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Calorie burn estimates

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hi guys,

my forerunner 235 is pretty new, so I'm still learning all the features.

I was wondering if someone could explain the discrepancy between active calories on Garmin Connect and MyFitnesspal (which receives the information from Garmin Connect I believe).

Calories burned while running and the MyFitnessPal total seem accurate (at least it's similar to what I used to see with my fitbit), just wondering where the difference comes from.

These 2 screenshots were taken at the same time yesterday evening

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

MFP is showing cals from recorded exercises (activities).

GC shows "active" calories, which includes both recorded activities as well as other physical exertion. (like when you are walking around the house but not recording that as an exercise)

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Sorry to jump on this thread but I've a calorie question. I've recently jumped onto garmin with my 235 and love it. I was a Fitbit charge hr woman. There are some discrepancies between the two regarding steps but +- 10-20%. The massive difference seems to be in calorie burn. The garmin has me using about 1600 resting calories which tallies with what I already know but today has me using an extra 2450calories and gives me a grand total of 3750 calories. I'd not consider myself particularly sedentary but my step count today's a mere 15000 and there's been no biking or other form of activity

Fitbit has me at a 2551 calories total for the day. I suspect there is an issue with their algorithm as the total cals used is much closer to the "active" calories on the garmin

0 ascii256 over 8 years ago

Calorie estimates from the 235 are useless (except those from timed activities) Garmin does not appear to be concerned as the only thing they seem to have done over the last 6 months to "fix" the problem is to lower the BMR calculation.

You will have days where you sit 16 hours and earn 1500 active calories and days that you spend all day shopping and earn 50.

If you email customer support they will act confused, ask you what version of the firmware you are running, and then ask you to do a factory reset on your watch. If you push hard enough they will replace your watch with another that has the same problem.

It's really kind of sad.

This is nothing new though with Garmin. The Forerunner 625 had a legendary "reverse charging" problem. Garmin never really acknowledged it. They simply replaced watches when people complained enough until they were out of warranty (and then sold the returned watches on the refurb market.)

0 shavas over 8 years ago

I haven't had any reason yet to complain about the garmin 235 daily calorie calculations. Mine has always been right where I think it should be and also correlates closely to the estimate myfitnesspal gives based on my weight and average activity level. but I'll keep an eye out for any issues!