My HRM just shat on all my calorie burning dreams...

laurajplus4

This is all really great info!

What about manually taking your pulse during/after a workout, then using a site that calculates calories burned? I started doing that after reading how inaccurate both the machines and mfp are at calories burned estimation, and found the actual number from manually checking to be quite close to the machines.

I'm planning on getting an HRM, hopefully a polar, but for now manually calculating calorie burn seems to be working.... Unless people believe it to be just as inaccurate as the machines

For example: I am 5'7", weigh 153, and get an avg hr of 154, with a max between 168-170. According to this site, http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx I burn 302 calories doing 30 minutes on the treadmill. My treadmill says 300, and mfp says 335.

heybales

This is all really great info!

What about manually taking your pulse during/after a workout, then using a site that calculates calories burned? I started doing that after reading how inaccurate both the machines and mfp are at calories burned estimation, and found the actual number from manually checking to be quite close to the machines.

I'm planning on getting an HRM, hopefully a polar, but for now manually calculating calorie burn seems to be working.... Unless people believe it to be just as inaccurate as the machines

For example: I am 5'7", weigh 153, and get an avg hr of 154, with a max between 168-170. According to this site, http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx I burn 302 calories doing 30 minutes on the treadmill. My treadmill says 300, and mfp says 335.

If you are doing steady state cardio, just keeping the heart humming at a higher level, yes that can be decently accurate.

And that site you reference is the same study formula from my site. I just don't like they prevent any results if you are not between certain values the study said must be taken into account. But I know my tested VO2max, but even though I enter it, they still go by age.

And I also for about 30 min am pretty close match between HRM, treadmill, MFP, and that calculator.

So good length of time. Shoot, if your treadmill has the HRM handles on them, spot checking from time to time can be good enough too.

rml_16

Considering your weight, I'd definitely go with the HRM. 545 cals in 55 minutes at your weight is really high.

Crawflowr

I have the opposite problem (if it is a problem), My HRM always tells me I'm using a lot more calories than the treadmill (even though the treadmill is also hooked up to my polar HRM). In fact as a test I have kept my HRM running this afternoon after my exercise session. In the last hour and a half, sitting at my desk (only getting up once to walk 20 yards for a glass of water) I have used 472 calories (with my heart rate averaging 108 and peaking at 138). This is equivalent to using 320 calories an hour doing absolutely nothing which means I should be using around 7000 calories a day. How on earth did I ever get fat? I'm currently netting 1200 and to be honest my portion sizes don't feel that far adrift from what i used to eat when I was gaining weight.

heybales

I have the opposite problem (if it is a problem), My HRM always tells me I'm using a lot more calories than the treadmill (even though the treadmill is also hooked up to my polar HRM). In fact as a test I have kept my HRM running this afternoon after my exercise session. In the last hour and a half, sitting at my desk (only getting up once to walk 20 yards for a glass of water) I have used 472 calories (with my heart rate averaging 108 and peaking at 138). This is equivalent to using 320 calories an hour doing absolutely nothing which means I should be using around 7000 calories a day. How on earth did I ever get fat? I'm currently netting 1200 and to be honest my portion sizes don't feel that far adrift from what i used to eat when I was gaining weight.

HRM's are known to not be accurate for anything outside the zone of 90-150 bpm. The calculations fall apart.

So any would show that.

The treadmill is NOT hooked up to your HRM, it is displaying the value received. Not used in any calculations.

Not a problem your values would be different, even higher.