Calorie count in Garmin Connect

Does anyone find that the calorie count in Garmin Connect works with MFP?

I track mine almost entirely on MFP using the GC calorie adjustment, but it would be nice if the two synced in some way. So far, it's been so radically off in GC that I completely ignore the page.

Replies

692ecs

The calorie count in GC works for me but it think it is less accurate than MFP, that or it is more generous with exercise earned calorie adjustment. Having looked back at a weeks worth of data (both when I have remained within my allocated allowance and when I have exceeded it horribly!!!) and GC consistently shows an extra 69 - 72 calories remaining than MFP. So as I am trying to lose weight I work from the MFP data for accuracy and just deduct 70 from whatever it says on GC.

PapaChanoli

So far, mine remains off by about 2000 calories at days end.

And I only eat about 2000 calories.

Minidom109

I am having a few niggling issues. I do a phyical job for about 5 hrs a day, but the Garmin amkes no allowance for this. Is there a way round this to get a more accurate reading.

If so how to I imput chamabermaid>house keeper into either MFP or GC

PapaChanoli

I am having a few niggling issues. I do a phyical job for about 5 hrs a day, but the Garmin amkes no allowance for this. Is there a way round this to get a more accurate reading.

If so how to I imput chamabermaid>house keeper into either MFP or GC

MFP has housekeeping listed under cardio exercises. I think the calorie estimate for housekeeping is a little high, but it's in there.

linzthemom

I have MFP linked with GC, but I do not understand the dashboard/daily summary on GC for keeping track of calories burned vs. consumed. Can someone shed some light on how to read this on GC? More specifically is the BMR on GC different then on MFP? How does the calories burned as shown on the vivofit device incorporate into the "calories in/out" dashboard on GC?

...I am wanting to have an easy way of calculating my deflect in calories with logging food on MFP and using the vivofit for calories burned.

TIA

macunix

post by fyoung1111 in another thread:

Let me start out by saying that I have a Fitbit One, Polar Loop, and Vivofit. The first two are now languishing in a drawer. Despite some serious software problems with both the web and mobile apps, the VF is the clear winner.

About MFP integration. It seems complicated on the surface but is really easy to DIY once you realize how all of the moving parts fit together.

Now that I have been mucking around in MFP for a bit, I realize that they have their own version of adulterated BMR. At least they don't call it BMR like Garmin does. MFP call it Calories Burned From Normal Daily Activity. My number (with normal daily activities setting on Sedentary) is 1,910 which is 80 calories higher than my Garminized BMR of 1,830 and 25% higher than my "Real" BMR of 1525. What this means is that MFP, like Garmin, has baked some level of activity into their baseline number.

To make manual integration work out right, you would add your Garmin Total Calories less your MFP "Calories Burned From Normal Daily Activity" (CBFNDA) in the form of a Vivifit Custom Exercise in order to feed MFP an accurate picture of TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure or BMR+Activity Based Calorie Burn).

For example, Garmin Connect Modern (GCM) says I burned 2,905 total calories yesterday (1,830 BMR + 1,075 Active). Subtracting MFP's 1,910 CBFNDA from 2,905 leaves 995 which is the number of calories I put in as a custom exercise. Works perfectly.

I wish I had all of the time back I have spent *****ing at Polar and Garmin about their failure to integrate with MFP. I still wish it was automatic but, for now, I trust this more than anything Garmin might decide to feed MFP on their own. The main problem with this work-around is that you don't get accurate real-time feedback regarding your status at any point "Today" as GCM does not give you an accurate total calorie burn until midnight yesterday so this is necessarily a "morning after" retrospective exercise.

To summarize, sometime TODAY

1. Get YESTERDAY's Total Calories From the Steps widget on your GCM Health & Fitness (default) dashboard
2. Subtract your MFP Calories Burned from Normal Daily Activities (found under Goals in the Your Diet Profile section)
3. Add the difference to MFP as a custom exercise (I call mine Vivofit Activity but call it anything you want)

All done. How easy is that?

veloman21

^^ this was true at the time but Garmin has made a lot of changes since then and the exchange of data between GC and MFP has improved a lot.

