HRM - calorie calculation question

aymetcalf
aymetcalf Posts: 597 Member
edited September 21 in Fitness and Exercise
So I've been thinking about getting a heart rate monitor to wear during my workouts so I know how many calories I have burned. I'm wondering though, how does the HRM calculate the calories? Specifically, we burn a certain amount of calories just from being alive.

As an example: Let's say I burn 100 calories per hour just from being alive. Then I do a workout for 1 hour. The HRM says I burn 400 calories total for that hour. Do I log the 400 calories or do I subtract out my "existence" calories, ie. 400-100 = 300 calories due to exercise.

Thoughts?

Replies

  • 00trayn
    00trayn Posts: 1,849 Member
    I just started to subtract out my 'existence' calories because I think I was overestimating, and thus overeating. I have a BMR around 1560 and it works out to roughly a calorie a minute. Pretty easy to subtract that out from what my HRM tells me. There are varying opinions on this, supossedly MFP's exercise calculator subtracts it out for you while a HRM doesn't.
  • april522
    april522 Posts: 388 Member
    I always log how many calories my HRM shows. It's based on your heart rate (the more often you calculate it during your workout, the more accurate the calories burned will be). I never thought about "subtracting" the basic calories you burn each hour if you were just sitting down.
  • lilchino4af
    lilchino4af Posts: 1,292 Member
    I've never subtracted my "existence" calories and eat anywhere between 80-100% of the workout calories my HRM logs and I'm still losing 1 lb a week. So I guess it all comes down to the person.
  • aymetcalf
    aymetcalf Posts: 597 Member
    thanks everyone! :heart:
  • canstey
    canstey Posts: 118
    Depending on the HRM, I think it already attempts to remove existence calories and does its best to estimate actual exercise calories by using your resting HR as a baseline. I think the higher the heart rate during exercise, the less impact existence calories have. The hard part is when doing very low impact that only has your heart rate averaging 20 bpm more than regular moving around the house. At that point I try to use the simple formula of around 100 calories per mile walked to balance it out if I think the HRM was over estimating.
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