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Calorie Tracking on Recent workout.

bdixon2010
4 months ago

Recently I’ve noticed my calorie tracking has been a bit off on with my Fenix 7 Solar. I have done multiple treadmill runs one was on Tuesday 1/28. It was a 6 mile run with an average pace of 8:50/mile and an average HR of 147 BPM. The heart rate data was taken via a paired HRM pro plus chest strap heart rate monitor. The calculated total calories burned was 695 which seemed fairly accurate. I ran another 6 mile run on Friday 1/30 it was at a faster pace and higher average HR of  8:28/mile and 154 bpm. Also using the same HRM pro plus chest strap heart rate monitor. During the second run the calculated calorie burn was only 374 calories which I know is incredibly low. Today I ran another 10 mile run with an average pace of 8:42/mile and 158 bpm average HR still using the same wearables and the calculated total calories burned were only 656 which is also without a doubt incredibly low. I was wondering if there is any way to fix this. All the other run metrics seem to be working fine except for the calculated calories. I do use the treadmill calibration option after my runs but even with that the distance on the watch before calibration isn’t off by much. I have checked for software updates and none are available. I have also checked my profile height/weight/age values all being correct. Battery on my HRM is good and all the other metrics from it seem to be just fine. It is also showing up on my activity log paired to my activities just fine. I’m just wondering why all of a sudden it started calculating calories incredibly low. It’s not the most important metric for me personally but is nice to see a somewhat realistic number for recovery/nutrition aspects. I’ve restarted the watch and thought about discarding the chest strap for my next run to see if it changes the number thinking the issue might be from the HRM. Any help or advice would be much appreciated, Thanks Brady. 

  • 0 4 months ago

    First of all, I'd check whether the Resting HR did not change between the two dates. You can see it at https://connect.garmin.com/modern/report/60/wellness/last_four_weeks 

    Max HR change may have an influence too.

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to trux

    These are the average heart rate numbers encompassing all the dates. All are fairly close and make sense. I feel like with the similarity of the runs a more intense run of the same distance shouldn’t yield hundreds of less calories burned. My 10 mile more intense run today that was significantly longer in time and intensity should in no way yield less calories burned than a run 4 miles shorter and a lower intensity. I’ve ran tons of these types of runs with these devices and a10 mile run at 8:42/mile should definitely yield more than 524 active calories burned with 132 resting calories burned for a total of 656 calories burned. Max HR varied between the three dates because of the intensity of the runs increasing which seems correct. 

  • +1 4 months ago in reply to bdixon2010

    The Calories burned during an activity do not depend on the distance and pace, but on the duration, the HR and its distribution over the time of the activity, the HRV, respiratory rate, Resting HR, Max HR, and the LTHR. If you post links to the activities, and the Resting and Max HR data, perhaps we can see where the difference is coming from.

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to trux

    thanks for the info I’ll post the links to the data

    • Check out my treadmill running activity on Garmin Connect. #beatyesterday this was the 6 mile run on 1/28
    • Check out my treadmill running activity on Garmin Connect. #beatyesterday This was the 6 mile run on 1/31
    • Check out my treadmill running activity on Garmin Connect. #beatyesterday This was the 10 mile run today
  • 0 4 months ago in reply to trux

    These are the HRV status numbers from the three days. 

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to trux

    These are the heart rate graphs for the days. The gaps are when I take the watch off to shower. 

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to trux

    it doesn’t appear the links posted correctly hopefully this works now

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18123564999 Tuesday 1/28, 6 miles

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18150557068 Friday 1/31, 6 miles 

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18161009875 today 2/1, 10 miles

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to bdixon2010

    Well, there are some variations of the RMR (probably due to an adjusted body weight), of Resting HR, avg HR, etc, but none of them justifies for such a major change of Calories. However, I noticed a very significant change of the Intensity Minutes calculation, which indicates that most probably either the Max HR, or the 7 days avg Resting HR changed dramatically. 

    As for the 7 days avg Resting HR - although your daily Resting HR is relatively stable (41-44 bpm), the 7 days avg could be perhaps skewed after a watch reset, crash, or reboot. To exclude that, have a look at the concerned day in GC Web (the phone app does not show it on the HR screen). You can find it on the left under the chart at https://connect.garmin.com/modern/heart-rate/2025-02-01. Scroll to all three dates and compare the numbers. Normally they should be pretty similar.

    The more probable, though, is an important change of the Max HR, which can happen easily. And I do not mean the Max HR shown on the activity screen or the High HR shown on the daily HR screen. The Max HR can be only seen in the device settings » User Profile » Heart Rate & Power Zones » Heart Rate » Max. HR. It can happen when you keep the Max HR auto-detection, and the HRM reports some erroneously high heart rate for certain time. Unfortunately, there is no chart in GC that would show the evolution of the Max HR. The Max HR report in GC web only shows the daily maximums, and not the changes of this parameter.

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to trux

    I checked the RHR on Garmin connect web for the three days in concern and it all looked reasonable. I did check the Max Hr on the device settings, max HR auto detection is on. My max HR value is 189 BPM which seems reasonable for my age/fitness level. I ocassionally get prompts after activities that ask if I would like to adjust max HR and what value it would adjust to. I feel like that is always after activities outdoors utilizing GPS. I have not had any kind of prompt to adjust max, threshold, base or any other HR values. I did notice however since starting our troubleshooting that the first run that was odd (1/31) the power zone that I was in on the majority of that run was zone 2. Comparing “normal” runs from 1/28 that was less vigorous, the power zones were more split between zone 2 and 3. I’m don’t know as much about power zones and what calculates them. But I’m pretty sure something is off there. 

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to bdixon2010

    Yes, there indeed is some problem. Getting just 1 vigorous Intensity Minute from an activity where you spent over 30 minutes in the HR Zone 5, is definitely wrong. Try to hard-reset the watch - sync, then press the Light button for some 30s till it completely shuts down (hold the button through the emergency alert, if it comes), wait little bit, and then restart. No worry, no data or settings will be lost with it. [more details]. Then do another run and see whether it helped. If not, then reach out to the Support. Also please export the 10 miles activity, and post the FIT file here - it may perhaps reveal some more clues.