Calories - Garmin 305 vs Cateye Wired

Andyb10
Andyb10 Posts: 126
edited October 2008 in Workshop
Hi,
I currently have a Garmin 305 fitted to my road bike and my wife has a Cateye computer (can't remember which model but it is a wired one with calorie count) fitted to hers.

Whilst acknowledging the fact that neither might be totally accurate when it comes to counting calories consumed, the two record totally different figures, the Garmin being much higher over the same time and distance.

Would anyone know which is the more likely to be correct(ish)

Comments

  • Al_38
    Al_38 Posts: 277
    Couldn't tell you which would be the more accurate but: The way in general that these things are worked out is that the computer will be programmed to assume a bunch of stuff: weight, body fat %, muscle composition, basal metabolic rate (basically how much exercise you do), gender, exercise intensity. So to find which would be the more accurate I would have a look at the websites for both the garmin and the cateye, and try and match up which set of assumptions matches you most closely. The more important criteria for matching are probably exercise intensity, basal metabolic rate and weight.
  • willbevan
    willbevan Posts: 1,241
    I would never go with the garmin figure, it is very high compared to anything else I have used, read soemthing about garmin saying that the best methods to work out Calories were protected and they couldnt use them (seems a bit odd to be honest and i take that with a pinch of salt)
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  • Compton77
    Compton77 Posts: 139
    I've read somewhere before that a good way of working it out is to half you weight on your user profile on a Garmin unit. Mine current states 80lbs!!
  • Andyb10
    Andyb10 Posts: 126
    OK thanks folks, it seems to be as I feared, my wife is right again!!
  • before i got my Garmin 305 i had a Cateye HR200 and the calorie count of the Garmin is almost twice what the Cateye used to read , going by what people have said on here i think it is safe to assume the Garmin does over estimate calories burned,like compton 77 said just fiddle with with the user profile settings in the 305 to get it nearer the truth
  • blorg
    blorg Posts: 1,169
    The Garmin tends to estimate high all right.

    It is arguably potentially better than the Cateye in that it takes bike/rider weight and elevation into account- e.g. I will burn a lot of calories climbing a hill and next to none descending (as you would expect.) I presume the Cateye doesn't do this and just works on distance. Strangely it does not use HR at all in the calculation though.

    But having said that it does seem to estimate quite high.
  • mclarent
    mclarent Posts: 784
    An alternative...

    have a look at a couple of websites (lots out there) that work out calories, e.g. mapmyfitness.com, and see where they come out (ball park) and which your computers are closest to.
    "And the Lord said unto Cain, 'where is Abel thy brother?' And he said, 'I know not: I dropped him on the climb up to the motorway bridge'."
    - eccolafilosofiadelpedale