Heart rate monitor readings

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shannonnolte
shannonnolte Posts: 5 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I should start by saying I love, love, love my polar heart rate monitor. One thing I've noticed since I've been posting my exercise on myfitnesspal is that when I put my exercise in, it always tries to give me credit for WAY more calories than what my heart rate monitor says I burned. For example, tonight my watch says I burned 240 calories, but myfitnesspal wanted to give me credit for 420 calories, so I have to manually change it. I WISH I burned 420, but I tend to believe the watch. Any similiar stories with heart rate monitors vs. what this website says?

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  • Larry7995
    Larry7995 Posts: 55
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    I would go with the more conservative estimate as a rule. I noticed the Stairmaster gives me less calories than mfp when I am doing my 30 minutes climbing stairs. It didn't dawn on me till I read this that I could manually change it, thanks!
  • bethm1210
    bethm1210 Posts: 66 Member
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    When I do 30 minutes on the elliptical, MFP wants to give me 300 calories. The generic monitor on the elliptical gives me around 180, and my HRM is usually around 240. I go with the HRM, since it's programmed for my height, weight, age, and gender. The one on the equipment is only guessing at what I'm burning, since there's no way for it to read my heart rate.
  • runningneo122
    runningneo122 Posts: 6,962 Member
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    Same here with my treadmill. I adjust my running time to reflect what my treadmill says because I use an HRM with remote access on my Pro-Form 590. as well other exercises are high as well so adjust times accordingly. I'd rather eat a few extra cals than eat too few.
  • husker_gal
    husker_gal Posts: 462 Member
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    when I use my HRM i actually get WAY higher readings than MFP...it's programmed to my gender, age, height, weight, and sex... my heart rate just gets really high really easily so I guess when i sustain a high high heart rate it causes me to burn burn burn. I tend to use MFP more often as it gives me about a 1/3 reading of calories burned compared to my HRM that way I ensure I do not over eat.

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