Garmin Connect and MFP - Has anyone else experienced a bug lately?

mtaratoot

I posted this to a discussion I follow and got no response. I'll post it as a stand-alone question now.

I did some searching in the community before posting this. I didn't find anything. There's a few discussions that have been closed, and none seem to be the same issue I'm experiencing. I submitted a support request, and I haven't heard anything back yet. I figure YOU might have figured it out already.

I am now experiencing something odd when Garmin and MFP talk to each other. It has to do with adding calories to my goal based on actual non-exercise activity. I expect I'm not the only one experiencing this. It may be coincidental to my replacing a Garmin device, or maybe it's the new device.

Background: I replaced my device because the battery was near the end of life. I know it has no user-serviceable battery; I contacted Garmin to see if they would do the replacement. I need longer battery life for some upcoming expeditions. Anyway, they said they wouldn't work on it; too old. They suggested it was at the age where it would start to have problems. Frankly, I've been really impressed with how well it has stood up over the years.

I waited a couple months until REI had one on sale. I bought it. It has so many more features, some of which I really don't need. It's really nice. But there's this thing….

Of the many things the device does, it counts my steps. It knows when I'm commuting by bicycle even if I don't start an activity; it can just tell from the accelerometers. Garmin estimates calories burned from my activity. In the past, Garmin would tell MFP my active calories. That added to my base calories letting me eat more when I moved more. MFP would add them to my exercise calories even if just from taking a walk and accumulating steps.

Now something is broken. MFP now seems to account for the increased calories if I look at the data to compare what Garmin thinks and what MFP thinks. The increased calories are there, but they are not added to my budget in my diary.

Maybe it will fix itself; then I can delete this post. As an odd example, yesterday MFP "allowed" me an extra 34 calories for a meager 6000 steps. Back when I was using my old device it didn't do this. A few weeks ago I had a day when I was "allowed" 250 calories for essentially the same amount of activity.

So - finally. My question: Is this happening to you? Did it just start recently? Did it start when you upgraded a Garmin device? I'm hoping for a resolution, otherwise MFP is a bit less useful for tracking my calories than it has been the last …. seven years.

PAV8888

You should be able to click on the little info thingy to see what is going on which you've probably done. But re-read carefully BECAUSE:

AFAIK, even though you seem to be implying that it worked differently in the past, device integration was based on TDEE. And NOT based on active calories only.

i.e. integration compares Garmin TDEE @ sync_time with MFP TDEE @ sync_time and adjusts "exercise" to make them equal.

The corollary is that if you go to bed at 21:00…. MFP will continue to add RMR * 1.4 per minute to your TDEE until midnight, if you're set at sedentary. But most devices that base their calories on average MET detected per 5 minute interval (or other time frames they may use) will be adding "no activity detected" calories to their TDEE at only 1.0 or 0.9 * RMR per minute. So your exercise adjustment (with negative adjustments enabled) will be reducing between 21:00 and 23:59.

Now the weird part here is that MFP has "recently" increased the multipliers that they use in the definition of sedentary. Basically they've moved sedentary up to 1.4 x Mifflin instead of 1.25. There is some literature support for that. But I don't think it invalidates the fact that just about the first 6K steps of daily activity are PROBABLY included instead of the old rubric of including the first 3500 to 5000.

But, don't forget, Garmin takes more than steps into account. So the 34 Cal adjustment you saw is minimal and well within parameters for a sedentary multiplier of 1.4 where some of your 6K steps were a tad more vigorous or push HR a tiny bit. I mean it is 34 Cal! And on top of that don't forget the late night negative adjustment. If the 6K steps were all you will do in the day, MFP has not finished assigning to you the activity level that they represent at the time of your (hypothetical) 6pm. The 6K sedentary step equivalency will be fully assigned into your TDEE by midnight. So by 6pm only 3/4 of the steps have been credited on the MFP side while garmin is giving you credit for all 6K since they've already taken place.

In any case, AFAIK, it is a TDEE to TDEE comparison. With the caveat that MFP splits your selected activity level into 1440 minutes and incrementally assigns you the calories throughout the day without having a picture of whether you are doing more or less work than what is implied by your base activity selection. While the device tries to guess your incrementing TDEE based on detections.

Run with this a bit and see if it fits with your observations… basically device TDEE and MFP TDEE should be equal at midnight but before that you have to allow for fade off closer to the end of the day.

