Active calories - steps calories double counted

9353205 24 days ago

Hi, I have an issue where it appears that steps counted during a run are included in the active calories calculation, on top of the run activity calories.

For example, let's say I record a run activity of 500 calories and 5,000 steps, the active calories calc is doing 500 + whatever calories it calculates for steps. I.e. a larger total than it should be calculating.

Looking through the forum archives, this seems to have been a recognised issue in the past, but the fix isn't clear to me. Is there something I need to change in settings?

0 e7andy 24 days ago

Can you post some screenshots and links to activities that shows the issue?

Steps don't give any calories.

0 9353205 24 days ago in reply to e7andy

Garmin Connect shows 3,337 Total Calories for Sun 27 Oct, of which 1,196 were Active Calories.

I recorded one activity that day - a run that burned 528 calories. So the remaining 668 calories (1,196 - 528) were burned doing general "stuff" during the day.

Total steps for the day were 14,250. According to the Daily Timeline, about half of these steps were during the run. So around ~7,000 steps for the rest of the day.

668 calories seems very high for ~7,000 steps of walking around. I therefore assume there's a bug in the app that is effectively double counting the run steps in the calories calculation.

0 e7andy 24 days ago in reply to 9353205

Steps don't get any active calories. It is all about the heart rate. If your HR is elevated you will start to get active calories. So, check the HR graph.

0 9353205 24 days ago in reply to e7andy

Ok, makes sense, thanks. My heart rate was above resting rate for most of the day (although not particularly high). Still seems like a lot of active calories for not much activity, but maybe I did some intense pottering around.