This discussion has been locked.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Garmin Active Calories Incorrect?

Hi there!

Yesterday, I went for two rides with my Garmin Edge Explore 2 (EE2). I use a 4iiii powermeter Gen 3 to track my power, cadence and to have a more accurate insight on my active calories.

According to my EE2 and powermeter, I burned 1053 and 308 active calories, adding up to a total of 1361. After syncing my activities to my Garmin Connect, I noticed that my total active calories for yesterday added up to 1162. This is 'significantly' lower compared to my active calories that I should have burned during my rides, not even including my active calories burned by walking my 12.000 steps.

My Garmin Forerunner 265 (FR265) is set up as my primary wearable and training device, since I can't setup my EE2 as my primary training device (due to its specifications). Is there something that I am doing wrong or missing? Anybody that has more insight?

Thanks in advance, really appreciate the help!

0 trux over 1 year ago

The value from the powermeter only gives you an estimate based on the physical work you do, while Garmin uses the heart output to calculate the Calories burned by your body. Both values may be quite different, and without doing a calorimetry test in a lab, you won't know which one of the is closer to the truth.

0 5060263 over 1 year ago in reply to trux

Quite strange that Garmin uses HR over Power to calculate burned calories. Since the moment that I use a powermeter, I saw a significant change in the calorie-data.

Anyway, aside from the accuracy of calories burned, why aren't the active calories not being summed up correctly? This has nothing to do with the accuracy or estimate of calories burned. In my books, 1053 and 308 still don't add up to 1162 :(

0 trux over 1 year ago in reply to 5060263

If your body parameters (body, weight, height, age, gender), and HR parameters (Resting HR, Max HR, LTHR) are correct, then the calculation based on the HR is much more accurate than using the power meter, since the power meter measures the physical work done, and only roughly estimates the efficiency of your muscles, technique, and metabolism - those are very individual, and depend also on many external factors. Using the HR is much more direct, and normally more accurate. If it is not your case, some of the listed parameters may be wrong. Check them all out.