I can't afford expensive heart monitor...

rangereight

That continuously measures my heart rate and tells me calories burned. How do I measure calories burned on 50 minutes of elliptical at 12 incline and resistance 7?

Sued0nim

Good - because they're pointless

If you want a HRM - the Polar FT4 is a good buy and not that pricey

If you don't want to - just log the elliptical in the MFP exercise database, click on the calories and half them, it's a good enough estimate for most

999tigger

Disagree about them being pointless, but you dont need one. Heart rate monitors are for measuring heart rate in the first instance, they become weaker at measuring calories burned and can be highly misleading in anything other than steady state cardio.

From your other thread you are failing to use some common sense. All calculators are estimates.
Tighten up your logging first and do one week without eating any exercise calories back. See if that make a difference and then adjust upwards if you need to by eating a % of those calories back. If you use the MFP estimates start at 0% for 1 week and then maybe go to 25%/ 50%.

Have a look at some online calculators. If you were being conservative then the ones I looked at would be about 250 calories. I have reservations about your logging as pointed out on your thread.

Sued0nim

999tigger wrote: »

Disagree about them being pointless, but you dont need one. Heart rate monitors are for measuring heart rate in the first instance, they become weaker at measuring calories burned and can be highly misleading in anything other than steady state cardio.

Yeah, I don't actually understand why people feel the need to measure their HR across the day
- as you say, it cannot provide an accurate TDEE, which is based on the formula underpinning the HR and is traditionally only useful for steady state cardio

so whilst it spews out figures, what use are they? Unless you have a heart condition

Not picking, just never understood - I love my gadgets (fitbit and Polar HRM for workouts) and would buy one if I thought it worthwhile but it just doesn't seem it

I would be interested in why

999tigger

I think its because it gives them reassurance that the tech is helping them being exact , when at the moment its just an algorithm which extrapolates. Too mucch reliance is placed on a digital readoit becayse people think its accurate.

The reason for me using an hrm is really more to measure heart rate, plus I do plenty of steady state cardio anyway. I do that to keep my cv system in shape as i used to be worried about heart attack and wanted to strengthen it. Its nice to know when you are pushing it but I also know that from when im gasping and can hardly breathe.

Its also nice to know how quickly your heart resets. If it encourages people to move more then I think its good.

Not sure if you ever saw this bit of tech. have a look it was interesting imo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30681002

deathninja82

I pretty much have to use one for running otherwise I go full retard and overdo it, but for I agree they're more limited outside of steady state.