Calories burnt - Strava v Garmin Connect

[tjdixon911]

I have recently been trying to keep a better eye on my calorie intake etc.

I use a garmin 520 with HRM strap which loads rides onto Garmin Connect and then pushes across to strava which then both go across to myfitnesspal where I keep my food diary etc.

I always get differing results with calories burnt but unsure which is correct, I assume garmin would be more accurate as it uses my Heart Rate where strava (Non premium) just records distance / time and does not get the heart rate info. The calories burnt for 1 to 2hrs can differ quite a bit (200+ calories), I always tend to use the lower count in my daily allowance but am I doing myself out of a Mars bar allowance?

At the moment I am trying to loose a bit of weight so using the lower count helps but when I get to my target weight and want to maintain I need to potentially be a bit more accurate.

Anyone able to help with this?

[mcelliott]

Strava's way more accurate - take no notice of what the Garmin says for calorie burn.

[tjdixon911]

mcelliott said:

Strava's way more accurate - take no notice of what the Garmin says for calorie burn.

Thanks, is that even with the fact the standard strava does not receive heart rate info?

[Yidwann]

You think? I have a Garmin HR and its massively different from what Strava tells me, but I like to think it has more information to go on. I have a HR watch currently, which, if I do nothing during a day, average weight, desk job, bit of ambling about, I look at the usual 2500 calorie burn a day which is what I should be doing.

I'd go with Garmin.

[P-Jay]

I'm not sure about the Garmin, but my Fitbit was utterly useless at calories - it would say I'd burnt thousands of extra calories because my HR was 120bpm, but I'd be hammering down some rocky chute rather than trying to climb up it - really, and this is something I researched at the time and have sadly forgotten the reasoning - HR is about a useful as tits on a bull when it comes to calculating calories, whereas a known weight, known distance and elevation gain with a estimation of resistance is actually pretty good at it.

HRMs are an answer looking for a question – there’s very little use to them for most people unless you’re prepared to recreate things exactly over and over, over time to try to calculation an increase in fitness.

[mcelliott]

Herre's an example of Strava vs Garmin - a ride from the other day. Strava says just over 900 cals which is bang on, for an hour's fairly decent effort. My Garmin 510 indicated over 1,300 for the same ride, which is way out.

https://www.strava.com/activities/946598993

[m444ttb]

I find the two fairly similar for cycling whether using a power meter or just HR. For running Strava is very high in comparison though.

[Yidwann]

So this my effort last night, and I am not disputing anything above, as we all want accurate data

Just realised this is going to sound like giving out my vital stats on a dating Website here though

So,

Age: 34
Height: 6ft 1
Weight: 96.5kg ( I know cmon loose it tubby)
BMI: 28.2
Activity: Cycling
Duration: 2:24:47
Climbing: 450m
Average Heart Rate: 159bpm
Max Heart Rate: 192bpm
Calories Burnt: 1,688

[okgo]

Strava gets watts about right generally (unless in a group chaingang/massive tailwind/time trial bike) ergo its going to be pretty close. HR means not a lot in this respect I don't think. 300w for an hour might be one mans max effort and another mans tempo, the calories burned are the same (well, differences in human efficiency but most humans fit a fairly tight range).

[SoliD]

What I always find strange is how when using a power meter the calorie calculations are completely different between strava and Garmin.

Last week for instance I rode 66 miles with 3100 ft of climbing at 210w average and got 3110 on Strava and 2794 on Garmin. 10% difference. Garmin is junk without power meter I find, massively over for road riding and under for off road.

[okgo]

Clearly whatever efficiency that is in garmin is different to strava. Garmin always under Strava with powermeter.

[ajk]

I've always thought Strava over-estimates kcals.
e.g. on a 3hr ride this morning, Strava reckons 2,915kcals, Garmin reckons 2,613kcals.
Not a big difference I know but the Strava one feels high.
That's with HR strap & power meter, so they clearly use slightly different algorithms.
I tend to go with the Garmin figure as it's lower, if I use the Strava figure I'll eat more cake!!

[tjdixon911]

Thanks for all the replies.

Today I rode Cannock for a few hours, no HRM and the readings were within a few (under 20) calories of the c. 1500 burnt... this might be down to a slightly different personal information input into the 2...

[ajk]

Today's ride Strava 3,862kcals, Garmin 3,479kcals so once again the Strava figure is higher.

[Kermit power]

I wouldn't worry about it too much, as neither is going to give you anything more than a very approximate indication unless you have a power meter.

I recently discovered Bike Hub, which is a bike-specific GPS that includes the option to choose the quietest route for a given journey, so I tried it out on my commute into Central London last week.

Both this and my previous normal route up CS7 are pretty much exactly the same distance and amount of climbing, and I did them in the same time, so Strava decided that I'd burnt almost exactly the same number of calories.

The problem with this is that the CS7 route is absolutely peppered with traffic lights, so I'm forever stopping and then getting up to speed again. The quiet route, on the other hand, is really quiet, so I cruised in, keeping an eye out for side roads and the like, given that this was a new route.

Unless I've completely misunderstood how these things work, I should've consumed quite a few more calories on the old route as there's more acceleration and higher top speeds involved to maintain the same average speed, but both came back as almost identical, so I've now completely given up on the notion of any means of calculating calorie consumption as being more than a rough pat on the back for getting off my arse and going for a ride, as I can't justify a power meter on any of my bikes.