Need a little clarity

masterofktulu
masterofktulu Posts: 151 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I bought a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and have been tracking my calories burned.
I am 5'11 226lbs and 23 years old. My HRM says I burn about 500 calories doing
30 minutes of elliptical on very decent pace. I do weight training for about 30
minutes as well. I eat constantly all day and rarely feel hungry or weak. Am
I really burning this much or should I use the HRM as a rough guide? I just hear
different things like half hour of treadmill is only 200 calories for someone my stats
and others say like 800 calories. Or should I treat it as a trial and error situation and just
see what works for me?

Thoughts/opinions?

Replies

  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
    HRM's are only an estimate.. nothing can tell you for sure that you burn 500 or 800 calories doing something.

    How much info that the HRM has determines how well it preforms.. if it has a chest strap it will be more accurate then one with out. If it takes all info(age, weight, height, gender and Vo2max) it will be between 80 and 90% accurate at estimating calorie burn.
  • jbags5
    jbags5 Posts: 4
    I take what my HRM tells me (I use chest strap, and input all my stats - age, weight, height, etc.), and subtract 10-20%, b/c I always feel like it overestimates my calories burned. If My HRM says I burned 800 calories doing 60 minutes of workouts, I just input about 600 calories burned into MFP.

    I'd rather err on the side of eating a bit less :)

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