u/Drew_Defions

TL;DR: Garmin’s daily “Calories Burned” was extremely accurate over a 4-week period (0.5% variance).

Detail:

ETA: 6’4” / 53 yo

At the risk of ridicule…

I am objectively obese despite very good health markers and a generally active lifestyle. I did not feel like my diet was to blame and thought maybe Garmin was over-estimating my daily burn. So I did … “science”… I tracked calories, recorded weights, did math, and recorded.

Here is the breakdown:

Diet

Start 332.6 20260907
Day
1 - 2100
2 - 2400
3 - 2300
4 - 2140
5 - 2280
6 - 3100
7 - 2700

Calories consumed: 17020
Garmin 7 day burn: 34986 (4998/day avg)
Deficit per Garmin: 17966
Weight lost if Garmin was accurate: 5.13 lbs

End weight: 329.9 20260914
Weight lost: 2.7 lbs
Net Cal lost: 9450
Actual Calories burned: 26470 (3781/day avg)

Garmin variance: +24%

Week 2

Day
8 - 2200
9 - 2400
10 - 2400
11 - 2700 - higher calorie lunch
12 - 3100 - higher calorie lunch / stress induced
13 - 2200
14 - 3050

Calories consumed: 18050
Garmin 7 day burn: 29886 (4269/day avg)
Deficit per Garmin: 11836
Weight lost if Garmin was accurate: 3.38 lbs

End weight: 326.8 20260921
Weight lost: 3.1 lbs
Net Cal lost: 10850
Actual Calories burned: 28900 (4129/day avg)

Garmin variance: +3%

Week 3

Day
15 - 1870
16 - 2300
17 - 2300
18 - 1865
19 - 2300
20 - 4840
21 - 2000

Calories consumed: 17475
Garmin 7 day burn: 29701 (4243/day avg)
Deficit per Garmin: 12226
Weight lost if Garmin was accurate: 3.49lbs

End weight: 321.4
Weight lost: 5.4
Net Cal lost: 18,900
Actual Calories burned: 36375 (5196 / per day)

Garmin variance: - 22%

Week 4

Day
22 - 2400
23 - 2370
24- 2405
25 - 2499
26 - 2240
27 - 2940
28 - 2550

Calories consumed: 17404
Garmin 7 day burn: 27,836 (3977 / day avg
Deficit per Garmin: 10,432
Weight lost if Garmin was accurate: 2.98 lbs

End weight: 317.8
Weight lost: 3.60
Net Cal lost: 12,600
Actual Calories burned: 30,004 (4286 / day)

Garmin variance: - 7.78%

ISO Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork Trekking Poles in preferably excellent condition.

2nd Gen (white upper shaft)
130cm

Not really sure how to title, so stressed is the long and short.

My wife and I (both early 50’s) have paid off about ~90K in Credit Cards over the past 5 years. We are down to <$20K and should be done with that in the next 5 months.

After that, in this order, we have a fixed loan from having to replace our HVAC that has ~$13K remaining, one car loan $22K remaining, then the house…

The genesis of the post is I guess a cry for support. I’ve been there (a large portion of the debt came from a 14 mos period of unemployment during COVID) and not knowing how you are going to make minimum payments is definitely worse, but constantly obsessing about paying off debt has a stress all its own.

Maybe I’m crazy or just super sensitive to stress, but wondering if anyone else has felt similar?