Calorie calculation based on known values (Garmin Fenix) and expected MET rate

[Christoph Blank]

Hi there,

I’m usually averaging my calorie intake/food plan based on rough numbers for my age/weight/activity.

Out of curiosity, I’d like to to this in more detail to get a feeling for what is really needed. For example, in autumn I will be on a photography trip where I have 2 intense days hiking and then I’ll basically stay at a camp at around 3000m.

Since I’m also wearing a Garmin Fenix 6, which provides a lot of metrics like VO2 max, etc and even shows active/total calories burned based on my heart rate. I wondered if I could use this to predict the calorie needs based on the activity type (MET rate) for those different types of days.

Are there any calorie calculators or formulas that use this data (weight, max/avg HR, VO2 max, expected MET rates)? Or what could I use?

Thanks for your help,

Christoph

[Bonzo]

Does the Fenix 6 integrate with any tracking apps?  I feel pretty sure that it does, so that’s probably your best bet if it’s an option.  The app I use (Suunto) has that kind of data processing.

[Christoph Blank]

What exactly are you referring to? How do you calculate calorie estimates for future trips with suunto, based on your historic data?

[Bonzo]

It’s pretty easy: Suunto’s dedicated app automatically syncs all of the watch data and processes it into graphs that show either historical data/trends, or estimates of what I need to do/change in order to perform equally in the future, perform better, rest and recover, etc. Everything from caloric consumption to ascent/descent/ to pacing/HR/VO2 to how well I sleep at night is displayed graphically and numerically in the Suunto app, so it gives me a nice, quick snapshot of how I’m doing on a variety of metrics. So, yeah: I just look at the logged activities – hiking, trekking, training, etc. – and see what my caloric burn was for any given activity and any given conditions, and I start making estimates.

[Manfred]

Hi Christoph,

You can use this this MET Calculator. You provide your body weight, length of your activity and pick from a list of activities. My Fenix 6 is showing me ‘2,117 calories burned’ during a recent 15 mile hike in the Sierra that took 5:20 hours. With the calculator I get 2,116.77 kcals for my 175 lbs weight when picking ‘Walking’ as my activity with the description ‘Carrying 1- 15 lb load upstairs’ for 320 minutes. Close enough I would say :) When I pick ‘Backpacking’ as a description for my type of ‘walking’ I get a higher number which is most likely due to ‘normal’ backpacks weighing way more than mine.

[David Thomas]

Agreed.  On a calorie-tracking app, I found selecting vigorous hiking to give a more accurate output for UL backpacking than “backpacking”.

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