Garmin Active Calorie Adjustments

trux said:

Even if you sit all day on the couch, you burn active calories as long as your HR is not equal to RHR (or lower than it). I asked you to post the graph of your all-day HR, so that we can see, when your body burns active Calories, and when not.

This might already be resolved yesterday after I changed the Max HR for the Epix device. Today will tell the story.

Droogles Did you record another activity after you changed your max HR?  Did you also verify that your zones updated in Swift before you did the activity?    Trux has pointed out that the Zones are tied to the activity by the device/software/whatever you use to record it at the time you record it.  They don't update if you change your zones (thats the whole point of having them in the .fit file so you can see what they were when you did it). 

On the calories thing...  It's straight forward.  You told your food app that hardly move.  So, it compares what Garmin says you have burned to what it would expect to see if you didn't move much any all (were sedentary).  It then calls that "active calories" or "exercise" and adds it to your target.  So, you need 2,044 calories to keep your body doing basic functions throughout the day based on a chart they have given your current height and weight.  You told your app that you want to eat 1,737 calories so that you will lose weight.   Garmin has measured your heart rate both during your workouts (which burned 316 calories) and while you were not working out (which includes the fact that your heart rate is still high after exercise, raised when you go up or down stairs, or even get up to go get a snack), which was apparently good for another 2246 calories over the day given your height and weight.   Basically Garmin says (ignoring exercise) you burned about 10% more than your app thought you would based on their chart.      

Your app then looks at the 2,562 total calories Garmin says you ACTUALLY burned, vs the 2,044 your chart indicated and figures out that you have burned 518 more than they expected for the day.  That number gets added to the deficit target you set (1,737) suggesting that you eat 2,255 calories for the day if you want the calorie deficit you set.

If you don't like the way they are doing the math find a different app.

Droogles said:

When there's an absence of HR zone data

It's a question whether Zwift fills the HRZ fields with some values or not. I bet that it does. Export the activity as "original" and attach the zip file here (see Insert » Video/Image/File » Upload) - I can check it out. 

Droogles said:

This might already be resolved yesterday after I changed the Max HR for the Epix device. Today will tell the story

Although the Max HR plays a role too, the principal is not the Max HR, but the Resting HR. I repeat - if your HR is any beat higher than the 7 days avg Resting HR, then you burn Active Calories.

trux said:

It's a question whether Zwift fills the HRZ fields with some values or not. I bet that it does. Export the activity as "original" and attach the zip file here (see Insert » Video/Image/File » Upload) - I can check it out. 

The simple fact is, the HR Zones do not match. For example:

Attached are screenshots of the zones as viewed from Zwift and Garmin along with the fit file.

Having these match up, or, if data is not present, being able to set default zones, for imported activities, is a reasonable expectation. Anything else seems like a bug.

Zwift:

Garmin:

Archive.zip

WizardlyHat said:

Did you record another activity after you changed your max HR?  Did you also verify that your zones updated in Swift before you did the activity?    Trux has pointed out that the Zones are tied to the activity by the device/software/whatever you use to record it at the time you record it.  They don't update if you change your zones (thats the whole point of having them in the .fit file so you can see what they were when you did it).

Yes, I recorded after changing it. Yes, the zones are correct in Zwift. Regardless of if Zwift sends anything, I should be able to globally tell Garmin to use specific zones for imported activities that "might" be missing this data.

WizardlyHat said:

On the calories thing...  It's straight forward.  You told your food app that hardly move.  So, it compares what Garmin says you have burned to what it would expect to see if you didn't move much any all (were sedentary).  It then calls that "active calories" or "exercise" and adds it to your target.  So, you need 2,044 calories to keep your body doing basic functions throughout the day based on a chart they have given your current height and weight.  You told your app that you want to eat 1,737 calories so that you will lose weight.   Garmin has measured your heart rate both during your workouts (which burned 316 calories) and while you were not working out (which includes the fact that your heart rate is still high after exercise, raised when you go up or down stairs, or even get up to go get a snack), which was apparently good for another 2246 calories over the day given your height and weight.   Basically Garmin says (ignoring exercise) you burned about 10% more than your app thought you would based on their chart.      

