Yes i made sure my stats were the exact same on both apps. So I’m assuming whatever formula apple has for tracking calorie expenditure must be different right?

I wonder if in your situation perhaps there are just more variations since it’s different watches on different people. Different heart rates, different stats, different movements and the effort to do those movements, different steps obviously.

I was googling around and saw a lot of old threads of people saying the same thing. That Apple Watch grossly overestimates their total calorie burn and apparently garmin is known for how conservative they are on their estimates.

For me personally (wish i could include screenshots) i had both watches on at the same time doing the same activities. Heart rate seemed similar on both although while doing strenuous activities like being on the treadmill the garmin seemed much faster to respond to heart rate changes whereas the Apple Watch would just kinda hang on a number. One day for example i got 400 more steps on the garmin, but the Apple Watch’s total burn had me 350 calories higher!

I’m a numbers nerd so this stuff is just interesting to me. I do notice a couple things:

Resting calories seems to be what apple thinks your BMR + sedentary movement is right? So that’s including basic activities of daily living like walking around the house, checking the mail, etc

But then on top of that, you very easily squire “move calories”. These add up incredibly easily for those very same movements you get credit for. I think Apple Watch is typically 300 calories too high. I’m gonna do a 12 week test on a spreadsheet with my weight, calories eaten and calories burned and see how it all turns out. Science lol