Step Calories from Garmin to Myfitnesspal

jcloth13

Hi all,

I only started using Myfitnesspal last week, so I'm still learning all the ins and outs of it. I have a Garmin Forerunner 45 watch that tracks my steps, and also any exercise I do (I run, cycle and swim a little).

For the first few days everything seemed fine between Garmin and Myfitnesspal. My steps on Garmin were added to Myfitnesspal and that gave me some extra calories to use each day. I did notice that Garmin would have a higher total of additional calories than Myfitnesspal (for example, Garmin might say I've earned maybe 270 extra calories to eat from my steps, and Myfitnesspal would say 200 extra calories from the same amount of steps), but that doesn't bother me, probably a different algorithm being used or something.

My first issue was the first time I went for a run. Garmin counted the calories for the exercise AND the extra steps I did, and passed them to Myfitnesspal. I didn't like this, as it was basically giving me more spare calories to use that wasn't correct, as it was double counting them (i.e. steps calories AND running calories from the same time).

To get around this, the next time I went for a run, I stop Activity Tracking on my Garmin just before the run started, thus it no longer counted steps while I was running. Then, when the run was over, I started Activity Tracking again. This worked fine on the Garmin, I could see that I effectively had no steps for about an hour, and my run was logged.

However, once Myfitnesspal updated, my run calories were logged and added, but all steps calories were lost. So, for example, I had earned about 200 calories from steps before the run, and these were displayed on Myfitnesspal, but after the run the earned calories from steps was back to 0, and only the run calories were there. Myfitnesspal still had the same amount of steps logged as Garmin did, and I did more steps later that evening and it logged them too, but I never earned calories on Myfitnesspal from the steps that day, it stayed at 0..

In some way this isn't a big deal, my watch keeps track of steps alright, but I don't try to hit steps targets and I'm not "losing" lots of steps calories. But it does seem to me that once I turn off and turn back on Activity Tracker, and do an exercise, that stops Myfitnesspal from logging any Steps calories at all that day, and zeroes any that I had logged. I can have Myfitnesspal telling me in the "Garmin Connect Calorie Adjustment" section that I've I've done 7000 steps today, but earned 0 calories. Has anyone else seen this?

Thanks!

J.

Lietchi

There is no double counting steps and calories for runs, that's not how the sync works between Garmin and MFP.

Garmin sends over your total calorie burn for the day to MFP and MFP gives you extra calories if that number is higher than MFP's calculation based on your chosen activity level and exercise sessions.

Your step count is a different metric altogether too. MFP doesn't calculate any calories for that, it just displays the number exactly as Garmin sends it over, but does nothing else with it.

Your steps only matter to Garmin as one of the many data points it uses to estimate your calorie burns. And those calorie burns are all that MFP uses to calculate your calorie adjustment.

So you basically were wrong in stopping your activity tracker for your run 😉

jcloth13

Thanks for your reply. I didn't know there was a disconnect between the Step Count and Calorie count, I assumed they went hand in hand.

The next time I do some exercise I'll leave the activity tracker on and see how it goes. Thanks!