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annika27
annika27 Posts: 56
in Fitness and Exercise
How do you use a heart rate monitor to figure out calories burned?
I see people talking about it on here, and I am thinking about getting one, just curious as to how you figure it out.
Thanks!

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  • FairyMiss
    FairyMiss Posts: 1,812 Member
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    many have that as one of the read outs.
  • pander101
    pander101 Posts: 677 Member
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    It usually just says it on the HRM
  • Jorra
    Jorra Posts: 3,338 Member
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    You wear a band around your torso which measures your heart rate and compares it to your resting heart rate. Using that, it can determine approximately how many calories are being burned.
  • Skinny_Mocha
    Skinny_Mocha Posts: 208 Member
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    I don't know about others, but mine is a monitor I strap across my ribs when exercising. It sends the info to a digital watch, which calculates calories burned based on my heart rate, weight, height, and age.
  • finchase
    finchase Posts: 174
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    I have another question: How do you determine your resting heart rate?
  • bregalad5
    bregalad5 Posts: 3,965 Member
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    Mine doesn't tell calories but gives an average heart rate from when I hit start until when I hit stop. So I have a spreadsheet where I plug in my age, weight, duration, and avg. heart rate from the HRM and it spits out calories burned using the equation here: http://www.livestrong.com/article/78365-estimate-calories-burned-heart-rate/
  • Marycan2
    Marycan2 Posts: 28
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    I have a Polar HRM. You put your specs into the program...choose how are you are going to work out..low, moderate, hard...then when you push the button to start the timing of your exercise...it shows me a running caloric use. Then when I stop the exercise it shows me the total calorie burn,my max heart rate and my average HR. I love it!
  • chicago_dad
    chicago_dad Posts: 357
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    HRMs estimate calories burned based on simple equations. They do often read out these estimates as others have noted. Here's a link to a Livestrong page that explains how to estimate calories burned based on avg. HR over a workout:

    http://www.livestrong.com/article/78365-estimate-calories-burned-heart-rate/

    These are estimates, as any are off of watches that read HRMs and try to calculate calories burned without *distance* (like for an indoor spin class): see https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?t=3962

    If you are running, walking or cylcing, some HRMs use GPS or a device like a foot-pod (that tracks steps taken) to estimate calories burned. I'm partial to Garmin's Forerunner 305, which was recommended highly by a few friends. It is reviewed pretty thoroughly here:

    http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2007/11/review-of-garmin-forerunner-305.html

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