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Forerunner 230/235 Kcals very high for step counting.

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Kcals very high for step counting.

muzzer84 over 9 years ago

Hi All.

I've been using my 235 for just shy of a week now, I had the 920XT but I wasn't using half the features and the chest strap was really badly cutting into my chest so the appeal of a wrist based HR reading seemed like a great idea.

Like I did with my 920xt I use the 235 as an activity tracker through out the day. I walk to & from work and walk a fair bit at work as well.

On my 920xt when I loaded the data to Garmin Connect between 19k and 20k steps would give me around 500 active kcals.

On the 235 the same number of steps have me up at around 800 active kcals!

Massive jump.

Only difference I can see is that I have the HR reading all the time. All my stats are the same as when I had the 920xt.

Any suggestions what it could be? I try and use the Garmin Kcals burnt per day as a guide if I'm eating too much or too little with my marathon training and I don't want to be mislead like this with very wonky data.

Cheers

0 gpb11 over 9 years ago

Revisit your maxHR. If you used a formula to determine it, the number is more likely wrong than right. Those formulas just give an approximation based on population averages. Actual individual max HR varies a lot from the averages.

When you figured out your shoe size, did you use a formula? No, you measured your feet. MaxHR is no different.

Here's a good article on max HR: http://www.howtobefit.com/determine-maximum-heart-rate.htm

In short, any maxHR figure that didn't involve a great deal of sweat and discomfort is suspect.

0 muzzer84 over 9 years ago

Cheers for the reply. That is a handy link.

Back when I was using a Polar H7 strap and the Polar Beat App, one of the gym instructors gave me an Max HR test as he thought my Max HR was wrong in the App. He figured out my MaxHR should be 170bpm.
This was just over a year ago

When I moved to the 920xt I moved that number into the App and watch. I did the same thing for the 235.

I’ve been wearing the 235 with the HR running all the time for 10 days now. Apparently my resting HR over this time is 38bpm and my average high is 159bpm.

My highest ever recorded HR was 197bpm but that looks like a spike. As it looks like it was during my walk to work which is never that taxing!

Does the watch take in the work out zones when being used as an activity tracker?

0 W0OLY over 9 years ago

Im seeing the same thing, my HR zones and HR max are defo OK and i look at these regularly, but today 6500 steps (3 miles worth of wandering about the office and the shops at lunch) and no other exercise activity on top has got me 435 active calories.

Does anyone think that seems reasonable, seems rather high to me

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Check out your all day hr tracking. It may be that your hr gets stuck during the very rare sampling times and this will spike your active calories. I turn my ohr off during the day and get normal active calories readings. Waiting for Garmin to do something about this.

0 W0OLY over 9 years ago

Thanks for the tip

During my lunch 40 minute wander, my HR seems to have got stuck at about 125, so I guess this may have given me the equivalent calories of a recovery 5k run, about 300? This would explain it I guess.

Hope if this is the issue it gets fixed soon, shame to have to turn off the OHR

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Check out your all day hr tracking. It may be that your hr gets stuck during the very rare sampling times and this will spike your active calories. I turn my ohr off during the day and get normal active calories readings. Waiting for Garmin to do something about this.

Yea, I just got this device yesterday morning. So far today I went for a run which it probably overestimated at 540 calories probably closer to 400.. but the rest of the day I've been sitting at my PC working and getting up and doing a few minor household things.. 1400 calories burned from activity, looks like my HR got stuck at 140 for a few hours.

Wish I could tweak what it estimates, because its throwing MyFitnessPal's numbers way off.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Cheers for the reply. That is a handy link.

Back when I was using a Polar H7 strap and the Polar Beat App, one of the gym instructors gave me an Max HR test as he thought my Max HR was wrong in the App. He figured out my MaxHR should be 170bpm.
This was just over a year ago

When I moved to the 920xt I moved that number into the App and watch. I did the same thing for the 235.

I’ve been wearing the 235 with the HR running all the time for 10 days now. Apparently my resting HR over this time is 38bpm and my average high is 159bpm.

My highest ever recorded HR was 197bpm but that looks like a spike. As it looks like it was during my walk to work which is never that taxing!

Does the watch take in the work out zones when being used as an activity tracker?

A RHR of 38 is quite good. If you can verify this outside of the 235, I would suspect your max HR is higher than the 170bpm you were told a year ago. If this is the case, resetting your zones is going to change the amount of calories burned per steps taken.

0 muzzer84 over 9 years ago

A RHR of 38 is quite good. If you can verify this outside of the 235, I would suspect your max HR is higher than the 170bpm you were told a year ago. If this is the case, resetting your zones is going to change the amount of calories burned per steps taken.

Cheers TMK17.

I actually lowered my MHR to 165bmp about two weeks ago as when I was at 170bmp I was barley getting registering as being in any zones for some of my actives. Even at 165 I feel my time in higher zones should be higher.

For example from last week, time in zone for a couple of activites:
12 mile Marathon pace run pace 6:24 (/mile): Zone 1 00:23, Zone 2 00:38, Zone 3 01:02:52, Zone 4 12:59, Zone 5 00:00.
Avg HR: 142, Max HR: 157

Spin Class: Zone 1 19:08, Zone 2 30:08, Zone 3 01:42, Zone 4 00:18, Zone 5 00:00.
Avg HR: 108, Max HR: 158

Clubs 5k Handicap race at 06:02 pace (/mi): Zone 1 00:03, Zone 2 00:14, Zone 3 12:26, Zone 4 05:21, Zone 5 00:00
Avg HR: 140, Max HR: 161

Aerobics class: Zone 1 13:03, Zone 2 20:35, Zone 3 00:25, Zone 4 00:08, Zone 5 00:00
Avg HR: 98, Max: 155

I felt like I had really pushed myself in these classes / runs so I was expecting to be more time in the higher zones than I was. So I have no idea now what my Max HR should be.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Check out your all day hr tracking. It may be that your hr gets stuck during the very rare sampling times and this will spike your active calories. I turn my ohr off during the day and get normal active calories readings. Waiting for Garmin to do something about this.

Have tried this and all seems believable now. Only thing is every so often the all day tracking turns itself on, am I doing something wrong? Also would I need to manually turn back on before run or will it go on automatically/

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Have tried this and all seems believable now. Only thing is every so often the all day tracking turns itself on, am I doing something wrong? Also would I need to manually turn back on before run or will it go on automatically/

I go to the hr widget and then hold the left up scroll button till it goes to a screen where you can turn off your hr. You'll have to manually turn it on for a run or other activity and then back off if you like.