HRM Question

Hawksbillus

Here's a question for HRM users:

Do you subtract your resting calories burned from the calories you burn during your workout?

For example, according to my new HRM (Polar FT40) I burn 84-90 calories per hour just sitting on the couch watching TV. If I exercised for an hour and it said I burned 500 calories, should I record on MFP that I burned 500 calories or 410 calories (500-90)? It's not a huge difference, but I'm wondering how others calculate this.

Thanks!

-jd

blantonjm1

i don't use a HRM i use a Garmin running watch and it calculates calories burned by distance and pace. So if I sat on the couch I wouldn't burn any. My thoughts would be whatever sitting around you do would be covered under your daily calories that you are given. And so if you burned all 500 while exercising then you would enter 500, and if you burn 410 exercising and 90 while sitting on the couch then I would say you only record the 410 under exercise. Just my thoughts. its probably fine to see the total number burned for the day with all you activities( walking, talking working, sitting on the couch, doing arm extensions while pressing the remote) but i would say those would all be left your own viewing and not to be recorded under the Exercise portion. Let me know what you decide I am curious. what brand did you go with? and how much are they? i might be interested to see for myself.

mrshoneybear1014

It's just like if you were on a treadmill and it tells you how many calories you've burned. Of course we are burning calories by merely existing. I just count the calories burned for the activity that I've done.

Hawksbillus

My wife made this recommendation: Don't over complicate things. There's a benefit to exercise beyond the time of the exercise itself that you're not calculating so just record the calories burned and assume it's a wash.

Makes sense to me.

Oh, and I bought a Polar FT40, which was a bit over $100 on Amazon. (To answer blantonjm1's question)


-jd

blantonjm1

Well stated by your wife. go with it! and thanks for letting me know that brand and rough cost.

Jonathan

dad106

How did you figure out that you burn 84-90 calories an hour? Did you wear the HRM when resting to figure that out? If you did, then that number is wrong because HRM's are not meant to be worn while rest.. If you really wanted to figure out what you burn in an hour, take your BMR divide by 24 to figure out what you burn an hour.

To answer your question though, I've had two Polar HRM's now, never subtract resting calories and I lost weight just fine.. Everything is an estimation anyway, so it could be lower or higher even without the subtraction.

mnishi

Everything is an estimation anyway, so it could be lower or higher even without the subtraction.

I thought the point of a HRM is so that you have an accurate count of calories burnt and not an estimation. Am I wrong?

cpiton

I have the Polar FT4 HRM. I just add in the total number of calories recorded. It hasn't held me back any to do so. In fact, I've lost 4 lbs since I started using it.


"I thought the point of a HRM is so that you have an accurate count of calories burnt and not an estimation. Am I wrong?"

Short of performance training in a lab, you likely aren't going to get a completely accurate count. HRM gets you closer than most of the other options, though.

Hawksbillus

How did you figure out that you burn 84-90 calories an hour? Did you wear the HRM when resting to figure that out? If you did, then that number is wrong because HRM's are not meant to be worn while rest.. If you really wanted to figure out what you burn in an hour, take your BMR divide by 24 to figure out what you burn an hour.

To answer your question though, I've had two Polar HRM's now, never subtract resting calories and I lost weight just fine.. Everything is an estimation anyway, so it could be lower or higher even without the subtraction.

What I did was just to run the HRM while I sat and watched TV for 10 minutes and then multiplied by 6 and added in a little variability. It turns out that this number was within about 100 calories of my BMR so I figured the HRM gave me a pretty accurate measure of my relaxed "burn rate".

But, I really don't want to over complicate the whole thing so I'm going to do what most everyone else does, which is to just record the number the HRM gives me. It's easier that way and it sounds like it's been pretty effective for everybody.

Thanks, all!

-jd

dad106

Everything is an estimation anyway, so it could be lower or higher even without the subtraction.

I thought the point of a HRM is so that you have an accurate count of calories burnt and not an estimation. Am I wrong?

Nothing can accurately count calories.. it's impossible.

What HRM's do is take your info(age, weight, height, gender and Vo2max) and heart rate, and plug that into a formula that spits out a calorie estimation.