And this is why you buy a Hear Rate monitor. Ignore machines

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  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    My policy is to not eat back exercise calories. Problem solved.

    I use a heart rate monitor and also follow that policy. I just use the heart rate monitor as a tool to see where I am calorie wise for my own sanity. I don't rely on it heavily and avoid eating back the calories. Honestly, unless you are working out for hours or doing something that would cause a MASSIVE amount of calorie burn, then I do not think it is necessary to eat back the calories. Works for me. lol



    That's funny because people on these messaging boards keep telling me I need to eat back at least half of my calories burned, but I greatly disagree. I burned them for a reason.

    This site is based on the premise of logging exercise and eating those calories. It is set up that way for a reason.

    Yes, but I'm also never sure quite how much I'm actually burning. That's why on days I exercise, I let myself go over my goal a bit, just not nearly as much as it tells me to. I'm going to continue this way until I can afford a HRM or something that can be more reliable for measuring my burns.

    Again, even with a HRM you don't know what you are really burning. There are plenty of people who get overinflated burns with them.
    Plenty of people have done just fine with thee MFP suggestions.

    You don't need to be accurate, I do suggest being realistic and consistent.

    In the end, you are accounting in some way by allowing a few extra calories, which is good. We don't need exact.

    HRMs are useful, I don't disagree with that, I just hate the thoughts of people spending money they don't necessarily have under the guise of accuracy that they may or may not get.

    (Really, check out the links above. Azdak does a really great job of break down best ways to estimate)
  • aarnwine2013
    aarnwine2013 Posts: 317 Member
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    My policy is to not eat back exercise calories. Problem solved.

    I use a heart rate monitor and also follow that policy. I just use the heart rate monitor as a tool to see where I am calorie wise for my own sanity. I don't rely on it heavily and avoid eating back the calories. Honestly, unless you are working out for hours or doing something that would cause a MASSIVE amount of calorie burn, then I do not think it is necessary to eat back the calories. Works for me. lol

    Same here. I just set my activity level to "lightly active" and get my 10,000 steps a day.

    I do the same as well. I have a Garmin Viofit and I love it. You can buy a chest strap and it has a HR setting to track burns. I let the Garmin decide how many calories I have left but I don't eat them back.

    It was huge wakeup call to see that I didn't burn near the calories I thought I did.

    Yeah, it is a big wake up call about how little we burn in exercise compared to how hard we perceive it to be. One thing that always go me as about 100-120 cals/mile burned while running. Some people it is more if they are much bigger, but that is a general guide. There are times when I had wanted to eat something extra/more and I would think..."is that candy bar worth 3 miles of running???!?"
    I use the HRM to guage intensity, especially if it is a newer type of cardio workout, just to guage if it is the best workout for the time I am giving it!

    I totally put food back in the fridge when I do the math in my head. The first time I wore a HRM, I almost cried... All that work for 100 calories... It really changed the way I view exercise and food.
  • ElliottTN
    ElliottTN Posts: 1,614 Member
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    My policy is to not eat back exercise calories. Problem solved.
    word
  • Jessie24330
    Jessie24330 Posts: 224 Member
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    I am sure I am going to get called out for this but it works for me. I have looked around at tons of places that say how much I am burning doing any particular exercise and went with a number that was a little lower than they all say. I assign that number to all my cardio, calculated by the minute. This is not my number but if it came out to be 10 calories a minute (for simplicity) and I did 30 minutes on whatever cardio machine, as long as I wasn't walking and and I was keeping my heart rate up enough, I would assign that exercise 300 calories. I don't personally believe that heart rate is directly connected to calorie burn but I do believe that it shows me how hard I am working. Then I also try to have at least 100 calories left at the end of the day. It might not be for anyone else but it simplifies things and works for me.

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