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Number of Daily Steps vs. Distance (for non-timed activities)

To see where I'm fining this data, go in Garmin Connect on a PC, click on the three parallel bars, select Steps, scroll down, then click Activities. I am using a 235 watch with 3.20 installed.

Today I ran 16 miles. It shows that coming out to 25,950 steps, burning 1,218 active calories, and the distance shows 16.02 miles.
Then I look at Daily Steps. The number of just steps I walk around outside of the run. Today it shows 3,356. This sounds about right based on past days activities and considering it is mid-afternoon.

However, it shows those 3,356 steps burned 508 active calories (almost half of what the 16-mile run burned) and the distance shows 7.83 miles. This is clearly wrong. Most days I walk around 6,000 total steps. It ends up being around 3 miles, give or take. I don't think there is any possible way this number of steps could amount to 7.83 miles! I did not turn off the activity tracker or make any adjustments to my watch. Right before my run, I just stared my timer and took off.

I have called Garmin about this a couple of times, but they sort of listen, but don't have any real insights or solutions. I would like to hear if anyone else is having this same issue. The main drawback for me right now is that I am trying to track calories in and out. I believe in this case, it is overstating the calories I burned while strolling around in the house.

0 runn over 9 years ago

Hey Gail, if you are running 16 miles. Forget calories and have a hot fudge sundae. Not sure how much you run a week, but my metabolism allows me to pretty much eat what I want when I run between 40-50 miles a week. That formula has worked for me for 40 years. Be grateful that you can run. Running 16 miles puts you in an elite category. Less than 5% of folks can do what you do. Make it fun, you will burn more calories if your running is your play. Nick

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Could it be that the 3356 included your BMR but the run didn't so you actually burnt more in total than the 1218?

0 R_Tellis over 9 years ago

Could it be that the 3356 included your BMR but the run didn't so you actually burnt more in total than the 1218?

That might make sense for the calories, but it would take some massive strides to cover 7+ miles in ~3400 steps.

0 timgrose over 9 years ago

I just checked my "Daily Steps" and the distance it gives for them. On average each step, for me, equates to about 0.95m so, for a sanity check, let's say 1 step = 1 metre

So in your run 16 miles and 25,950 steps is also about 1 metre per step so good there.

However 3,356 steps should then be about 2 miles not nearly 8!

Is this sort of "error" a regular occurrence then or just today?

Now

0 philippe.berini over 9 years ago

Could it be that the 3356 included your BMR but the run didn't so you actually burnt more in total than the 1218?

True, calories shown in activities do not contain bmr.

0 philippe.berini over 9 years ago

Interesting. I checked my GC for this issue and I have found several strange entries over the last ten days.

Here are some examples for steps from daily activity (workouts excluded). note that my stride length is somewhere between 0.7 and 0.85 meters. So for a thousands steps I would expect maybe 800m (definitely less than 1km). I have not set a custom stride lenght. Maybe that would help?

Those values that are definitely wrong I have set in bold (of course also one of the other numbers could be wrong, but based on steps being right the bold value seems not to be correct). But everything here seems a "little" inconsistent here, look at dec 10/11, steps similar but one has double calories.

Note that on dec 5 I was apparently flying 1,46km ;)

date / steps / calories / distance (km)

dec 12 / 3899 / 1156 / 4,29
dec 11 / 5619 / 145 / 4.60
dec 10 / 4357 / 365 / 3.02
dec 9 / 4289 / 448 / 4.90
dec 8 / 5418 / 391 / 4,29
dec 7 / 2692 / 222 / 3,17
dec 6 / 945 / 89 / 0.77
dec 5 / 0 / 297 / 1.46
dec 4 / 3427 / 702 / 3,15
dec 3 / 3371 / 1146 / 8,48
dec 2 / 2829 / 470 / 2,33

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I get fairly consistent steps vs distance for non-activity steps (I have set 125 steps/100m). I think the calories are affected by the activity class entered in the phone app under user settings but it does not seem that plausible in the numbers you listed. I cannot explain my non-activity calories from day to day so I suspect there may be ongoing programming developments that confuse matters as well

0 chunkywizard over 9 years ago

I believe the distance figure quoted in LPM includes any distance travelled whilst doing any activity, even if that activity was subsequently discarded. So it includes cycling, driving (if you accidentally started an activity), etc.

CW

0 timgrose over 9 years ago

> dec 5 / 0 / 297 / 1.46

I've seen a few days where also have that "0" for Active Steps but a distance.
Interestingly it seems to add what the "Active Steps" should have been into the daily total.

0 philippe.berini over 9 years ago

I believe the distance figure quoted in LPM includes any distance travelled whilst doing any activity, even if that activity was subsequently discarded. So it includes cycling, driving (if you accidentally started an activity), etc.

CW

What's LPM?

Those numbers are only daily activity tracking steps, steps from any workouts recorded are listed seperately. It might include discardd ones, but I have not many of them and if they didn't account fir many steps.

The question is, is this a GC or watch issue?