The vivofit calorie burn should normally be higher than the MFP target calorie number because the MFP number has been artificially lowered based on how quickly you want to lose weight. So if you have entered that you want to lose 1 lb per week in MFP, your daily calorie goal will be reduced by 500 cals per day.

So when you sync, MFP takes the "actual" cals burned data from GC and deducts the "estimated" cals burned in MFP. In theory this should give you a more accurate picture of energy use per day.

problems can arise if you use a third party connection for exercise that is linked to MFP, for instance Runkeeper. This results in the cals burned during that exercise to be both added and deducted so you receive no credit. In these circumstances, go to settings in MFP and switch off "Allow negative adjustments" Again not ideal but but better than the alternative.

Pete1964AK

Can I just throw my confused hat into this ring, as well.

I'm fairly new to vivofit, having switched from a fitbit ultra after my dog ate it.
I never had any issues with the fitbit/mfp information exchange but I am really struggling to understand what garmin are doing.
I use MFP for my calories consumed and logging my exercise -- and I expect the vivofit to send my number of steps taken and calories used to mfp - and to give me the ability to eat chocolate when I've taken loads of steps.

But it seems that garmin is only crediting me with additional calories burned on days I don't actually log any additional exercise.
So, Monday I did 22K steps, which included 35 mins on the elliptical, only got the credit for the logged exercise.
Tuesday, I did 23K steps, no exercise and got an additional 400 calories gained thru exercise".
Today, (wed) 19K steps, 30 mins elliptical, 20 mins yoga, - tricked the garmin, synced before I logged the exercises, given a calorie credit of 325 calories, logged my exercise, (600 calories burnt), garmin and mfp synced, my 325 is gone, and my calories gained thru exercise is "just" 600.

Am I doing something wrong or do I just not understand it?

DamieAnne

Can I just throw my confused hat into this ring, as well.

I'm fairly new to vivofit, having switched from a fitbit ultra after my dog ate it.
I never had any issues with the fitbit/mfp information exchange but I am really struggling to understand what garmin are doing.
I use MFP for my calories consumed and logging my exercise -- and I expect the vivofit to send my number of steps taken and calories used to mfp - and to give me the ability to eat chocolate when I've taken loads of steps.

But it seems that garmin is only crediting me with additional calories burned on days I don't actually log any additional exercise.
So, Monday I did 22K steps, which included 35 mins on the elliptical, only got the credit for the logged exercise.
Tuesday, I did 23K steps, no exercise and got an additional 400 calories gained thru exercise".
Today, (wed) 19K steps, 30 mins elliptical, 20 mins yoga, - tricked the garmin, synced before I logged the exercises, given a calorie credit of 325 calories, logged my exercise, (600 calories burnt), garmin and mfp synced, my 325 is gone, and my calories gained thru exercise is "just" 600.

Am I doing something wrong or do I just not understand it?

Are you using a HRM? Or are you inputting the exercise actually onto MFP? If so that is probably the problem.

The vivofit alters how much you've burnt calorie wise throughout the day when you sync it, so if MFP has a higher number burnt inputted already, the vivofit will adjust this to what it thinks is right.

For example if I do exercise first thing in the morning like a run (I use a HRM with my vivofit) - I don't input any exercise directly onto MFP, I just let the vivofit track it. When I sync after that I end up with my cals burnt from the exercise, but then end up with negative calories from the adjustment (the cals burnt from steps). This negative alters throughout the day, and ends up being larger due to other walking I do. If I had put in the run just on MFP, without using the HRM to track, the vivofit would look at that number and alter it accordingly (and probably decrease it by quite a bit).

The reason why your step calories dissappeared on the wednesday is because you don't have the negative calorie adjustment on (which may be a good thing! I do, and like I said I end up with negative cals at the start of the day sometimes). If you change this (in the settings somewhere on MFP), you'll probably see that you get a negative adjustment.

...Does that make any sense?

