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Fitness Age recommendation potentially harmful?

9519925
over 2 years ago

Just entered the Garmin eco system and like the fitness age as a decent KPI for tracking overall tends.  However, in it's recommendation for lowering fitness age, it's saying I need to reduce my BMI.  I did a recent DEXA scan that put my body fat at 17%, which is good for me.  I run and strength train in the gym, so my current goals for improving fitness is to increase muscle mass while maintaining the same BF%.  This will increase my BMI, while also improving my overall fitness; however, my fitness age would be penalized for this.

I can not find anywhere where I can manually add BF% for consideration in the app, or on the watch.  As Garmin is fitness orientated I am sure they know this and have considered it somewhere?  Am I missing something?

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    You can get a Garmin scale that is also probably going to think you are to fat, because it relies to much on statistical data than the actual measurement.

    Or you can import bodyfat manually with a csv file.

    You can use scales not from Garmin and use a web hosted script to import for a monthly fee.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to KrapfenKringel

    Thanks.  Don't want a scale as I have easy access to DEXA.  Do you happen to have a source that shows the proper formatting for the csv file?

    Wish Garmin would just let us manually enter (as I used to do with Fitbit).  Guess that will have to go into a wish list for future updates.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to KrapfenKringel

    Got the CSV file imported using the following format and it proved my original point.  Where it was originally telling me I could improve my fitness age by dropping BMI, it now states I've achieve the best possible age (am 49, was at 44.5 and is now at 42).

    Why, oh why Garmin do you make your customer jump through such complex hoops to get accurate and reliable recommendations!  I should be able to manually enter data to all available fields, especially if the data would make the recommendations more relevant and less potential for harm.

    CSV Format:

    Body
    Date,Time,Weight,BMI,Fat,Bone,Hydration,Muscle
    "2023-01-15","4:00 PM","74.8 KG","23.7","17.1"

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 9519925

    Great you got it to work, can be tricky with settings and format. Did you get the time to work too? I always thought that's no a variable we can use.

    As for the why, they want people to buy their scale, but that needs a fix we are waiting for since 2 years first. So they fall back to the not that useful BMI value.

    My plan is that if/when the update for the S2 scale is coming, to get a professional scan, calibrate the scale to it, delete all the old data and adjust it according to the offset and reimport it as CSV again.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to KrapfenKringel

    Time, no.  For whatever reason it defaults to 3 pm.

    I've come to realize that Garmin has pulled the old bait and switch on me!  Was a Fitbit customer, but was frustrated by having to pay an annual fee to see all my data displayed.  A lot of marketing and reviews on line promoted Garmin as a better alternative as there were no "Fees" to access additional data.  However, I now get that although Garmin doesn't charge any additional fees, if you want the data you need to either purchase additional gear AND upgrade to more expensive trackers to get the additional gears data to display.  i.e. Purchased a Venu 2 plus and HRM pro+ chest strap.  I bought the chest strap for the advanced running dynamics and imagine my surprise when I found out that even though the HRM is outputting the advanced analytics, the Venu 2+ and connect app will not display...  have to buy a more expensive watch (and there is the additional hidden FEE).  Or another example; if you want analytics of body composition, purchase a scale (Fitbit did this for free with account, could manually add).