Carmin connect and myfitnesspal (Fenix 3 HR)

Hi, I use Garmin Connect as well as MPF and I struggle with the linked accounts and active calories values. In My experience Calorie counts from devices (even heart rate based ones) are never accurate. I usually mentally deduct at least 10% down, and sometimes disregard the Calorie adjustment element totally. The Garmin Calorie adjustment is because 'it' thinks you have been more active and burned more than your expected BMR, but 807 Calories is a lot - equivalent to over an hour of intense exercise, or 4 hours of increased activity (say house work vs sitting at a desk). Have you been more active than normal?

The objective here is to have a calorie deficit and loose weight, bigger deficit is better up to a point. That point being when your diet is unhealthy or leads to food cravings. I would not encourage you to eat more just to hit a number, I would instead try and eat to the lower value and It's not like 2200 Calories is particularly strict. Maybe you will find you need to eat a little more tomorrow. If you do feel hungry, try to delay eating for 30 mins and if you are still hungry then eat something. (The delay filters out actual body needs from what you mind would like you to have)

When I have more active days I try to stick to a similar food consumption, because i find that the routine helps (my body knows when to expect food, and roughly how much to expect). At the end of the day the body is designed to balance our energy needs by drawing on it's fat reserves.

The only exception I would have for this is if I was doing a lot of intense activity (eg I used to go on 4 hour+ cycle) rides, which I actively avoid whilst loosing weight as I prefer more consistent but less intensive exercising.

Hope this helps

TLDR: I would not encourage you to eat more just to hit a number.

Are you logging your exercise in MyFitnessPal in addition to your Garmin Adjustment? From you saying you have 524 Strength Training Workout calories and a calorie adjustment of 807 it sounds like you are double logging.

If you are wearing your watch whilst you are working out you shouldn't be logging them in MFP as a seperate workout.

FenrikJakobsen wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

I think the discrepancy you're seeing comes from your activity level setting here.

I tried to change the activity settings here to lightly active and also i changed the activity settings on garmin yesterday from 7 to 5. But unfortunately its still the same today.

What I have done also here is to set on the thing with negativ adjustment since i update the garmin app often. Ive also just removed on MFP that it should count the steps from the garmin app. So I hope that will remove all those extra calories tomorrow.

FYI, Garmin's activity level setting is meant for older devices like the Edge 800. Your Fenix will ignore what you set and decide this for itself based on the exercise you record with the watch. (Source: Garmin.)

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

FenrikJakobsen wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

Hey Tinerbellang83, does your total adjustment stack with the same number on the garmin app?
For example, for the 19th of july now, i had also turned on the same goal weight as MFP but this did not change anything.
On garmin it says i have 2 516 Rest calories (as usual) + 1 282 active calories. That is a total of 3 798.

But on MFP it says 4874 ! I can not find out how MFP can add a about a thousand more calories. Does this happen to you also? And by the way, is there a way to see how many active calories your steps have given you alone? :-)

Here is a pic of today stats






So MFP says that if i wanted, i could eat + 1,106 calories yesterday.
Garmin connect says i could eat +398 calories. (2 350 + 1 282 = 3 632.) (3 632 - 3 234 = 398)

The difference is big ..

My guess is you have your activity set as not active in MFP, so it adds calories back a lot faster. I work a desk job so I keep that setting, so I know what I can eat on days I can't get away from my desk.

FenrikJakobsen wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

I would see what it says over the next couple of days, I eat all of the adjustment back that I get from my Garmin and have been losing at the expected rate for the 6 months I've had it, yesterday from just steps (maybe 1 hour of purposeful walking yesterday, rest of the day sat at a desk), a 30 min run and a little yoga my adjustment is 670 calories, so it's not too hard to believe yours may be correct. Particularly as you are male and your resting calories are higher than mine.

Hey Tinerbellang83, does your total adjustment stack with the same number on the garmin app?
For example, for the 19th of july now, i had also turned on the same goal weight as MFP but this did not change anything.
On garmin it says i have 2 516 Rest calories (as usual) + 1 282 active calories. That is a total of 3 798.

But on MFP it says 4874 ! I can not find out how MFP can add a about a thousand more calories. Does this happen to you also? And by the way, is there a way to see how many active calories your steps have given you alone? :-)

Here is a pic of today stats


So MFP says that if i wanted, i could eat + 1,106 calories yesterday.
Garmin connect says i could eat +398 calories. (2 350 + 1 282 = 3 632.) (3 632 - 3 234 = 398)

The difference is big ..

At the end of the day it is the same, but if you're checking half way through it's only going to be a projection based on your activity up to that point. What activity level did you settle on in MFP? Before I changed mine to Lightly Active I was getting some really high numbers, you may need to set yours to Lightly Active/Active to see the numbers settle a bit, make sure you have negative adjustments enabled, that way if you have a less active day, it will adjust down.