Pete1964AK

Thanks DamieAnne, I do wear a Polar FT4 HRM, but I don't "think" it is synced with the vivofit. (I haven't done anything so unless it is done by magic...........) I pull the calories burnt of the Polar and then add that into MFP.

That's what I find so confusing - on Wed, I didn't do my exercise until 10.00PM. so the 325 calories that the vivofit reckoned I had earned from stepping during the day should, in my mind, still be good. Then I do the exercise, and my thinking was, I was earning extra calories .................

Pete1964AK

Well, it seems to have resolved itself. garmin connect has finally posted my exercise from mfp into my "Activities" on the GC Dashboard and as importantly, has finally posted all my exercise calories and my daily step "bonus" to the relevant days.

The unfortunate things is that it has taken several days for this to happen, so some days I have a 1000 calorie deficit because I was being ultra cautious about eating any exercise calories back..............

PapaChanoli

My calorie adjustments between MFP and GC Re completely broken now. No data is transferring and nothing I do to fix it works.

Brad592

Hi guys, I use an iphone and GC and MFP have a bit of trouble commuicating but I find that if I have both apps open and sync the vivofit then sometimes it works! Still trying to figure out the best way....

I have a question about running, or any exercise really. If I go for a run, the vivofit counts steps and calories burned, so do we still enter it in as exercise in MFP too or is that doubling up? My thoughts are that GC cant tell the diffrence between a casual stroll and an intese run so it is giving the same calorie burn. I'm only really using the vivofit as a pedometer at the moment with no HRM.

PapaChanoli

Hi guys, I use an iphone and GC and MFP have a bit of trouble commuicating but I find that if I have both apps open and sync the vivofit then sometimes it works! Still trying to figure out the best way....

I have a question about running, or any exercise really. If I go for a run, the vivofit counts steps and calories burned, so do we still enter it in as exercise in MFP too or is that doubling up? My thoughts are that GC cant tell the diffrence between a casual stroll and an intese run so it is giving the same calorie burn. I'm only really using the vivofit as a pedometer at the moment with no HRM.

I don't run, so I have no comparison for how the vivofit distinguishes the difference. I also do use the HRM anytime I do exercise other than walking.

As I understand it, you should not also enter exercises into MFP when they sync with GC, however, GC reports it's calories to MFP, but it recognizes any activities as walking so they all look the same with the exception of intensity, calorie and distance/duration.

I have noticed as well that the calorie info from GC is a little generous. I wouldn't recommend eating back all of the calories. My rule of thumb has been to eat half of them back and my weight loss has been consistent.

I hope that helps a little.

smoverton

Hey guys, I've been using the vivofit for a couple of months now and track my calories with MFP. Why I sync my data to GC I have found that MFP calorie data pulls over to GC however any exercise I do does not pull from GC to MFP... Should this be happening? My steps also do not sync from GC to MFP. I manually enter my exercise to MFP so then in GC I will see that activity there. I should also add I don't use a HRM... From what I'm reading I need to get one! I'm still trying to figure this all out!

Thanks!!

Shannon

FromHereOnOut

Shannon, there should be a Garmin adjustment entry in the exercise diary. Are you getting that?

If you want individual exercise entries, I've found that if I log it in Garmin connect, it gets posted to my MFP exercise diary with no problem. For example, "Strength training", when I go to the gym. I log it into Garmin Connect and in a few minutes, it's in my MFP exercise diary too. Whatever calories I *ADD* with regard to NON-step exercise (like my gym strength training), WILL be ADDED, above and beyond the Garmin calories I see on my wrist...so I have to be very accurate, or even conservative on my calorie burn estimate so it doesn't overinflate my daily calorie goal. I believe that with step-based manually added exercise, the calories DON'T get added b/c they are already on the wrist number...I THINK--but maybe this needs to be checked out.

smoverton

I am not getting a garmin adjustment entry... I have updated all my apps to so I'm not sure what to do.
Now, i just manually enter exercises into MFP but I have a hard time estimating calories burned since the Garmin doesnt tell you for each activity instead it does the full day and it will show active calories I have found. Maybe I'm not using it correctly... still pretty new to it all!

