No calorie burn from non-exercise activity

Hi, new to this forum I was wondering if anyone actually answered your question? I have the same issue, coming from Fitbit I feel the Garmin Forerunner 245 is really low in estimating non-exercise calorie burn...

Hi Joe, do you mean MoveIQ? That’s switched on. 

Hi all, this is a fairly common occurrence that often is just a misunderstanding of what it means. Calorie Terminology

• The biggest one that causes confusion is active vs resting vs activity. 

  • Active Calories

    • Active calorie numbers are what is burned throughout the day only while doing physical, non-sedentary, activity such as walking or working out. Garmin devices calculate active calories based on the activity level, type of activity, age, height, weight, gender, and heart rate (if available). 
      
      
  • Activity Calories
    
    
    • This is the total of active and resting calories that are calculated during a recorded activity on your device (from the moment that you start the timer for the activity to the moment you stop the timer). This information will not equal Active Calories in Garmin Connect.

  • Resting Calories

    • Also known as Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), these are the calories that you are always burning, even when your body is in a sedentary state, such as sleeping or sitting down. Resting calories consist of the minimum calories required to support your body’s basic physiological needs, as well as your age, height, weight, and gender, plus an estimate of those calories required for activities like digestion and being mentally alert.

      Some Garmin watches which feature an optical heart rate sensor will also take into account heart rate and your VO2 Max estimate information to further provide a more accurate resting calorie measurement.

      Garmin Connect will take into account your Activity Class when calculating calories burned
      
      

If you feel your calorie estimate is too low my recommendation would be to take a look at your Activity Class in your Garmin Connect Account. Changing the Activity Class Setting in Garmin Connect

Hi,

I'm not sure if this answers the original question though.

Today, for example, my morning looked like this:

• 30 minute Treadmill walk logged as 'Treadmill' activity at a 6km/h pace = 119 kcal
• 10-15 minutes of weight-lifting prior to commencing HIIT Tracker activity = 0 kcal
• 50 minutes of weight-lifting logged as HIIT Tracker activity = 443 kcal
• 30 minute treadmill walk logged as 'Treadmill' activity at a 6.5km/h pace = 229 kcal

Why did my Garmin Fenix 6S Sapphire not log any calories burnt for the 10-15 minutes before I remembered to start the Strength activity? I know that my heart rate was elevated because I can see that tracked in the Connect app.

Furthermore, when doing the same weight-lifting workout and fully logging it, I routinely range from 500-700 kcals, so it's evident that there are calories being missed and not counted by the watch.

I believe this the same as the original question, which asked why the watch didn't calculate his yard work and don't think that this is a discrepancy in definition of active/activity/BMR.

Cheers.

Edit: when the data is imported into Cronometer, I see this:

Treadmill running (Garmin) - 199.0 kcal

Treadmill running (Garmin) - 229 kcal

Indoor cardio (Garmin) - 443.0 kcal

Daily activity (Garmin) - 0 kcal

So Garmin is logging that daily activity is occurring, but is showing that no calories have been burnt for it?

Thorey said:

Why did my Garmin Fenix 6S Sapphire not log any calories burnt for the 10-15 minutes before I remembered to start the Strength activity?

If you did not start the activity, the Calories won't be added to the Activity total calories. The burned energy will be only reflected in the daily totals.

If you feel that the reported Calories shown by the device do not correspond well to your expectations, then verify that the HRM works well (see some tips in the document The Heart Rate Sensor on My Garmin Watch Is Not Accurate), or try using a chest strap HRM for better accuracy. Also make sure that you personal data (age, gender, weight, height and especially the Activity Class) are set acordingly.

I think either I've not been clear or you've misunderstood - it's not shown at all in the daily totals and that's proven by the Daily Activity section on Cronometer being 0 kcal. And further confirmed by the Calories section on the Garmin Connect App not showing it either (it shows my BMR + Active).

So does that mean that the watch never accurately calculates calories burned unless it's specifically logged in as an activity?

I.e. if I'm out walking around the shops, or cleaning the garage or out mowing, I'll be burning more calories than I would be if I was sitting down watching TV, but it sounds like the Garmin's not going to show the difference because the Daily Activity section doesn't change, or at least didn't in this instance.

Thorey said:

So does that mean that the watch never accurately calculates calories burned unless it's specifically logged in as an activity?

No, Calories are calculated throughout the day, regardless whether you record an activity or not. At least as long as your HRM is working right. 

As I wrote in my previous post - verify the Activity Class in your user settings - it plays an important factor in the way the Calories are calculated. So if it is undefined or set to 0, it may perhaps lead to the effect you described.

OK so I did it again today on purpose - I was doing Leg Extensions. I purposefully did a full set of 4 x 8, confirmed that my heart rate was spiking, but the watch still did not calculate any calories burnt. Here is what's shown in Cronometer:

The 68 minutes is a combination of the leg extensions, and packing away equipment/weights at the gym post-exercise, the calorie count is STILL 0.

trux said:

No, Calories are calculated throughout the day, regardless whether you record an activity or not. At least as long as your HRM is working right

Here is a second picture of the HR to show that it was elevated and so the HR is working right, but the question still remains of why is it not counting those calories burnt?

The definition of the Activity Class from HERE says: Garmin fitness devices use this information along with the user's profile in order to calculate the calories burned during a given activity.

My reading of that is whether I log an activity like Strength, and not Daily Activity. Are you saying that it's all activities, regardless of those logged?

Thorey said:

My reading of that is whether I log an activity like Strength

I do not know where you saw it, but the definition speaks about the frequency of training / excercises. It can be running, cardio, strength, bike, or whatever other training you do during the week.