Recorded calories lately seem lower

It looks like the reduction in calories burned started with the release of 5.20 which appears to have been released on 10/21.  The first day I saw the lower calories was during my workout and cardio sessions on 10/23.  Since that day calories burned for exercise and daily activity have been lower than what was previously being recorded.

Hi, does this seem to be the case for all activities or just activities from one activity profile? When you record activities do you use heart rate data from the optical heart rate sensor, or from a chest strap? Looking at the activities is the heart rate data similar?

Hi Garmin Brooks. Thank you for responding. I mainly just use the strength and stair stepper activties and it appears to just be the strength, however my non exercise active calories appear to be down as well. For heart rate I am only using the sensor on the watch. Below I have included 4 Monday workouts which consists of Chest and Biceps as an example. The first two are before the update and the second two are after the update. I do see that the avg heart rate is lower on the last two dates and perhaps that has something to do with the lower calories burned. On other days after the update, my avg heart rate for other workouts is also lower than before the update. Maybe this is all correct, but just seemed a little odd to see my numbers lower. I use the calories burned as a guidance for how much I eat everyday and I as currently in a bulking phase. Hopefully this helps. Also in case this makes a difference, my activity level is an 8. Thanks.

10/12 - Strength
Avg HR 101
Total Time 1:31:57
Calories 360

10/19 - Strength
Avg HR 109
Total Time 1:22:57
Calories 417

10/26 - Strength
Avg HR 93
Total Time 1:32:10
Calories 317

11/2 - Strength
Avg HR 87
Total Time 1:29:28
Calories 268

Hello.

As you can see there is a corellation between the number of calories calculated and your average heart-rate during the activity. This is how fitness trackers estimate effort and calories burt using well-known tables and formulas taking into account gender, age, weight and activity type.

You may have pushed not as hard as before, or you just became better. With training my number of calories for a same distance/pace run has been halved over a year. In my case, it's definitely not a watch malfunction from a few years back, I was definitely struggling a lot more at the start!

If weight loss is your goal, yes it means you have to train harder and harder to use the same amount of calories.

F

hi - I am finding the same thing with my forerunner 35.  Since about Nov 15 my calorie results have been inconsistent with very similar workouts from before.  ex. an 8km run with an avg HR of 141 burned 604 calories, and 5 days later I did a 12km run with an avg HR of 140 and burned FEWER calories, 541.  It doesn't make sense.  I have been on with Garmin support but very little ideas.  They have offered to swap the watch as it is under warranty, but not sure that will fix the issue.  Today, I used the Wahoo fitness app at the same time as my garmin (I have always used the wahoo heart rate strap) and while the distance and pace varied a bit, the HR data was identical.  Garmin had me burning 220 LESS than the Wahoo app did measuring the same run.  Something is off.  Hoping for suggestions!