Thanks for the info!

FromHereOnOut

You have to allow negative entries in the mfp diar settings before the integration will work. you also have to connect your accounts if u haven't already. Do that from garmin.

qkcam

this is a bit of an old thread but i am wondering if garmin connect is now seeing the cals from MFP when the two are linked? also is there a way to set desired weight goal and timing in garmin connect? thank you

20yearsyounger

I was having a problem but it seems that I was able to manually sync my exercise from MFP to Garmin today (after a few weeks). The sync from Garmin to MFP worked automatically. I was able to change the desired weight goal using the Garmin app. Not sure what you mean by timing.

umrebelbelle

Mine don't always match and I am not sure why. I am happy just be under on both.

mechanik7

Things have gotten better since this thread was started... Garmin Connect and MFP now sync activities/calories burned (from GC->MFP) and calories consumed (from MFP->GC).

One major caveat though... it seems that the default profile setting for Time Zone in MFP is set for Pacific Time, and if you are not in that time zone, having the time zone off between your Garmin and MFP will really mess up the syncing algorithms. I found that step/calorie counts were not updating when they should from GC->MFP because it thought the activity happened in the future, and it wouldn't pick it up until the activity looked like it was in the past. It was also causing workouts to be double counted because it would not realize that the workout happened at the same time as the steps/HR based calorie burn, so it would not know to subtract the workout calorie adjustment from the regular GC calorie adjustment.

I have found that the BMR estimate varies from source to source. Using an online BMR calculator, I got a number X. Garmin Connect, based on my all day heart rate monitor on my Vivosmart HR, says it is on average X+100. MyFitnessPal thinks it is X+200. Since the number from Garmin is in the middle of the three sources, and also it is measured based on my heart rate rather than estimated purely on weight, I go by that number rather than what MFP has come up with.

I still get calories remaining discrepancies between GC and MFP that I can't fully explain. Other than the 100 calories difference in BMR they ought to be the same I would think, but MFP is consistently telling me I have anywhere from 200 to 400 calories extra per day compared to GC, which I haven't been able to explain yet. Now that I have resolved the time zone issue this past weekend I am going to keep an eye on things for the next week and see what the difference is now.

20yearsyounger

mechanik7 wrote: »

Things have gotten better since this thread was started... Garmin Connect and MFP now sync activities/calories burned (from GC->MFP) and calories consumed (from MFP->GC).

One major caveat though... it seems that the default profile setting for Time Zone in MFP is set for Pacific Time, and if you are not in that time zone, having the time zone off between your Garmin and MFP will really mess up the syncing algorithms. I found that step/calorie counts were not updating when they should from GC->MFP because it thought the activity happened in the future, and it wouldn't pick it up until the activity looked like it was in the past. It was also causing workouts to be double counted because it would not realize that the workout happened at the same time as the steps/HR based calorie burn, so it would not know to subtract the workout calorie adjustment from the regular GC calorie adjustment.

I have found that the BMR estimate varies from source to source. Using an online BMR calculator, I got a number X. Garmin Connect, based on my all day heart rate monitor on my Vivosmart HR, says it is on average X+100. MyFitnessPal thinks it is X+200. Since the number from Garmin is in the middle of the three sources, and also it is measured based on my heart rate rather than estimated purely on weight, I go by that number rather than what MFP has come up with.

I still get calories remaining discrepancies between GC and MFP that I can't fully explain. Other than the 100 calories difference in BMR they ought to be the same I would think, but MFP is consistently telling me I have anywhere from 200 to 400 calories extra per day compared to GC, which I haven't been able to explain yet. Now that I have resolved the time zone issue this past weekend I am going to keep an eye on things for the next week and see what the difference is now.

This is some good info. I'll just add my experiences as well to see if any gaps can be filled. If I log workouts on my Windows Phone from MFP then it messes up. Based on what you are saying it does use Pacific Time and I can't change it any MFP settings. I then have to go back in on the web or my ipad to change the dates and resync to Garmin. Then everything lines up.

I haven't experienced the problem with steps coming over. I am in EST timezone and it generally comes over, I might just have to wait 10-15 mines.

