Inconsistency with Active Calories on the Reports section

More info on this. Things only seem to go pear shaped when you have logged an activity for the day. I just did a 12k run and afterwards the disparity is almost 300kcal.

I'm pretty pissed off that Garmin's response to my emails explaining this are a cut and paste that they are aware of syncing issues and to look for updates on their status page. There is no indication they are taking any notice of my report and there is certainly no reference to the issue on the status page.

What is the point in spending 400 pounds+ on a 920XT to wear day round as part of a MFP regime if it can't get its calorie counts in order?

Garmin customer service is unbelievably poor right now.

I noticed yesterday that the Garmin calorie adjustment on MFP looked too high, so I checked the reports section of the Garmin connect website and there is an inconsistency between Active Calories.

If I look at the "All Activities" section then I see:

- Active Calories for Weds 14th Jan = 736 total ( 150 walking, 586 cycling )

- Total Calories for Weds 14th Jan = 1951 BMI + 864 active.

This is a differential of 128, and it appears the higher number is the one sent to MFP.

If I look at other days there are also inconsistencies, in fact for Tuesday 13th the disparity is over 300!

Is anyone else seeing this? Anyone know the reason behind this or if it is a bug? If it isn't correct its a massive problem for MFP users as it will mislead us in terms of calories burned etc.....

Thanks,
Paul

I have the same issue (moved from another thread as this one is more appropriate)

Been having a similar discrepancy, but mine is all within Garmin (or seems to be originating within Garmin Connect). Garmin Connect dashboard tile of "Calories In/Out" shows 776 active calories after my workout today at 1:00pm. For context:

- Workout = 376 calories (which is about right considering past performance)
- Steps = 400 calories? (in only 5100 steps thus far and in a full day it is usually about 10-11,000 steps for about 160 calories total)

Now when I go to the "Reports" tile > "All Activities" > "Active Calories" this is what it shows:

- 376 calories - (the workout I entered)
- 98 calories - (for the steps adjustment, which seems about right bases on past performance)

Problem started last week and seems to only occur when I edit the name of the exercise I enter. I will verify tomorrow by not editing the name of my workout to see if that has any effect.

This is a bit frustrating.

**Device** Garmin Vivosmart

Here is a response I just received from Garmin just now:

Dear xxxxx,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

I will be happy to help you with your calories on your vivofit. Calories burned on vivofit takes into account your user profile (weight, height, age) the type of activity (running vs walking) and if a heart rate monitor is being used. In addition, vivofit calculates both active and inactive (base metabolic rate) calories to show the total calories burned on a daily basis. That is why you are seeing those additional calories in your account.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with today.

I guess I will try calling them to explain as it seems they did not understand the problem as described.

Will update


Screen Shots show the discrepancy I was mentioning in the above. At the end of the day (Monday 1/26/15) Garmin had showed me as expending 903 calories on the "Calorie In/Out" tile and only 505 calories (129 C walking + 376 C Exercising) on the "Active Calorie Report"...This is a big discrepancy.

I had suspected the cause of the problem was that I usually edit my workout (changing it from "Running" to "Indoor Cardio", "Strength Training"; Naming my exercise "Chest, Back, Legs, Plyometrics, etc"; and changing event "Fitness", "Training", etc.).

Today I edited my noon cardio workout from the Garmin Connect website dashboard (which I generally edit them from my iphone when I sync my vivosmart to it after my workout) and everything appears to be ok (see before and after screen shots attached). I didn't get a super inflated calorie expenditure, but there is still a discrepancy and it's now the other way (see attached)

I plan on doing some resistance training later today, so I will make sure to edit the exercise information from my phone to see if that triggers the issue I'm having. Trying to isolate this event as it's hard to stay on target if I don't really trust the information i'm working off of.


**I labeled the screen shots before and after's...I only included 1 after just cause)



**UPDATE**
So I did my afternoon workout and edited the following information using the Garmin Connect app on my iPhone and the problem occurred (Calories In/Out increased by 288 Calories): changing it from "Running" to "Indoor Cardio", "Strength Training"; Naming my exercise "Chest, Back, Legs, Plyometrics, etc"; and changing event "Fitness", "Training", etc.

So I think I have at least isolated the problem to something within the iPhone Garmin Connect app. I have attached pic's of the information before and after I edited the workout name and such.

I will also be contacting Garmin tomorrow with this information to see if they can get us some answers and some fixes.

