Garmin Calorie Count?

This is mine.

I used to own a Fitbit before my Garmin and would get a much bigger calorie adjustment.

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What garmin is it, and do you wear it all day, or only during workouts?


Making some assumptions...

That seems reasonable to me. If you actually ran at that pace for that amount of time, then the calorie burn for your running is reasonable. And 16k steps is more than "not very active", thus the calorie adjustment. I guess the big unknown is how many of those 16k steps were from your running.


Taking a step back and thinking bigger picture...
You have a garmin and an MFP account for a reason, right? Because you wanted a way to measure and track and estimate, right? Then let them do their jobs. Let Garmin do what it does. Let MFP do what it does. Give them a chance... and if after a few week you aren't seeing the progress you should be seeing, then make some small changes.

TavistockToad wrote: »

running calories are easy to calculate:

bodyweight in lbs x 0.63 x distance in miles

what are your stats to have a calorie goal of 1400 to start with?

That formula gave me a burn of 504 on my run last night. My Garmin gave me 596. I would imagine somewhere in between is the sweet spot. I ran slower than usual for my road pace, so I can see why Garmin might have granted me more. I also burn more when I do trail running up more significant inclines.

I've never been good about keeping up on the numbers of weight loss and how many of my exercise calories I can eat to make sure I'm losing, and my recent data is crap because I have been overeating anyway.

I agree with @jjpptt2 to let MFP and Garmin do what they do best, and adjust as necessary if you're not losing at the rate you'd like.

Garmin sends only your active calorie data to MFP and it is sent in two ways. Garmin calculates active calories burnt throughout the day both during a workout plus everything else. When the sync happens with MFP it shows up as the calories from the workout (1) and then whatever other active calories were recorded (2).

I am in the same boat. I did a spin class and burned 8XX cal. Now MFP is saying my Garmin cal adjustment is 163?

carolinacrazy wrote: »

I have had a similar question and don't think I have a clear answer.

Assume I get up in the morning and immediately go on a 3 mile run right out of bed.
Immediately after, Garmin then shows this as:
1) 4300 steps in my daily step count, AND
2) As a Workout that burned 450 calories.

At that point that is my entire expenditure for the day - a 3 mile run plus my basic resting metabolism.
According to Garmin, the Garmin workout calories calculation incorporates both resting metabolism burn during the time period of the exercise AND the exercise burn. So my entire expenditure should only be the Workout number from Garmin.

However, In MFPal, I immediately see:
1) A 450 Calorie Running workout, AND
2) A Garmin Calorie Adjustment of 122 calories

It has given me 122 more calories burned than the basic workout that I believer are based on the steps done.

MFPal is giving me some credit for the steps done during the workout PLUS the workout itself.

This does seem like double counting to me.

Am I missing something?

I have noticed in the last week or so that my non-running activity adjustment goes way down by the end of day unless I take a considerable amount of steps in addition to my running activity.

carolinacrazy wrote: »

I have had a similar question and don't think I have a clear answer.

Assume I get up in the morning and immediately go on a 3 mile run right out of bed.
Immediately after, Garmin then shows this as:
1) 4300 steps in my daily step count, AND
2) As a Workout that burned 450 calories.

At that point that is my entire expenditure for the day - a 3 mile run plus my basic resting metabolism.
According to Garmin, the Garmin workout calories calculation incorporates both resting metabolism burn during the time period of the exercise AND the exercise burn. So my entire expenditure should only be the Workout number from Garmin.

However, In MFPal, I immediately see:
1) A 450 Calorie Running workout, AND
2) A Garmin Calorie Adjustment of 122 calories

It has given me 122 more calories burned than the basic workout that I believer are based on the steps done.

MFPal is giving me some credit for the steps done during the workout PLUS the workout itself.

This does seem like double counting to me.

Am I missing something?

Not double, actually preventing double. It is correct to count the normal metabolism in with the workout calories - since metabolism is still going on during that chunk of time. Be incorrect to remove it. The workout calories are not being added on top of the base metabolism - for that chunk of time it replaced the base metabolism, with something higher that included it too.

Garmin's site says that their total daily burn (which they send to MFP) minus RMR calories (yet elsewhere they reference BMR, so RMR includes digesting food they mention, which is not normally part of RMR, misuse of terminology) - which they call Active calories.
But that's not part of the math on MFP - but it's shown on Garmin and can cause confusion.
I mention for that reason - Garmin's Active calories is their own little thing.

The workout calories is obvious.

They like other activity trackers (except Apple) send a total daily calorie burn (which includes the exercise of course) throughout the day (well, when you click sync).

They unlike other trackers (but like Apple) send a workout across.

So MFP has math to do - how to correct their own estimate of your daily burn based on selected activity level with no exercise expected. Say that was 1800 cal (1300 eating goal with 500 deficit).
(Say your BMR was 1440 x 1.25 for Sedentary level).

So the total daily burn sent by Garmin that MFP received already has the calories from the workout in it. Say your day was at 1172 after the workout, 450 of that was the workout.

If all MFP received was total daily burn like with Fitbit, all is done and easy.

1172 received at 8am (1/3 the day) - MFP expected 600 (1800/3) = 572 adjustment over expected.
(that math is done a tad different same result)

eating goal 1300 + adjustment 572 + 1872 new goal (1800 MFP expected +572=2372, still 500 cal deficit)


But, Garmin sends the workout too.
So MFP knows about the total that includes the workout, and the workout. Workout calories are added to your eating goal.
If you look at above, that would increase your eating goal 450 more, which is already in the math the 572 came from.

So it must be subtracted as part of the adjustment. (they make everything on exercise diary get added to eating goal, reason why this is needed)

Garmin 1172 - workout 450 - 600 MFP expected = 122 adjustment.

eating goal 1300 + 122 adj + 450 workout = 1872 new goal.


No double counting, because it's taken out of the adjustment math already.

In fact, what it sounds like Apple does to have screwed up math on MFP, and I saw Garmin do last night, it failed to increase the daily calorie burn on it's own site by the amount of the workout. (Apple must keep it as 2 separate figures)
Then it sent that reduced daily calorie burn, and still the workout info to MFP.

So that was screwed up - double subtraction of the workout actually. Never was in the daily burn.
Yours in that case would appear 722 total calorie burn with no workout (1172-450).

722 - workout 450 - 600 = neg 328

eating goal 1300 - 328 + 450 workout = 1422

I had to switch around screens before the daily count went up, and sync again so MFP got the correct figure.
That's something to watch.

I have to agree. I own a garmin and a fitbit versa 3. Fitbits calories a big part of the time seem to say I'm supposed to eat lower. But sometimes it syncs up..

I just suggest to listen to your body along side of the tracker. It's like, "if garmin asked you to jump off a cliff, would you do it to?" lol. Use it as a guideline I'd say.

I think my new regimen for the most part will be sticking to the base calories but if I happen to get hungrier then go for a little more and if I still feel I need more I'd just eat what garmin says..or alternatively listen to my fitbit if I wore it.

Highly depends how much you exercise,type etc. I think. Like 2 days ago I ate about 1200 calories (my base cals) successfully and the next day I kept having stress like cravings so I just ate up what garmin said (1900ish cals) until my body seemed happy enough with it, I think maybe the alternating high and low calorie deal may be the way to go...mind you I did high intensity exercise 2 days in a row ( which I prob shouldn't do cuz the 2nd day i get cortisol or ravenous or something, probably why that happened).

Not listening to your body probably won't do it much good.

I've seen posts where people say they don't ever eat their exercise calories or I see posts that say they only eat like 50% of their calories burned from exercise. I think my way I just mentioned seems safe.