This can't be right!

lolakey

All this talk about HR monitors and starvation mode got me worried. I borrowed a friend's Polar F6 HRM for a couple of days. I wanted to get a basic weekday and a basic weekend, plus see if I want to buy one.

I didn't exercise and went about my normal day. First, I wore it at night when I finally settled down and did nothing and all through the night (7:30 pm - 5:30 am). I restarted it to calculate my getting ready for work / cleaning the house time (5:30 -8:30). Next, I restarted it for my working day ( I work in a kindergarten with 31 kids in the morning and 30 kids in the afternoon... I expected it to be high --- 8:30 - 3:30). The remaining part of my day consists of cooking, running errands, etc ( 3:30 - 7:30).

7:30 - 5:30 - 10.5 hrs - 695 calories
5:30 - 8:30 - 3 hrs - 555 calories
8;30 - 3:30 - 6.5 hrs - 1035 calories
3:30 - 7:30 - 4 hrs - 640 calories

Total = 2925 calories

That seems really high. I eat 1400 without exercise right now and I eat my exercise calories. Could this be my problem? Should I up my food intake? That is a lot of food! Could this be why I'm so tired all the time?

lolakey

All this talk about HR monitors and starvation mode got me worried. I borrowed a friend's Polar F6 HRM for a couple of days. I wanted to get a basic weekday and a basic weekend, plus see if I want to buy one.

I didn't exercise and went about my normal day. First, I wore it at night when I finally settled down and did nothing and all through the night (7:30 pm - 5:30 am). I restarted it to calculate my getting ready for work / cleaning the house time (5:30 -8:30). Next, I restarted it for my working day ( I work in a kindergarten with 31 kids in the morning and 30 kids in the afternoon... I expected it to be high --- 8:30 - 3:30). The remaining part of my day consists of cooking, running errands, etc ( 3:30 - 7:30).

7:30 - 5:30 - 10.5 hrs - 695 calories
5:30 - 8:30 - 3 hrs - 555 calories
8;30 - 3:30 - 6.5 hrs - 1035 calories
3:30 - 7:30 - 4 hrs - 640 calories

Total = 2925 calories

That seems really high. I eat 1400 without exercise right now and I eat my exercise calories. Could this be my problem? Should I up my food intake? That is a lot of food! Could this be why I'm so tired all the time?

Nich0le

Yes, yes yes......your calories allowed on this site and pretty much all others are set for most allowable calories per day if you were just to do your normal daily life activities and count calories. There is a built in defecit (spelling?) and if you exercise you gain additional calories that you should eat.

Ok I am not explaining it well but take your base calories + your exercise calories burned and that is how many calories you should try to eat that day. This amount fluctuates based on how much or lack of exercise you may do in a day. This is the hardest concept for many people because we feel like eating is not the answer when moderate eating actually is the true answer.

In other words.....eat something!

lolakey

Don't worry. I do eat them right now. I eat all of them! No problem there.


My question was if 2925 was too high ... are the polar that accurate on the amounts of calories I burned for the day. If the polar is right, I need to eat about 1000 more calories per day than I do right now in order to drop any weight.

What do you think?

lotusfromthemud

The polars are accurate according to the "settings". IF you reset the watch according to you and not your friend (who you borrowed the hrm from), then this is probably accurate. Teaching is very, very active work. I wore my pedometer to lecturing, and logged over 10 miles. And college freshmen don't have to be chased after all day the way the kindegarteners would.

I'd wear it for another 24 hours to double check, and then start upping your calories.:flowerforyou:

banks1850

I was just gonna say the same thing viv did. Did you set the polar to your settings? You have to put in your own age, sex, and weight or else the numbers will be all screwed up. And I believe you have to put in your RHR as well, but I forget, it's been 4 months since I set mine up. I should probably redo that part because I know that my fitness level has gone up and thus my resting heart rate has gone down almost 9 BPM (which is a huge drop).

lolakey

I set it for my specifications.


I'll do it another day and .... start eating! ;-) Thanks for the advice.

lolakey

I did it again and it seemed to be about right. ~2700 for the day. Wow! Amazing.


I'll be adding more food to my diet and (keep your fingers crossed) I hope to see results.

Thanks for the help.