HRM Help Please

Kegsey55

I'm trying to work out if a HRM would help me to know what I'm burning so I know what I should eat. My exercise is running (C25K), weights at the gym, DVDs at home like Gillian Michaels and maybe a boxing HIIT class (if it runs!). I already have a fitbit which reports on running. As I understand it, neither a fitbit or a HRM will accurately report on weights. Would a HRM work well with HIIT like DVDs and the boxing class or only with steady classes? Would a HRM add anything to me loosing weight?

BrianSharpe

HRMs are very useful tools for a number of things (I'm a numbers geek, I love tracking data), the least of which is estimating caloric expenditure for anything other than steady state cardio.

A HRM may help with your weight loss if, for example, you've been relying on calorie burns reported by some cardio machines (they tend to overestimate) and eating back your calories. One thing to keep in mind is that many HRM algorithms report gross calories expended which already includes BMR, have a look on-line for some of the gross to net converters so you're only eating back the additional calories expended as a direct result of exercise.

Kegsey55

Thanks Brian. I haven't been using anything as yet as I didn't know what to look for. Thanks for the information about double counting BMR, thats very useful and I hadn't thought of that.