I used to use very active on MFP (1.8x multiplier at the time; now I believe it is 1.9 or 2.0), so I would just quickly reduce the adjustments by RMR left to end of day (implicitly using a 2.0x instead of 1.8 multiplier value).

As to what the multipliers are…. what the kittens — see below why: I suggest that each user may want to run through guided setup a few times and figure out what multipliers they are getting.

I posted on this a while back and had signed in with a new account and confirmed on android that the multipliers were indeed changed (1.4, 1.6. 1.8 and 2.0). (found the thread: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10932534/changes-to-definitions-and-advice#1)

On a lark, I just went to double check the 2.0x and signed in with a disposable google account that I had signed in with once before in 2022. And re-run the guided setup on the web four times. and got the old values all four times 1.25/1.4/1.6/1.8.

So unknown what ** YOU **, as in any specific YOU might be getting in terms of your selected base activity (NEAT) values…. roulette time!

Lietchi

Have you compared your TDEE in Garmin Connect with the TDEE received in MFP to make sure it matches? And calculated what your adjusted calorie goal should have been based on your Garmin TDEE and selected weight-loss rate?

I've had my own issues with the sync - it doesn't sound like the same problem you're having, but just in case is useful: ever since MFP adjusted the activity multipliers, I've been getting an adjusted calorie goal a few hundred calories too high.

Yesterday my TDEE was 1919 kcal according to Garmin and also received as such by MFP, but my adjusted calorie goal (for a rate of loss of 0.5kg per week) was 1563 rather than 1369 (1919 minus 550kcal) it should have been.

mtaratoot

@PAV8888
@Lietchi

Thanks for the response. This one actually seems to be an issue with MFP not speaking to itself correctly. I'll attach a couple screen shots that might tell the story.

My daily base goal is 1771. Yes, it's a palindrome. Yes, I'm a goof. Whatever. As an experiment, I haven't logged any food yeet today. When I look at my diary, it shows that I have an extra seven calories and my goal is 1778. I could abide that, but when I look at the exercise part, I can see the extra seven, but it's based on MFP telling my I've already burned 1865 calories. That's more than 1778. So… It just makes using MFP to get to the right goal more challenging; I need a calculator to do it manually. If MFP says I've burned 1865 calories, that means there should be 94 calories "earned" from exercise.

Tell me if this seems to make more sense than I'm able to recognize. I might use my old device tomorrow and see if it interprets the data differently. I can't think of any other experiments; something seems broken in there. Something ELSE seems broken is what I mean….

PAV8888

MAYBE I can interpret. You have a customized goal that is very close but not exactly the same as maintenance for your selected activity level maybe?

Your EATING goal is 1771. Now let's ignore that.

(MFP is assigning you ~1.29514 Cal per minute based on 1865 / 1440)

By 14:13, 853 minutes into the day Garmin thinks you've burned 1112 Calories.

MFP takes that 1112 and adds to it the calories it thinks you will burn to the end of the day based on your pre-selected activity setting.

So (1440-853=587 minutes left) * (MFP selected activity rate) * (MFP RMR Calories) = remaining calories to end of day. ADD 1112 (from evidenced based Garmin spent up to now) = 1872 expected total burn. The total of Garmin to now plus the expected of MFP to end of day.

BUT, says MFP, my initial 1440 minute * MFP selected activity rate * MFP RMR Calories expectation was 1865 Calories.

The new total is higher. A difference of 7 Calories.

How to equalize the two TDEEs?
I'll throw in an exercise adjustment.
7 Calories.
Woohoo!

Well now. Your TDEE is higher than expected. To maintain your selected deficit you need to eat more. Let's add the exercise calories to the EATING GOAL. Therefore you now have 1778 as your eating goal.

Your eating goal of 1771 is currently NOT the same as your selected MFP activity level maintenance goal that, to me, appears to be 1865*

(*assuming you have not explicitly added any exercise activity worth calories in MFP either by typing them in or through a two way integration with Garmin. Such an exercise would increase the base NEAT pre-allocation)

mtaratoot

I'm going to stew on this for a bit. It might be what's happening, but it is for sure NOT the way it used to happen.

My maintenance goal at my goal weight is not very far from 1771. I set it to 1771 because I'm a big fan of palindromes. I'm about ten pounds or so above my goal weight for the time being. I maintained there for a couple years then had a hiccup.