Help me understand my daily calories burned!

shamrock75

MFP tells me that based on my height and weight, my BMR is 1311, and that my daily calories burned from normal activity is 1770. 4 days a week I am Jumping Rope and doing 30 minutes of weight lifting (dynamic moves using upper and lower body at the same time, 650-675 calories burned), 2 days a week I only Jump Rope (250-275 calories burned).

If I wear my HRM from the time I start my workout, and turn it off 24 hours later, taking my heart rate a couple times an hour (but not during the 5-6 hours I sleep), it says I am burning anywhere from 5200 - 6500 calories (it is a Mio Motiva wrist watch) - depending if I go to work or not. I borrowed my sisters heart rate monitor (Timex T5G971F5 with chest strap) one day to compare numbers during my workout (but not for the rest of the day), and they were really close.

If set my food @ 1400, and my calories burned is 5200, is that a daily difference of 3800 ?? What am I missing here?

Pebble321

I suspect that the number from your HRM is not accurate for a full day's activity. My understanding is that they only give you an accurate calorie burn when you are doing activities that raise your heart rate (and even then it is an estimate based on a set of calculations).
Of course, BMR is a total estimate too... but burning over 5000 cals a day seems pretty extreme to me.

The way MFP works is to take your estimated BMR, multiply that by an activity factor (to account for your regular daily tasks, but not including exercise) then subtract a calorie deficit (depending on how much weight you want to lose per week) and this number is your daily calorie allowance.
Then when you exercise, those calories get added to your daily calorie allowance too. Remember that you have already subtracted calories to create a deficit so you don't need to make a larger deficit with exercise.

I hope this helps.