Heart Rate Monitor - Accuracy?

Rabid_Hamster
Rabid_Hamster Posts: 338 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I recently bought a Polar FT4 HRM, which calculates calories burned, and decided to do a test with yesterday. I wore it all day (24 hours minus 15 minutes in the shower) and it says I burned 2695 calories. (Wednesday is my rest day so no exercise during that period.)
I have a desk job, so I'm fairly sedentary. According to MFP a sedentary person's BMR is 2250 calories. So my question is: Is the Polar FT4 accurate for counting calories? :huh:
If it is, that would explain a few things. I just didn't think my metabolism could get revved up 450 calories a day in such a short period of time. As added info, I've been doing 30-40 minute HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) on an eliptical machine for 5 times a week for the last 6 weeks. A week and a half agoI added 20 minutes of strength training immediately after the cardio.

Replies

  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    HRM's should be used during exercise to measure burn among other things. They are fairly useless as a dialy activity monitor. Other things like fitbit are for what you tried to accomplish. You are attempting to use your HRM for a use for which it was not designed or intended.
  • Kimsied
    Kimsied Posts: 223 Member
    I wouldn't trust a heart rate monitor to accurately estimate non-exercise calories. They are specifically set up to estimate calorie burn for aerobic exercise, I admit I use it for other exercise though. Your heart rate isn't really the only or main thing for calorie burn. Devices like the bodybugg don't even use heart rate they use temperature and perspiration and movement in their formula. In a lab it tends to be more about oxygen use and they have figured a way to estimate this with heart rate for aerobic exercise. But the mfp number is also an estimate using your age, gender and size and may also be a little high or low for you personally. Neither are probably exactly right, but I would tend to go with mfp for non exercise burn and use your heart rate monitor for your workouts and see how that works.
  • Rabid_Hamster
    Rabid_Hamster Posts: 338 Member
    HRM's should be used during exercise to measure burn among other things. They are fairly useless as a daily activity monitor. Other things like fitbit are for what you tried to accomplish. You are attempting to use your HRM for a use for which it was not designed or intended.

    One more thing to add.. My target has been to lose 2 lbs a week. For the last 3 weeks I've been hovering between 204 and 208, without any real weight loss. If the HRM is accurate, then I think I haven't been consuming enough calories even after eating my exercise calories back. Fitbit seems to be dependent on actual motion, similar to a pedometer. We burn calories throughout the day, even when we sleep, albeit at a slower rate. That's a gap that fitbit doesn't address.
  • Moto_Woody
    Moto_Woody Posts: 20
    It really depends on the method used by your watch to calculate the calories burned, and how much data you watch gathers about you.

    If memory serves me correctly (it's been known to fail) their are 4 different methods for calorie calculations. Find out which one your watch uses and you can then decide how accurate it is.

    The bottom line for any calorie calculation is that they are all estimations. Some are more accurate than others and the technology used to calculate it, and the amount of information about you specifically it uses tends to make it more accurate.

    Here's a good article about calorie calculations -- he talks about Garmin watches, but the methods should be the same for your Polar.

    http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/11/how-calorie-measurement-works-on-garmin.html

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