kilojoules

Everyone keeps asking for this. Why does Garmin claim to support metric but not for this?

Calories are metric so that is no argument. It isn't a unit in the SI system, but that is no argument either.

Calories are mainly used for measuring energy in food. Why it is used for measuring energy for exercise is that most people use calories for managing body weight so it is closely related to the energy intake.

How are you using the energy used by your exercise? If you are using it for weight management it would probably be better to use calories since the main part for weight management is the food you eat which usually is measured in calories.

The EU and Australia use kilojoules, not calories, on food labels. This is a localization issue.

In EU it must be in both kilo joules and kilo calories: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/food-labelling/nutrition-declaration/index_en.htm

"The energy value must be:
indicated in kilo joules (kJ) and kilo calories (kcal) per 100 g or per 100 ml"

Well, not in Australia, where I bought this product. What point are you trying to make? There is obviously a sustained demand for this trivial setting.

Glad I learned the EU is showing both nowadays, but it's still common in Australia to omit kcal, even in a dieting context.

It is better to use correct arguments when trying to convince someone (Garmin). Saying stuff like "not metric" and "EU don't use calories" are obviously incorrect.

Australia use joules (and calories seems to be optional) on the labels so that is a good point.

MyFitnessPal got an integration with Garmin so that might be an argument to use the same unit in both systems, but MFP supports both calories and joules.

Send your requests to Garmin: https://www.garmin.com/forms/ideas/ 

I didn't say it wasn't metric though. I simply said my expectation was that enabling "metric" in Garmin could switch to the official unit used in the metric countries - which is usually the SI unit. Even though both are increasingly displayed, many people learned a different system, including for nutrition & fitness contexts. I am considering trying to adapt though.

Good suggestion to use MyFitnessPal, thanks! I am using MyNetDiary this way and finding it excellent.