Calories from Garmin

RobCork

Hi there- new user here after deliberating between MFP & Cronometer and going with Cronometer

I have a Garmin Vivoactive 4, but when I look at my Cronometer dashboard there is a huge difference between the calories for today so far between my watch (1,360) and Cronometer (2,343). The split between resting & active is also way out. Shouldn't Cronometer be importing calories burned direct from Garmin? Whats the reason for this discrepancy?

Karen_Cronometer

Hi RobCork,

Cronometer will show your total calories burned for the day - in other words, the number of calories you will burn over a 24-hour period. Calories burned from exercise will be added to this number as you import them into your diary from Garmin. If you look at a previous day in your Cronometer diary, are the numbers closer?

Another thing that can cause a higher calories burned in your Cronometer account could be your activity level settings in your Profile. If you are using a device to import your exercise calories, we recommend setting your activity level to none in order to avoid double-counting calories.

Please let us know if these don't solve the discrepancy you are seeing - that is quite a big difference!

Best,

RobCork

Hey, Karen- many thanks for your reply. I understand and I’ll check tomorrow (this is my first day using so no history to check yet), also you were right- the Garmin activity was being doubled up by Cronometer. Thank you!

RobCork

Hi again

The first issue is fixed- active calories are now 100% agreed. But having checked the daily totals it’s the non active calories that are out quite a lot:

Garmin Connect:

Resting= 2,568

Active= 280

Total= 2,848

Cronometer:

Resting: 2,113 (455 out)

Active= 280 (no difference)

What could be causing this, could you help? Delighted with everything so far, would be good to get this agreed though. Is it something to do with BMR setting? I’m using that automatic macro in Cronometer for sure.

Many thanks

Rob

Hilary

Hi Rob,
We have recieved other similar reports of an issue like this with Garmin. Would you mind sending a couple of screenshots along to support@cronometer.com? Please include screenshots of your Cronometer diary as well as your Garmin diary clearly indicating the numbers which contain a discrepancy.
Thanks for all the details! This well help us get to the bottom of the issue!

RobCork

Hi Hilary, thats done, thank you.

For what its worth, here's my take on it...

Cronometer uses the default calculation based on BMI etc, and that isn't adjusted unless we put a factor in, I have set to 'none' as I have the Garmin tracker. It appears that Garmin however applies a 1.2 multiplier to the BMI calculated resting calories, so whereas for me Cronometer had a total of 2,113 yesterday, Garmin had 2,568.

Cronometer resting= 2,1113
Apply 1.2 multiplier= 2,535- Garmin resting calories= 2,568- difference is now about 30, too small to worry about I'd say.

If thats the case then Cronometer has to be the 'correct' app for monitoring overall calories, with Garmin focussing on the input of 'active' calories into the total.

I have MFP synced to get target calories from Cronometer into Garmin, but I don't think thats of any relevance here as that will just contribute to the daily calculation of calories consumed as opposed to measuring calories burned.

Does that make sense? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm new after all

Thanks

Rob

Peddy

If you don't add the multiplier in Cronometer you will under count your calories because Garmin will only transfer what it calls active calories which as you say is BMR + light activity.

Therefore Cronometer total calories will be BMR + Garmin active calories. This is missing any movements above BMR that is not "active" as per Garmin definition

MetalPirate

I'm seeing the same thing as RobCork. I was curious and wanted to confirm as I am using a 0 multiplier as well. I looked into yesterday as that day is completed.

Looking at my stats right now between the two.
Cronometer
BMR: 1953
Exercise: 535
Total Burned: 2,488

Chronometer, Adjusted to 1.2X (Sedintary)
BMR, Adjusted: 2,344
Total Burned, Adjusted: 2,879

Garmin
Resting Calories: 2,375
Active Calories: 535
Total Burned: 2,910

I see the same ~30 calorie difference, which is likely a difference in how the two calculate BMR. So I need to go update my Cronometer settings so they match.

Peddy

I calculated Garmin used 1.22 as the adjustment to the Cronometer 1.2

swduncan

Folks - where are you entering this multiplier in chronometer? I can't seem to find any where to put it. Thanks!

Xyrus

It's not something you enter in directly. Selecting your "lifestyle" (sedentary, etc.) applies the multiplier for you since it acts as an estimate of how many calories you need for a typical day.

With a fitness tracker, you should set this to "none" since the fitness tracker is actually tracking the calories you burn. If you have set Cronometer to "sedentary" AND you have a fitness tracker, then it counts BOTH which will give you misleading results.

jmejiaa

fwiw it seems the advice of setting "none" is incorrect, at least when using a garmin device.

It seems cronometer is only pulling in the active calories from garmin connect, it does not actually pull in resting/bmr. If this is the case, setting non will not apply the correct multiplier and will end up causing this confusion because garmin does apply a multiplier.

It seems the right thing to do is make the cronometer set the BMR as close to the one Garmin provides.

Garmin is also weird, because it doesn't give you the total "Resting" calories throughout the day, instead it will show them as you burn them. This ends up being confusing because the "resting" calories are exactly the same every day, so you might as well just count the total.