No calorie burn from non-exercise activity

Llaindyr said:

As Cronometer imports everything from Garmin and breaks it down, that’s the easiest way to see the breakdown.

Well, in that case you'll need to complain at Cronometer that they misinterpret the data from Garmin, since Garmin Connect does show the RMR and the daily Active Calories for both recorded and non-recorded activities.

trux said:

since Garmin Connect does show the RMR and the daily Active Calories for both recorded and non-recorded activities.

Where does Garmin show the breakdown for both recorded and non-recorded? Because all I see is this:

I believed that Active calories were counted by the calories logged by a specific activity. In today's case, it was made of up 2 x 30 min treadmill walks (345 and 225 cal each) and a weight training session (596 cal) for a total of 1,166.

It appears that that's not the case, or I also thought perhaps I wasn't incorrect and maybe it hadn't updated properly on the iPhone app and so that's why the active didn't match the total for activities logged. I then went on connect.garmin.com and that's where I saw that they've listed the definition of active as "Active = Total Calories - RMR Calories". (bonus: you can hover over the 'RMR' here int his comment and get the definition from the website. That's neat!)

I thought that's a bit strange, if that's the case does it mean that it's saying my RMR is only 164? I thought that I must be understanding it wrong so that's when I went to the full Calories page and it got even more confusing.

So now it's saying that I have burnt a total of 1699 calories so far today. But if that's the case, why is my Goal still 2880, my active 1002, and the adjusted goal (i.e. the amount of food I need to consume) 3882? That's a S***LOAD of food. I clicked the '?' icon to find out more, and that's when I was presented with this:

The Calories Goal uses MFP. But I don't use MFP, so that means it's using what? My Weight, Height, and Activity Class? But if it's using Activity Class, that means the Daily Goal is already inclusive of exercise it thinks that I'm going to do because I've put that I exercise 15 hours per week (an Activity Class of 10).

And if that's the case, what's the point in adding on the Active? That's double-dipping and means that the default logic for that when not connected to MFP is to gain weight?

So this leads me to conclude 3 things:

1. There's no breakdown of recorded and non-recorded.
2. I should not be looking at anything to do with calories in the Garmin app because it's wildly inaccurate.
3. To have successful calorie tracking using Garmin, Garmin forces you to use MFP, which is dodgy and sleazy af

Llaindyr said:

I believed that Active calories were counted by the calories logged by a specific activity.

No, Active Calories are all Calories burned during the day, regardless whether you record an activity or not.

Active Calories are not the same as Activity Calories (Calories burned during a recorded Activity).

Activity Calories = (Daily RMR) * (Activity minutes) / (24*60) + (Active Calories during the Activity).

Llaindyr said:

But if it's using Activity Class, that means the Daily Goal is already inclusive of exercise it thinks that I'm going to do because

As I already wrote, the Activity Class is used to accomodate the impact of the EPOC on your metabolism. It does not simply add 15 hours worth of Calories.

If you want to undestand it better, I recommend reading the following white paper from Firstbeat, the provider of the technology Garmin uses:

EPOC Based Training Effect Assessment 

trux said:

If you want to undestand it better, I recommend reading the following white paper from Firstbeat, the provider of the technology Garmin uses:

EPOC Based Training Effect Assessment 

Sorry, where in there is there any indication on metabolism, and so caloric requirements, post-exercise? I see a lot of discussion about the benefits of EPOC on cardiovascular fitness and measuring it using VO2 max, but nothing that actually addresses anything I raised?

trux said:

No, Active Calories are all Calories burned during the day, regardless whether you record an activity or not.

Active Calories are not the same as Activity Calories (Calories burned during a recorded Activity).

Activity Calories = (Daily RMR) * (Activity minutes) / (24*60) + (Active Calories during the Activity).

Yes, thank you for quoting one section of my reply, of which I later went on to correct myself in the exact same reply by including the formula provided by Garmin.

Llaindyr said:

Sorry, where in there is there any indication on metabolism, and so caloric requirements, post-exercise?

EPOC means Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, and oxygen consumption is directly related to energy expenditure (Calories). It means the higher EPOC, the more Calories you burn post-exercise (even at rest).

trux said:

EPOC means Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, and oxygen consumption is directly related to energy expenditure (Calories). It means the higher EPOC, the more Calories you burn post-exercise

OK so the answer to my question is that the white paper doesn't specifically list it anywhere and so does nothing to help educate someone on how they (Garmin) have arrived at their Calorie Goal.

Furthermore, the white paper doesn't even go into long-term EPOC effects by the looks of it, so it does nothing to answer how it comes into play for Calorie Goal calculations. All of the EPOC measurements are in-the-moment measurements based on current training load, then comparisons made to previous training loads.

There are countless posts on these forums of people being confused by Garmin's calorie calculations and lack of transparency. This definitely needs information provided by Garmin (assuming that you don't work for them) because all the answers so far do is confuse people more.

Yes, there are indeed countless of confused posts about Calories here on the forum (as there are about any other topic as well), but most of the issues are quite clearly explained both in the User Manuals, and in the documents available at support.garmin.com. However the nature of people is coming to vent their confusion here on the forum first, before trying to find the answers in the available documentation.

If you want to know the maximum of available details, about the calculation, I recommend using a site-specific Google queries, such as for example:

• site:firstbeat.com calories
• site:support.garmin.com calories 

Another rather detailed source on that topic is the document An Energy Expenditure Estimation Method Based on Heart Rate Measurement

However, not every detail is revealed - it is finally a prorpietary technology. If you are looking for a device using Open Source technology, with full disclosure of the internals, then I am afraid you'll have to look elsewhere.

Respectfully, if the Garmin Connect App is about maintaining or improving someone's fitness, having such an obfuscated calorie measurement that doesn't make sense and cannot be explained is a woeful business decision. Users shouldn't have to dig into 7 different sources to find out what their Calorie Goal actually means, or a rough idea of how what it entails.

trux said:

If you are looking for a device using Open Source technology, with full disclosure of the internals, then I am afraid you'll have to look elsewhere.

The screenshot example I provided from the website's Help documentation didn't make any mention of EPOC Metabolism coming into play with Calorie Goal and only said MFP, which to me implies that they're trying to make you get MFP in order to be able to modify the Calorie Goal. That's not a proprietary technology issue but appears to be an intentional misdirect. However, that's the complete opposite to what you're telling me in that it also uses all of these other measurements (something that in and of itself is super confusing when you actually break it down.)

Either way, we've come to the end of the line in our conversation because it truly appears that you cannot give me an answer on any of the questions that I've asked so far.

Llaindyr said:

That's not a proprietary technology issue but appears to be an intentional misdirect.

I do not understand what you mean by misdirect. You can indeed change the Calorie Goal in MFP, if you want. If you do not want to use MFP, you can keep it at its default vaue as calculated by Garmin Connect. The unadjusted Daily Goal is basically the RMR. The Adjusted Goal includes Active Calories.

Llaindyr said:

Either way, we've come to the end of the line in our conversation because it truly appears that you cannot give me an answer on any of the questions that I've asked so far.

If you mean the question in the OP (and in the title), then that was already answered - Garmin does calculate the Active Calories based on the HR+HRV, regardless whether you record an activity or not. That it does not appear in your Cronometer chart is an entirely different problem that you'll need to take up with Cronometer.