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New Garmin connect Calorie issue?

I run quite a lot (70-120km weekly) and have been using Garmin for the past year. Just this current week though, my active calories haven't been adding up correctly. My runs are visible, and if I view the activity, it shows the calories burnt (approx 650 per 10km run), but it's not getting added to my daily active calories.

This week, 12th and 13th updated correctly, both days were 20km+ runs, plus my usual active daily life, but 14th (20km), 17th(10km) and 18th (20km), my runs havent been accounted for. I took the days off on 15th and 16th from running, but I was still very active with walking, so that seems skewed as well.

Was there an app update this week that has caused an issue? Any tips on fixing it? I've reset my watch, phone, tried reinstalling the app yesterday, but no avail.

0 2501883 over 5 years ago

Same here. The active calorie calculation on the widget is far off from just the combined total of activities. This morning, I walked a mile, did housework, went shopping ... and the widget showed 15 active calories.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

My case is the opposite: almost without activity and it gives me a lot of calories. Aso for a week or two.

Absolutely out of The ordinary.

0 mcalista over 5 years ago

The standard convention for counting calories is to include your underlying metabolism (this represents the total load on your body). So your run will include both what you burned through running, and your underlying metabolism for the duration of your run.

Active calories strips this out and includes it in the "resting calories" bucket.

Active calories will never match the totals of your recorded activities for this reason. A weird way of presenting it, but nothing requiring "fixing".

0 Ummon over 5 years ago in reply to mcalista

For sure, I can absolutely understand that.

But up until the start of last week, it stopped including my activity active calories.

Standard resting calories averages about 2000 daily without actually doing much at all. 2 screen shots from this past week and 2 weeks ago, with similar running of approx 80-100km in the week.

Just looking at daily comparisons in the screenshots,

Dec 2nd 13km ran, Dec 23rd 20.5km ran.

Dec 1st 10km ran - 22nd no running.

Nov 30th 10km ran - 21st 21km ran

Nov 29th 11km ran - Dec 20th 10km ran

Nov 28th 21km ran - Dec 19th 10.5km ran

Nov 27th 19km ran - Dec 18th 20.5km ran

There's no denying something has changed in my connect.

0 2501883 over 5 years ago in reply to mcalista

Yeah no, that's not it. If I go on a mile-long walk in the morning without turning on the "walk" activity, I get 15 active calories for that mile-long walk. This is different from before.

Plus, the difference between the calories logged during activities and the "active" calories logged in the widget are strikingly different. 100 calories per hour different.

This is aggravating as heck.

0 mcalista over 5 years ago in reply to 2501883

I can't explain the recent changes and inconsitencies.

But underlying metabolism is around 60-100 calories per hour. If the difference between äctive calories" and what is recorded in the activities is in that range, that is probably the explanation.

0 trux over 5 years ago

The algorithm for calculating the active calories takes in account also the HR data, so if you see any inconsistencies in the results, checking whether the HR is being properly detected and recorded, would be my first advice. Check whether the average HR values are consistent across your activities, and also check the daily HR graphs whether there are any unusual patterns. Perhaps on some runs, the watch was not tightly strapped to your wrist, or a sleeve got between the watch and your wrist, or you were sweating more than usually, or the sensor was exposed too much to the ambient light, or it was dirty,...

0 Ummon over 5 years ago in reply to trux

I wear a HR strap for all my runs, it's always consistent with the effort.

Yesterday as another example.

This is purely based on my runs, not all the other 'active' calories burnt outside of activities.

Dec 28th.

Total calories burnt 2,940.

Resting calories 2,041

Active calories 899.

Seems reasonable considering that I had a busy day. Couple of good dog walks, worked on my feet in an active environment for 8hours and just had a busy day in general.

Except that I also ran 10km (664cal) and 14km (932cal) to and from work. Combined 1,596 calories.

That seems to be the new thing in the past weeks. My activity Calories aren't getting included in the Connect calories totals.

0 trux over 5 years ago in reply to Ummon

I checked it with my own data and the results are consistent with expectations, hence I do not expect there is any bug in the algorithm. Rather you may have wrongly adjusted personal data used for the calculation of the BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). You should check whether the weight, height, age, and sex in your profile settings correspond to the reality. Also check what your "Goal" calories in the Health menu "Calories In/Out" are - I believe they should correspond to the BMR in 24 hours (perhaps adjusted by your weight-loss goal if you have entered any, for example through the MyFitnessPal interface).

Let's look on similar case with my own data, where I explain it in details, and show that the algorithm used in Garmin Connect works all right: On Dec 27th I had the Goal of 1530 Cal. Let's assume it to be the BMR for 24 hours, hence 1530/(24*60) = 1.0625 Cal/min. On the same day Connect shows 563 active calories and three activities of 316 Cal (in 49 min), 170 Cal (in 53 min), and 146 Cal (in 36 min). The sum of the three activities is equal to 632 Cal which is well over the active calories for given day, but that's just because of the BMR included in the values shown at the activities. Now I have to subtract the BMR:

Active Calories of activities = activity Calories - time*BMR = 632 Cal - (49+53+36 min)*1.0625 Cal/min = 485 Cal

And that looks perfectly OK, because it is less than the active calories for the given day (563 Cal). The difference 563-485 = 78 Cal corresponds to the remaining physical activity during the day, not registered under any of the three logged activities.

This means, the algorithm seems to be working all right. If in your case the results do not match the expectation, very likely the BMR is not calculated correctly because of incorrect input data for the BMR calculation (weight, height, sex, age, perhaps also the weight-loss/gain goal - if used any).

0 Ummon over 5 years ago in reply to trux

All my personal stats are accurate. Age weight, height and sex.

Connect calculated my resting calories everyday at 2041 calories.

So, that means BMR of 1.41. 2041/24/60.

28th activities 1596 calories in 102 minutes. Runs 10km 41.5min and 14km in 60.5mins.

1596-102*1.41 = 1,452.18.

The active calories for the day showed 899.

899-1452 = - 553.18.

That doesn't add up.

This whole change in calculating active activity calories only started happening December14th.

I've been using garmin all year and I'd say that it has always accurately represented the effort and activity of my personal daily life. Active calories included correctly daily.

I literally adjusted nothing in the app or on my watch.