calculator here:
https://metscalculator.com
For 'walking and hiking at a normal pace through fields and hills' I got 1360 calories. But what is a 'normal' pace? And what kind of elevation differences for 'fields and hills'?
And 'walking, 3.5mph, level, brisk, firm surface, walking for exercise' gives me 1100 (but the walk was actually hilly and speed was 3.6mph).
Those two entries would indicate that my Garmin is actually pretty accurate for walking.
I know my Garmin TDEE is pretty accurate, but since I don't log many walks (aside from hikes, I don't start exercise sessions for walking) I wasn't sure about the walks.0 -
I walked 14km yesterday. There were a few stops for photos and playing a game, but anyway, Garmin gave me a total of 837kcal. Which is a lot for flat terrain. Though to be fair, my old Fitibit Charge 2 would have given me closer to 1400 I still suspect Garmin is actually giving gross calories even though the workout overview states net. But that's still a rather high overall.
Where does it say that it's net calories? I'm sure the calorie burns given by Garmin are gross, judging from the chunk taken out of my calorie adjustment every time I take long walks, partially compensating the relatively high calorie burn of the walk itself.
Hmm.. I can't find it anymore now on the app. It might only show up once the activity gets transferred. Odd one as it now only says calories burned. But when I transferred exercise to MFP 2-3 weeks ago I got the whole chunk of calories in a workout and no correction.
I looked up my last long walk, to illustrate:
Of those 33k steps, 5k were not included in my walk. And 5000 steps would usually be enough to have a positive calorie adjustment, hence my conclusion that Garmin shows gross calories.
Which is confirmed when I see that my active calories for the whole day is a lower number than the calorie burn for my walk:
More on-topic, my walking calories seem inflated as well. For the above walk, the 0.3 formula plus BMR gives me about 800 calories. The walk was actually hilly and quite fast, but it seems a stretch to go from 800 to 1200 calories for that.
Your adjustment at the bottom is a whole day tdee adjustment.
The 0.3 formula generally yields a lower result than met based formulas.
Almost every fitness tracker and most apps use met based formulas.
There was one article on runerworld that examined and proposed the 0.3 formula. I can't say that I've seen that research plastered all over the place beyond that one article.
Thus I don't know (and don't believe) that the preponderance of evidence supports 0.3 vs met values
Met values calculate gross calories and there exist corrected met values for certain situations.
Net calories from MFP should not only exclude 1x BMR calories.
They should exclude the MFP base calories value for the same time frame, and this starts from BMR * 1.25 for sedentary/not very active and tops at BMR * 1.8 at very active
For the bolded : I know. I'm not sure what messaged you're trying to convey though, sorry 🙂 I was just using the active calories part to illustrate that Garmin gives gross calories for exercise sessions (since those active calories, with my long walk and 5000 steps on top of that, were lower than the burn for my walk).
As for MET values for walking, totally new territory for me. If you think the 0.3 formula isn't correct, what alternatives do you propose?
I tried the calculator here:
https://metscalculator.com
For 'walking and hiking at a normal pace through fields and hills' I got 1360 calories. But what is a 'normal' pace? And what kind of elevation differences for 'fields and hills'?
And 'walking, 3.5mph, level, brisk, firm surface, walking for exercise' gives me 1100 (but the walk was actually hilly and speed was 3.6mph).
Those two entries would indicate that my Garmin is actually pretty accurate for walking.
I know my Garmin TDEE is pretty accurate, but since I don't log many walks (aside from hikes, I don't start exercise sessions for walking) I wasn't sure about the walks.
Good questions Lietchi. I know my running calories fit very well with my maintaining calories and eating back 100% of the runs. I'm fairly confident that the 0.6whatever multiplyer for running works for me. Yes, I'm sure Garmin displays gross calories as well. Garmin gave me 307 calories for a 5k yesterday. It's actually pretty spot on for weight, clothes, and correcting for gross calories. I just can't get my head around the walking...
for example:
5km running - 307 gross calories
11km walking - 646 gross calories
Ok, of course walking took longer, but if I compare net calories then this is still roughly the same calorie number per 5km.
Ok, lets check mfp, as it doesn't depend on HR data (though my walking HR is substantially lower than running). Lets use the time I actually needed without short breaks.
slowish running: 350 calories
brisk walking: 499 calories
This does look better. Hmm.. not sure what to do with this to be honest.0 -
Ha, I just calculated the number of calories per km and I have roughly the same number for my (treadmill) runs versus my (outdoor) walks. It is puzzling
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I started off with Runkeeper but its estimates were fanciful. Believe they later changed to the same METS based method as MFP uses.
Then used 0.3 x lbs x miles.
Currently use this calculator which is more nuanced for different walking and running speeds which do have a range of efficiency rather than the average efficiency that 0.3 is trying to find. https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Usefully it has a net calorie option.
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I started off with Runkeeper but its estimates were fanciful. Believe they later changed to the same METS based method as MFP uses.
Then used 0.3 x lbs x miles.
Currently use this calculator which is more nuanced for different walking and running speeds which do have a range of efficiency rather than the average efficiency that 0.3 is trying to find. https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
Usefully it has a net calorie option.
Good calculator! It gave me 376kcal net for a recent longer walk. A bit more than 0.3* but not substantially more. Looks fairly realistic to me I think.2 -
The exrx calculator is MET based just like the Garmin and Fitbit trackers.
What exrx does is more explicitly separate net values.
However, the exrx net are not the same as MFP net.
Exrx net subtracts 1* BMR calories for your net value. MFP has assigned 1.25 to 1.8* BMR calories to the time slot, and you would only earn extra calories that you should consume when you move above that.
The trackers use MET values based on detection and interpretation of what they detect
When I had checked a while back, Fitbit would try to guess from heart rate and movement (accelerometer) data your per minute activity level and then average it over 5 minute segments.
Then it would assign an average MET value for the 5 minutes segment based on the type and "vigour" of activity it thought it had detected for the time period.
My personal impression was that this almost always was maybe a couple of more calories than it should, at least for me, but that Fitbit compensated by assigning 1.0 times BMR when there was no detection.
But sitting quietly in your chair working on a computer is not a 1.0 * BMR activity, it is actually at 1.3 times or so going from memory.
and for most people activity is the lesser part of the day's calories, with inactivity occupying substantially more time than activity.
I am not sure where that leaves us in terms of an exact caloric value for a specific exercise.
But I know that in general, if I have logged my food intake carefully, I have no real issue figuring out an approximate TDEE divergence from Fitbit's all day value for my personal levels of activity and mentally taking it into account.
This does not invalidate someone else's experience if after careful observation they find a much larger Divergence then what I have encountered3
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