Specifically the edge 705 & fr60w, do they estimate on the high side or what?

did 44km in 1:44 avr hr of 153bpm, so fairly steady going and says i used 1700+ calories, which seems high

the fr60w that my gf has seems more reasonable but dont want her being mislead by the calorie function, anyone use a formula to make the numbers more realistic?

do garmin use different calculation methods for different hardware and has anyone ever compared them to a power meter?

Yes mate they use the complete fabrication method, i honestly dont know how my Edge 305 comes up with the high figures that it does but it seems to be the way its programmed.

I used a couple of online calorie counters to get a rough idea of calories burned on my usual rides when i first started using the GPS.

my polar HRM uses the method; revolutions of pedals multiplied by number of teeth on the largest chainring multiplied by the km and speed dived by the number of stems on the bike.

can easily do 1000 calories on the turbo!

The Garmin 500 isn’t any better – very, very, very low calorie counting going on…………

I find the 500 gives plausible results. 60 mile 4 hour hilly (1500m) club run with 16mph avg and around 165 BPM avg came in at 2500. I have hrm and cadence

I put my weight in about a 1/3 lower than it is, which seems to calculate the calories about right.

It’s only a bit of info to look at,I judge real results on the scales, and decide whether I should be eating more or less for the amount of exercise I am doing.

TBH – they are all probably inaccurate but as you have no other way of measuring it, you have to take it as read

Doesn’t really matter though, as long as they’re consistently inaccurate you’ll know how much more or less you did than in another session

Yeah as long as you don’t eat based on the calories it’s said you’ve burnt…

Yeah as long as you don’t eat based on the calories it’s said you’ve burnt…

Surely people just eat when they’re hungry until they aren’t? – that’s what I do anyway
I couldn’t imagine measuring stuff out depending on what calories I think I’ve used that day/week

It’s so you can justify the fish n chips your ate the night before, TBH I personally think it’s just a moral boost.

Surely people just eat when they’re hungry until they aren’t? – that’s what I do anyway
I couldn’t imagine measuring stuff out depending on what calories I think I’ve used that day/week

Well no. That is why diet industry in the UK alone is worth £8 billion.

Yes, massively.

I also use Polar HRM’s and they seem much more plausible. I reduced my weight in the 705 untill it reports similar cals to the Polar’s. For me, that’s about 25% reduction.

They’re all a comparative measure, similarly the measure of calorie in a food isn’t necessarily the same as the number of calories you’d extract from that food, so it would be daft to count calories with either set of data.

I find that the Edge 800 calculates less calorie usage than my old 305, don’t know why…….