Here are the screen shots of the "Calories In/Out" tile before and after:

You can see the total calories jumped significantly from 963 C burned before to 1262 C burned after...a difference of 299!

Here are the before and after screen shots of the "Reports" tile ("Reports" tile > "All Activities" > "Active Calories")
Before:

After:

As can bee seen in the screen shots the total calorie remained the same the only thing that changed was the distribution. Before I edit the workout all my workouts post, by default, as running which is why in the before you see a portion of calories in light blue and then after they are in the darker blue.

What is frustrating is that Myfitnesspal then works off of the data in the Calories In/Out section of Garmin Connect and that can throw me off my regimen and if gone unnoticed for a period of time can have some unwanted effects.

On some days, I do the EXACT steps, but the calorie burn is higher. I do not use a a hr monitor. Is it bc it can tell the intensity of the workout? The only difference would be that sometimes I just walk and other days I use elliptical. I thought it would only do that if I used a hr monitor.

It can also change a bit if you're weight was changed. I have a scale that passes my weight on to garmin, for example

Can anyone else back this up from their data?

A few observations from my long and continuing calorie debate with Garmin. First, I have never had an all in one device like you have. I started with an Edge and Forerunner and later added a Vivofit and then Vivosmart into the mix before replacing my Forerunner with a fenix 2 and am generally pleased with the two device strategy. The Vivofit never comes off and the other devices only come out for intentional exercise. Garmin has had a lot of trouble even sorting out two devices. They finally got that nailed with the Vivofit but that fix did not transfer entirely to the Vivosmart particularly as it relates to what GC tells MFP. Even then, as long as you don't record the same Activity on two or more devices (and why would you unless you are a freak like me) it works.

Second, the active calories graph has always been an enigma to me and I have generally advised people to ignore it because a) it often makes no sense relative to the other numbers and b) those numbers are not used for anything important (like sending to MFP). I have been so focused on getting Garmin to get the numbers in the Total Calories graph right that I have given them a pass on Active calories for now.

Third, I am confused by your watch calorie/GC calorie discrepancy. The only way you could make that comparison is to be looking at your watch at midnight as it will keep adding BMR every minute all day long.

What Garmin SAYS they do is to ignore all activity tracker information during a period that an Activity is being recorded on a superior Garmin device. In your case, both things are happening in one device so it should be easier than ever but I have no way to confirm they got that right. What I would be tempted to do if I had a 920 or fenix 3 is to do a major hike of 8-12 hours duration (no HRM) and record it as an activity leaving the watch off for the rest of the day. If your theory about what is happening is correct, you will get around 1,000 calories per hour of hiking instead of the 500ish you are actually due.

Let me state again that I have little or no confidence in the Active Calories presented in GC. Having said that, using a datapoint developed in this experiment https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?176806-Double-pace-when-running-no-pace-at-all-when-running&p=517109#post517109 and factoring in the difference between Paul and my BMR, it is a pretty good guess that Paul's 920 gave him a calorie for every 39¼ walking steps he took which equates to the following walking steps he was given calorie credit for:

Monday 13,502
Tuesday 6,437
Wednesday 9,695

I'm pretty sure Paul is underestimating his random walking steps. Most people do.

BTW the Vivosmart gives you almost three times the calories for every step run as walked.

Active Calories are Bogus

I feel compelled to explain why I am so certain Active Calories are inaccurate and why I have confidence in Total Calories. To do that, lets look at the very simple case of my yesterday:

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Yesterday I recorded one activity, a run, on my fenix 2. That run consisted of 11,350 steps. I was awarded a 593 calorie expenditure for the run. It is pretty easy to see from the above graphic that either the active segment of Total Calories or the total of Active Calories or both of them are just plain wrong. It is either 749, 953 or none of the above. Active calories awarded me 156 calories for walking which, for me should equate to 6,552 steps. In fact, I took 14,268 steps outside of that one activity. That should have been worth 340 calories. 340 calories from random walking + 593 from the recorded activity adds up to 932 which is pretty darn close to the 953 active portion of the Total Calories graph.

MFP gave me an 888 calorie exercise credit yesterday. This consisted of 593 for the run + 360 for the extra steps less 65 for the difference between my Garminized BMR of 1,812 and MFP's 1,877 Calories Burned From Normal Daily Activities.

I decided to share my last post with Garmin in the form of an email support request and almost immediately got this reply: "I have gone ahead and set up a case for this issue. Using data from this email and the Forum postings." Which was both unexpected and gratifying.