Question on daily calorie burn

Wubbie05

Hello,

I used a MyZone fitness monitor purchased from my gym. It reads effort, heart rate, etc. The gym told me I could wear it waking hours when I do NOT workout and sleeping hours and this would give me a total calorie burn. I have done it a couple times, to get the most accurate reading and see if it was right, and both times it gives me, on average, a daily burn of 3,200. I've been working out a lot and trying to focus on muscle gain. My old trainer said that if I am at 3,200 on an average day and when I workout, I get a burn of at least 600, add that to 3,200 that is 3,800 and add 500 more for muscle, I am over 4,000 calories per day. HOW on earth do I get that many in? THEN, I visited Max Muscle, where they told me if they put me on a meal plan, they'd have me at 2,500 calories per day. If I burn more than that doing nothing, won't I lose weight and not gain muscle? How accurate are these monitors that measure heart rate? Is 3,200 realistic?

Thank you, I'm SO confused.

Meg

MysticRealm

Unless you are very very heavy and super active during the day (never sit down, half running everywhere) there is likely no way you are burning 3200 cals as a base.
I looked up myzone fitness monitor and it seems like it is a normal heart rate monitor (rather than something like fitbit which may read heart rate but isn't a true heartrate monitor). Heart rate monitors are meant for steady state cardio only. Not for wearing for normal daily activities and will give very unrealistic burns when used for anything but steady state cardio.

brianpperkins

Your gym lied to you. HRMs are not accurate for calculating all day burn. They really aren't accurate for calculating burns from most activities ... not yoga, not lifting, not intervals, not zumba, not DVDs.

Wubbie05

Thanks for the replies. If this is the case, then why have I not gained huge amounts of weight? I've been consuming over 3,200 and weight has not gone up.

brianpperkins

How long have you been eating that much? How are you measuring your food?

Mr_Knight

Wubbie05 wrote: »

My old trainer said that if I am at 3,200 on an average day and when I workout, I get a burn of at least 600, add that to 3,200 that is 3,800 and add 500 more for muscle, I am over 4,000 calories per day.

To put 4000 calories/day into perspective, that's a BMR of 2000 plus a 200 mile Tour de France stage.

(For a normal sized person)

Wubbie05

Been eating that much for a few months now. Measuring food, do you mean by scale, portion size, using my palm as a gauge. I've been working out 5-6 days a week, mostly weight training with a bit of cardio.

Wubbie05

Feeling pretty duped! Before I started listening to them, I was consuming much less, 2,000 and could not function without the energy in me. What is the best way to determine my daily burn? At an average workout, in an hour and 20 mins, I burn nearly 700 (according to MyZone).