Calorie Counter on a Garmin Edge 200
Snakebite the 2nd
Posts: 452
I have heard that the calorie counter on a Garmin Edge 200 is a little... well... optimistic.
How off is it?
Just curious as I have to lose weight and have decided to take a scientific approach. As the Garmin Connect website links with "fitness pal" I am now logging food and syncing it so I can keep track of what I am losing.
How off is it?
Just curious as I have to lose weight and have decided to take a scientific approach. As the Garmin Connect website links with "fitness pal" I am now logging food and syncing it so I can keep track of what I am losing.
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Comments
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[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19734479#p19734479]Snakebite the 2nd[/url] wrote:I have heard that the calorie counter on a Garmin Edge 200 is a little... well... optimistic.
How off is it?
Just curious as I have to lose weight and have decided to take a scientific approach. As the Garmin Connect website links with "fitness pal" I am now logging food and syncing it so I can keep track of what I am losing.
As someone who is 35kg less than his highest adult weight I would suggest that watching and noting what you eat is the most important factor. Once you know what you have consumed for a week/month (no misreporting allowed) you can gauge where to cut, what days you can try to replicate, and what weekends to completely replan. Exercise and burning calories is, of course, important but in the western world it is so so easy to get energy on board that one must regulate both income and outgoings. Strava reckons my commutes are somewhere between 400 and 500 calories each way - 900 calories say; a well structured day with healthy food can be less than double that without hardship - but conversely I could probably do 900 calories without noticing between meals. Once you take control - and for control you need information - then it becomes a choice rather than a pretence.
Whether you use an app, I wrote a spreadsheet which took food in grams as input and splurged out cals/ carb/prot/fat/salt/fibre, or an old fashioned diary and a calculator you need to be honest and meticulous - the weight will come off.0 -
Thanks for the reply.
I have come to realise it is all about recording it now, well for me anyway.
Although my weight gain has been very slow it is now becoming obvious
I'm sure it will come off reasonably easy, but it will take effort, and by effort I mean knocking the booze on the head along with the snacks in the evening. Chocolate etc is my downfall.0 -
[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19734479#p19734479]Snakebite the 2nd[/url] wrote:I have heard that the calorie counter on a Garmin Edge 200 is a little... well... optimistic.
How off is it?
Just curious as I have to lose weight and have decided to take a scientific approach. As the Garmin Connect website links with "fitness pal" I am now logging food and syncing it so I can keep track of what I am losing.
it is very very off!! basically a made up number.
if you want to lose weight, move around a bit more and eat better, not less but better, so same volume but less calories or you won't feel satisfied. but most importantly do something sustainable, fad diets will not work in the long run, maybe a quick fix but a few months down the line you'll be right back where you started.www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
I want to eat better.
It is the junk food that I am cutting out that does the damage, all the "extra" calories that mount up.
The silly thing is that I do eat healthily, but then spoil it by adding the crisps, chocolate and beer. All the extra things that I do not need.
The even sillier thing is that I would rather have a fruit smoothie than a bar of chocolate, but default to shit food as it "easier". :twisted:0 -
I'm not sure that fruit smoothies are particularly healthy if you're trying to lose weight - lots of sugar and often much of the fibre is removed.You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quin.0
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I'm not sure that fruit smoothies are particularly healthy if you're trying to lose weight - lots of sugar and often much of the fibre is removed.
they are terrible! much better off just eating fruit!
Per 100ml
Coke:
42 calories
12.6g sugar
Innocent smoothie:
54 calories
12.5g of sugarwww.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
I'm not sure that fruit smoothies are particularly healthy if you're trying to lose weight - lots of sugar and often much of the fibre is removed.
they are terrible! much better off just eating fruit!
Per 100ml
Coke:
42 calories
12.6g sugar
Innocent smoothie:
54 calories
12.5g of sugar
Not all sugars are equal - I would guess the sugar in Coke is Sucrose (the white stuff you get in packet from Tate and Lyle) whereas an unsweetened smoothie should be Fructose; in small quantities (the sort you get from eating fruit) this is good but high amounts of Fructose (food companies add it to lots of stuff and you can take in serious quantities without realising) has been linked/suggested to be linked to higher incidence of coronary heart disease and diabetes. As part of a balanced diet without processed food you probably want more Fructose and less Sucrose. Additionally - opposed to the fructose/sucrose balance, because of the non-sugar carbs (12+ cals worth per 100ml from above figures), the dietary fibre, and the psychological effect you are far more likely to feel sated after a fruit smoothie than a can of pop. Funnily enough - and just from glancing at figures I would say that a standard serving of innocent has slightly less energy than a can of coke0 -
I know smoothies have added benefits but they really are no good if weightloss is your goal.
and to quote:
All sugars are equal in their bad effects, says Popkin – even those described on cereal snack bars sold in health food shops as containing "completely natural" sweeteners. "The most important issue about added sugar is that everybody thinks it's cane sugar or maybe beet sugar or HFC syrup or all the other syrups but globally the cheapest thing on the market almost is fruit juice concentrate coming out of China. It has created an overwhelming supply of apple juice concentrate. It is being used everywhere and it also gets around the sugar quotas that lots of countries have."
from here http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/07/smoothies-fruit-juices-new-health-riskwww.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
Moving on from smoothies, I have after a bit of internet research come to the conclusion that nobody actually knows how inaccurate they are, and anywhere between 50% and 100% accurate is about right.
Thanks Internet.0 -
Calories:
Had a look at what my old 200 recorded on strava. I had 377, 402 and 578 on different days for the same journey so not accurate at all. With my heart rate monitor now it's around the 528 mark every time.
Smoothies:
They're great if you're making your own.0 -
Calories:
Had a look at what my old 200 recorded on strava. I had 377, 402 and 578 on different days for the same journey so not accurate at all.
The above in no way counts as proof that the Garmin 200 calorie counter is inaccurate without further information.
But this should be just as accurate as the Garmin (and handy if your computer doesn't have a calorie function).Faster than a tent.......0 -
Calories:
Had a look at what my old 200 recorded on strava. I had 377, 402 and 578 on different days for the same journey so not accurate at all.
The above in no way counts as proof that the Garmin 200 calorie counter is inaccurate without further information.
But this should be just as accurate as the Garmin (and handy if your computer doesn't have a calorie function).
I clicked on that link, and yes it is just as accurate.0 -
I'm on a calorie watch regime at the mo. What I've found over the past year or so is that while cycling will maintain a weight while having a "relaxed" diet, it will not lose you weight (generally speaking).
So I've cut out sugar in tea & coffee, and am using MFP to roughly limit my calories to less than 2000/day, while cycling 100-150 miles/week. With this I've lost almost a stone in the last month. This is from just over 13st to just over 12st, and I wasn't exactly too overweight to begin with (which was why I was struggling to lose weight I think).
I think the key point is that recording the calories (everything) is informative & makes you aware, whereas previously it was easy to think you were doing ok, but forgetting about the 500-odd calories youve sneaked in without even realising.
I do seem to have severe problems getting much below 12st, from past experience when I was cycling 200-250 miles/week. We will see what happens this time.
Good luck to anyone trying to lose weight anyway
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I think the key point is that recording the calories (everything) is informative & makes you aware, whereas previously it was easy to think you were doing ok, but forgetting about the 500-odd calories youve sneaked in without even realising.
Spot on.
I was eating a lot of rubbish, but the cycling was making sure it was a very slow increase, about 2kg a year.
I remember back in the 90's when I keep a religious record of weight and miles cycled I was 93kg.0
