What are the best settings if I'm going to be using a Garmin device?
I don't really care about bringing over heart rate, because I know Garmin's heart rate readings are worthless compared to a chest strap, but it'd be nice if my activities came over naturally...I tried syncing it, and I got a Daily Activity (Garmin) entry, which I'm guessing is just calculated off of my steps? I'm not sure who is handling the calculation here, Garmin or Cronometer, and what metrics it is based off of.
It also imported my workouts automatically, which is nice, because I usually have to time it with my watch, then manually enter it into Cronometer later.
What are the best settings if I'm going to be using Garmin for everything and I wear it pretty much 24/7 unless charging it? Do I just set Cronometer to no activity? Or do I still do my best to estimate it, and let Cronometer figure out the difference? I'm concerned about overeating if it duplicates estimated burned calories and I'm concerned about undereating if it is designed to be used with both the Garmin Daily Import AND the Cronometer profile setting.
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I have the same question. Did you figure this out? Too bad no one responded with an answer.
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Hey Babs16,
I wasn't able to directly reply to your post, so hopefully you get a notification for this. I did figure it out!
In Cronometer, there were a few steps to set up.
- Go to "More."
- Select "Connect Apps & Devices."
- Select "Devices."
- Connect your Garmin device.
- I toggled on Import Activity (this is mandatory) and import Weight. The others I didn't really care about.
- Back out of there and navigate to "Targets."
- For energy settings, set the Activity Level to NONE. This is the really important part.
Now, by default, at the start of the day, Cronometer will give you your calorie budget based on if you hadn't moved an inch all day long. Then, as you get steps and perform activities through Garmin, it will estimate how many calories you burned doing that, and your "remaining calories for the day" number will continually go up as the day goes on.
One important thing though, make sure to open the Garmin app before Cronometer to force a sync. Otherwise, Cronometer will say you have fewer calories remaining in your calorie budget.
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I agree that this is the way it works, but it's a very bad way.
In addition to calculated exercise calories Garmin adds in base activity that they estimate from a guessed BMR - but that value will be the same every day just as if you had done it in Cronometer with THEIR multiplier of 0.2. However, it doesn't add it in all in at the start of the day, it adds it in over the day as the hours pass. This means you can't enter your PLAN to eat something later in the day and still know you'll be under your targets unless you mentally add in the remaining factor to your targets.
Near as I can tell you just can't use the program correctly with these settings. It will inevitably mean you eat too little in the morning and have to eat too much late at night if you are attempting to stay below targets. I've taken to dropping all the BMR and exercise stuff and just putting in a fixed daily value that I calculated with all the factors (except exercise). Will be low on food when I DO exercise, but I'm dieting so I guess that's somewhat all right. Wish Cronometer would drop the "resting" kcal they're getting from Garmin and only use the Active and Exercise values!
