HRM and potential outrageous calorie counts?

shadowkitty22

So for those of you that have a HRM, do you feel like your calories burned is an outrageous number? Ever since I've started tracking my food and exercise I've been using my iPod nano to track my calories burned and the numbers have been relatively close to what MFP says I burned. But then I used my new HRM (it's a Timex that my MIL got for me as a surprise gift) today and it gave me a crazy high number compared to both my iPod and MFP. I walked for 30 minutes at a slow pace because my knee was hurting and my iPod said I burned 191 calories, MFP says I burned 209 but my HRM says I burned 717 calories! I feel like that's just absurd. I have my weight entered in to all three devices/programs so I'm just not sure if I should go with the majority (iPod/MFP) or my HRM. What are your thoughts?

Pebble321

Yup, that is outrageous .

I'd be checking the settings on your HRM to make sure you didn't enter something like 1600 pounds not 160 (I tried one of those online body fat calculators and it told me I had 190 kgs of body fat - guess who forgot to enter a decimal point!).

Generally I have a rough estimate that I use as a guide if something doesn't seem quite right - mine is around 10 cals/minute for running and 4-5 cals/minute for walking. These aren't set in stone, but they help me to get a feel for whether something is about as strenous as running or walking or less.
Or, I've read that on average, you burn around 100 cals/mile - regardless of speed.
Of course these are all going to vary depending on your weight and speed and amount of effort, but I find them a good guide to tell which numbers are likely to be closest.

shadowkitty22

Found this article that makes it seem like the higher number of my HRM would be more accurate than MFP numbers and others as well: http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/caloricexp.html