Now the BMR discussion has been around for a while. Basically Garmin's BMR isn't a true BMR. They take the true calculated BMR and add 20% (estimated activity) to it and call it your BMR. Otherwise, the BMR I get from other calculators comes closely to the true BMR in Garmin. Not this other number they give you.

Garmin now syncs my calorie goals with MFP. I have premium and my calorie goals change every day. Garmin is able to pick it up and work out the active calories. However, the number that gets sent back to MFP is always lower (100-200). Haven't been able to explain why I get cheated of those calories. I don't have negative adjustment on. Maybe I need to look into what MFP says my BMR is.

lewiskingy

Thanks for the discussion on this. I'm experiencing a similar discrepancy between Garmin Connect with Vivosmart HR and MFP. Around 200-300 calories lower in activity that comes through to MFP.

Interested in the time zone issue which I can imagine being an issue. I'm based in the UK and both Garmin and MFP seen to agree on GMT so no obvious discrepancy there.

20yearsyounger

Ok I dug into it a bit more since I hate not having the answers for this after a year.

1) I went back to yesterday where there is a complete set of day available (no forecasting for the rest of the day). You can see this if you go to MFP exercise on the web, click the (i) next to the Garmin adjustment and it tells you how it calculates the adjustment
2) I entered some of my exercise through MFP. This went to Garmin and then Garmin added on the extra calories earned through out the day to provide an Active Calories number (Active Calories Report)
3) The Total Calories Report then adds the Active Calories earned to the Garmin calculated BMR to provide a Total Garmin Connect Calories Burned that is moved over to MFP
4) MFP seems to then somehow calculate a number for me (based on the goal I set plus some other factor - I am maintaining so I don't know what), and adds the exercise within MFP to come up with a MyFitnessPal Calories Burned Number
5) The Garmin Connect Calorie Adjustment is equal to Step 3 - Step 4

The problem seems to be that Garmin calculates my BMR as 1896 whereas MFP uses my goal + some other type of adjustment that comes out to be 1997. Therefore, I lost a 100 calorie credit.

Hopefully you can follow along and see if you get the same type of thing with your own numbers. I'm accustomed to it now and it's just a little safety net so I probably won't mess with my numbers.

paulag1955

I'm not even able to get the Garmin Connect app on my Android phone to pick up the calories I enter in MFP. I have to open Connect on the internet, let that update, and then the calories will magically appear on my phone. But not on the "My Day" screen, only on the Calories In/Out page. Does anyone have any thoughts on why that might be happening?

20yearsyounger

paulag1955 wrote: »

I'm not even able to get the Garmin Connect app on my Android phone to pick up the calories I enter in MFP. I have to open Connect on the internet, let that update, and then the calories will magically appear on my phone. But not on the "My Day" screen, only on the Calories In/Out page. Does anyone have any thoughts on why that might be happening?

Sounds a bit strange. I know sometimes it take a little time for the information to show up on every screen. I used to log into the web as well when ever I needed to perform a manual sync. However, I realized that if you click on the little apple (consumed) on my day and go to Calories In/Out Details, you can actually do a manually sync from there as well. I don't have an Android but on my Windows mobile, there is a refresh circle at the bottom of the screen that I can click and on my ipad I drag my finger down on the screen and it refreshes. One of those two options should work for Android.

richardcorfield

I'd been wondering about this, as the Garmin Adjustment is huge! Though it seems to be assuming I'll maintain the same rate of work throughout the rest of the day - even while asleep!! I'd forgotten that MFP's adjustment to goal was about 500 Calories, as it sets my goal about 1600. So it assumes my usage, based on telling it I'm a computer programmer, is 2100.

So given cycle commuting and popping out at lunch time (20 miles total today, some towing children in the trailer) its estimate of around 3100 for today may not be that mad? I just see a target of 1600 and an estimated actual of 3000 and note huge discrepancy! It will be interesting to see on Wednesday when I'm next weighed how much I may have lost, then work out that in pounds per week and multiply by 500 to get it in Calories per day.