Garmin Experts, need your help.

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jimivon
jimivon Posts: 3 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone,

I've seen this issue posted and not sure if there is a solution yet. I use the Garmin for steps, heart. I use MapMyRide for bike rides. I also use MyFitnessPal to put them all together. MFP shows the bike rides and the calories burned and sybcs perfectly. It also shows any manual entries I make on MFP, like Weight Training (Cardiovascular) and adds those calories.

It does not show the calories burned from steps on the Garmin. It shows 0, even though Garmin says 8,500 steps, 350 calories burned (or something like that). Is there a way to get the calories for steps to show up? Or do you need to manually enter them since I manually entered other exercises? Are the manually entered weight lifting, running or anything else (plus the MapMyRide) date making the steps from Garmin always 0?

Thanks for the help.

Replies

  • dewd2
    dewd2 Posts: 2,449 Member
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    How do you have your profile setup on MFP? Active? Very Active? I would guess that 8500 steps is still within the 'expected' range for both of those. Sedentary or Lightly Active may give you the extra calories but the question is are you really burning them?

    How long have you been tracking and are you getting the expected results?
  • jimivon
    jimivon Posts: 3 Member
    edited July 2019
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    That’s just steps. I do about 20 miles on the bike, plus weights every other day and a short 20 minute run on the treadmill and a swim once or twice a week. The bike, swim, weights and runs are all entered manually on MFP and show up fine. Today was 10.2K steps from Garmin. Those steps show up under MFP, just with 0 calories. Those few extra calories burned (compared to everything else) do not show up.

    If you can manually enter every exercise and it shows up, something is not right with the steps. Those calories should be added regardless of settings.

    MFP shows the calorie goal I set, subtracts food and adds back all manual exercises, except steps are 0. That small amount of calories is not included anywhere. The “how active you are” won’t change the calorie goal I set. I think i’lll just manually enter the steps.

    Each day it says I have 2K+ calories left, that I of course don’t eat and use towards weight loss. Weight is coming off fast, just annoying it is not accurate and does not count the calories burned (although small) from the Garmin steps.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
    edited July 2019
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    Your Garmin “steps” adjustment doesn’t really have anything to do with steps.

    Garmin sends over the total calories you burned in the day. Mfp subtracts out the calories it expects you to burn for your activity setting plus any workouts you’ve entered on mfp. The difference is the amount of your “steps” adjustment.

    If your “steps” adjustment is 0, then Garmin says you burned the same (or fewer) calories than mpf has calculated already.

    For example: mfp is expects me to burn 1600 calories a day as sedentary. If I go for a run and log 300 calories on mfp, mfp now expects my total calories burned to be 1900.

    If my Garmin says I burned 2100 (for the day), then I will get an additional 200 calories (2100-1900).
    If my Garmin says I burned 1800 (for the day), then I will get 0 additional calories (1800-1900=-100. This will be a 0 adjustment under less you enable negative adjustments).

    So your Garmin says you’re burning the same or less than mfp already says you’re burning. Hence the 0 adjustment. If you enable negative adjustments, you’ll see that 0 become a negative number.

    Just as an aside-mapmywhatever is notorious for massively overstating calorie burns. So if that’s where you’re getting your calorie burns for your workouts, it’s likely the numbers are incredibly high (and why you aren’t getting any additional calories from steps). The fact that you have 2k calories a day leftover with the workouts you’re doing is kind of an indication that the workout calories are really, really, really high.
  • aokoye
    aokoye Posts: 3,495 Member
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    jimivon wrote: »
    Hi everyone,

    I've seen this issue posted and not sure if there is a solution yet. I use the Garmin for steps, heart. I use MapMyRide for bike rides. I also use MyFitnessPal to put them all together. MFP shows the bike rides and the calories burned and sybcs perfectly. It also shows any manual entries I make on MFP, like Weight Training (Cardiovascular) and adds those calories.

    It does not show the calories burned from steps on the Garmin. It shows 0, even though Garmin says 8,500 steps, 350 calories burned (or something like that). Is there a way to get the calories for steps to show up? Or do you need to manually enter them since I manually entered other exercises? Are the manually entered weight lifting, running or anything else (plus the MapMyRide) date making the steps from Garmin always 0?

    Thanks for the help.

    This may seem like a very obvious question, but have you checked that you have Garmin Connect set to sync with MFP? I have a Garmin FR 935, which I use for a number of things, and it's only had issues uploading steps to MFP once. Which Garmin do you have? If you have one that is capable of recording cycling, I would use that over MapMyRide in a heartbeat.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Try adding a manual exercise to Garmin Connect, and see if it shows up here after you sync.
  • jimivon
    jimivon Posts: 3 Member
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    Thanks, i’ll give all of the above a shot. MapMyRide definitely overstates, I usually count it as half.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    For Garmin to send over that Total daily burn that includes the workouts that @Duck_Puddle shows how the math occurs - Garmin must receive the workouts that originate or sync only to MFP.

    So is the MMR workout showing up on Garmin?
    Are your manually entered weights or swim workouts showing up there?

    Do you really like MFP's exercise diary more than Garmin's for this to be the hub?
    Or is that merely for friends list to see your workouts?

    And that Adjustment line has more detail - just hold down on that line if using app.
    Very useful picture and details to confirm on Garmin side.

    It could easily be Garmin is getting the workouts, but not increasing the daily burned, or not syncing that back to MFP.
    Your method requires extra syncing to occur - more prone to issues and failures.

    Have your Garmin account up and viewing, add or sync the workouts as normal into MFP, and watch if the Garmin total daily burned goes up as the workouts come in.

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