When Tracking Burned Calories . . .

HikeCyclist
HikeCyclist Posts: 153 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Good morning everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely day :)

A thought occurred to me the other day . . .

In order to measure my calories burned during exercise, I use a Polar heart rate monitor. One time, while I was sitting on the sofa just looking at my laptop, not moving much at all, I tracked the # of calories that I burned over the course of 15 minutes. I burned about 25 calories or something like that, while vegging out.

I was wondering . . . when I work out and track my calories burned, do you think I should deduct 25 calories per every 15 minutes of working out? Because technically, if I wasn't working out and just sitting, I'd still be burning 25 calories during those 15 minutes.

(Example: Say I jog/run for 15 minutes and burn 150 calories. Should I deduct 25 from that?)

I really hate getting obsessive about things like this, but weight loss is such a numbers game!!

Thank you!

Replies

  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    1. Heart rate monitors will not give accurate calories burned unless you are performing aerobic activity. It measures your heart rate then uses equations to convert the heart rate to calories. These equations are only valid during aerobic activity.

    2. But yes, technically you would burn X number of calories each hour without exercise. I know I maintain at about 2300 calories a day not including exercise calories, so I burn 96 calories per hour on average, (but actually it's probably more during the day and less at night). If you REALLY want you could subtract that number off your calories burned from exercise. However I never have and it's never effected my results.
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
    I have read of people doing that very thing. But over three years of tracking my running and workouts with my HRM, I have not once subtracted any cals from the burn it gave me, and I have still lost the weight, no problem.
  • HikeCyclist
    HikeCyclist Posts: 153 Member
    Thanks for the replies so far!!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Everything is an estimate.....

    If you wanted to try and work out the net rather than gross calories you would calculate your RMR and divide by 24 for your hourly resting burn.

    Too much messing around for me so I just went by the gross calories and ate them all back.
    As you no doubt realise all these estimates are just an average - as I went from less than average fitness to better than average fitness my calorie burns according to my HRM have declined even though I'm able to produce more power (energy) for the same intensity.

    In the end it's easier to adjust your calorie intake based on actual weight loss results and worry less about chasing an unobtainable level of accuracy.

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