I've pretty much sorted the food app thing. 

1. The active calories are reporting too high from Garmin. I'm working on figuring out why.
2. MyNetDiary uses weight maintenance calories in its calculations rather than my target budget calories that include my deficit. This is majorly broken and I don't have the energy or time to submit a bug to whomever is responsible.
3. MyFitnessPal is just junk. It always has been and always will be. I have no idea what is going on with the calculations, but it's incorrect whatever it is. 
4. I switched to using Cronometer which seems to be better than MyNetDiary and MFP. I can set BMR with NO preset activity level and then let Garmin feed over active calories, which actually makes sense. The active calories feed over slowly during the day allowing me to adjust my intake as needed.

WizardlyHat said:

Your app then looks at the 2,562 total calories Garmin says you ACTUALLY burned, vs the 2,044 your chart indicated and figures out that you have burned 518 more than they expected for the day.  That number gets added to the deficit target you set (1,737) suggesting that you eat 2,255 calories for the day if you want the calorie deficit you set.

Yes, and the active calories are wrong. I will get to the root of that at some point, it's likely related to HR Zones.

I've been exercising and tracking foods and calories for the past 2 decades. What this means is that I know roughly what I should be eating without using any app. MyNetDiary is using weight maintenance calories, which is wrong, PERIOD. Therefore the app is guiding me to eat more for a larger budget. 750 calories more than needed for the budget I selected, to be precise.

I noticed another huge jump in active calories today after a Zwift ride for 30 minutes.

Active calories before the ride:

Active calories after the ride:

Once again, I'm wondering, why so many active calories? 388 active calories after a ride that burned 172 calories. That's over double the calories I burned during exercise. 

Looking at this closer I can see that before and after my "ride" my HR is being classified as Z1. Per the earlier discussions in this thread I was told that HR through the Epix device should be basing the HR zones on the configured Max HR within the User Profile in the device which is set to 185. This is clearly not happening.

Here are the incorrect zones again that I find within any of my imported workouts, within Garmin connect, for reference. Notice that Z1 min is 87 BPM, but but 50% of 185 is 92.5 BPM:

From my heart rate widget in Garmin connect for today, 86 BPM is not in Z1 but 88 BPM is. This means Garmin is not obeying my heart rate zones set in my profile and is exaggerating my exertion level before and after my workout. Z1 should only be used for 92.5 and greater I shouldn't be in Z1 and I bet this is were the extra calories are coming from:

Droogles said:

Once again, I'm wondering, why so many active calories? 388 active calories after a ride that burned 172 calories. That's over double the calories I burned during exercise.

The Active Calories seem to be indeed doubled in this case. Report it to the Support.

Droogles said:

Per the earlier discussions in this thread I was told that HR through the Epix device should be basing the HR zones on the configured Max HR within the User Profile in the device which is set to 185.

Did you record the activity with your Epix? If you imported it from Zwift, then the HRZ setting on your Epix is completely irrelevant, as I continue to repeat again and again. Post the activity file here, and I may be able to tell you where the problem is.

Go back and read my posts, if you’re interested in helping, else we’re just wasting time here. The activity file was posted.

Additionally, the zone settings under my profile are being ignored. The HR data above is from the HR widget, not an imported activity.

However here’s a walk I just recorded through the Watch itself. Still seeing the wrong HR zones. My Max HR is set at 185. This means Z5 should not be >156.

Droogles said:

However here’s a walk I just recorded through the Watch itself. Still seeing the wrong HR zones. My Max HR is set at 185. This means Z5 should not be >156

Did you verify the HR Zone table directly on the watch (not on the phone app)? You can also try resetting the HRZ table, and then configuring it anew.