HRM's and not exercising

Simplicity

I might just be being a little pedantic but if you sit with the heart rate monitor on for the hour that you should be exercising and don't exercise you still burn calories, (x) amount. From breathing and being alive. (not sure of the figure might try it though.)

so shouldn't you minus this figure from the one you get after doing the exercise or does the HRM do this for you.

i just think that otherwise everyone might be over estimating there calories burnt figure because you would have burnt (x) amount of calories anyways if you sat down for an hour.

just something i was pondering. clearly i am at work bored already lol.

VballLeash

I know what you mean, I've though of that too. I usually subtract about 50 calories an hour off of what my hrm says... so if I burn 500 in an hour I only eat back around 450. I know someone else that does the same. Sometimes if I'm close to going over though I don't worry about it and it evens out another day when I eat back less of them...

~Leash

Simplicity

that makes sense i think i will do the same but yeah we can't be too picky either. ill end up in an insane asylum counting cals lol

AmandaJ

That is right and there is a post at least one post about this on here somewhere. I think you can wear it for 10 minutes unactive, then you have your number to subtract from your exercise calories burnt. So if it 20 calories for 10 minutes and you exercise for 50 minutes, you subtract 100 calories. Does that make sense?

SHBoss1673

depends on the HRM. Some take RHR into account. I know (because I asked them) polar does NOT take RHR into account, you have to manually subtract them.

Simplicity

i knew boss would know and yes to amandaj i know what you mean. i have an f6 polar so i will bear it in mind. i thought someone would come out with a theory that proved me stupid lol.

erikazj

Bear in mind if you are wearing your HRM whilst not exercising to count your normal calorie burn that some HRMs only start to count calories once your heart rate goes over 100 bpm. My Polar does this, so I wasn't able to use it in this way! I do subtract a certain number of calories per hour, but I can't remember now how I calculated the number!

SHBoss1673

Bear in mind if you are wearing your HRM whilst not exercising to count your normal calorie burn that some HRMs only start to count calories once your heart rate goes over 100 bpm. My Polar does this, so I wasn't able to use it in this way! I do subtract a certain number of calories per hour, but I can't remember now how I calculated the number!

interesting, what model is it? I wonder if they have changed their practice since I asked them (I asked about a year and a half ago), it's quite possible. Or maybe they just do that for specific models.

erikazj

It's an M51 (quite old now). The wording in the manual is this:

>The OwnCal calorie calculation starts when your heart rate
>reaches 100 bpm

Therefore when I wore it sitting on my backside for an hour it didn't register a single calorie as of course my heart rate was not over 100!

E

SHBoss1673

It's an M51 (quite old now). The wording in the manual is this:

>The OwnCal calorie calculation starts when your heart rate
>reaches 100 bpm

Therefore when I wore it sitting on my backside for an hour it didn't register a single calorie as of course my heart rate was not over 100!

E

OK that makes sense. The newer ones register any heart rate, it doesn't have to be over 100.

Simplicity

I sat still for ten minutes this morning and burnt 20 cals which when added up can make quite the difference. 10 minutes walking round was 30 cals.

hey i was bored. but when it comes to doing exercise for half hour i have to remeber that 60 70 cals would have been burnt anyways makes a big difference if you exercise a lot i suppose.

Azdak

It's an M51 (quite old now). The wording in the manual is this:

>The OwnCal calorie calculation starts when your heart rate
>reaches 100 bpm

Therefore when I wore it sitting on my backside for an hour it didn't register a single calorie as of course my heart rate was not over 100!

E

OK that makes sense. The newer ones register any heart rate, it doesn't have to be over 100.

Yeah, I'm sure someone in marketing at Polar spoke up at a meeting and said, "Are we nuts?" (about not showing calories if <100bpm).

SHBoss1673

Hehe, well, as to exercising a lot, for a guy usually your metabolism is somewhere between 105 and 150 calories per hour. That's a gross estimate though, it really depends on what size you are, and what shape your in. You could do your own assessment (I did).

Here's how I did it.

I wore my Heart Rate Montior for a full day. I had slept for 8 hours that day, and since your heart rate is approximately 75% of normal when sleeping, I took that into account.

my daily expendature (I did this 3 times to be sure) was about 2950

so you take 2950 and divide by 3 (I slept for 8 hours, that means 1/3 of my time of day was sleeping, gotta follow close here, this gets a little weird), which comes to about 984.

984 X .75 = 735 <-- this is how many calories I burned sleeping.

so then you do 2950-735 = 2215 <-- this is how many calories I burned while awake.

now to get your waking resting calories per hour do 2215 divided by 16 = 138 calories per hour.

So I burn about 138 calories for every hour I'm awake but not doing any significant exercise.

convoluted? Yeah, I guess, but now I know to subtract 68 calories from my 1/2 hour of hard cardio.

Azdak

The commonly accepted figure for resting metabolic rate is 3.5 mlO2/kg/min, also defined as 1 MET.

The common equation for estimating energy expenditure (Kcalories) is
Intensity (in METS x Body Wt (in KG) = Kcal per hour.

So, someone weighing 80 KG for example is estimated to burn 80 Kcal per hour for their RMR.

A 2005 Australian study examined these numbers. They tested 600+ subjects and determined that the "common" equations significantly overestimated RMR.

They came up with numbers of 2.6 mlO2/kg/min and 0.84 Kcal/kg/hour respectively.

Example: an 80 Kg individual working out for 45 min will have an RMR component of 50-60 calories.

arewethereyet

here is how I look at this subject. I am much more active than 1 year ago. I will break out into 5 minute dance sessions, go up the stairs instead of elevator..........then go down and up again just cuz I can.

I park 4 blocks from a restaraunt and walk...............I take laps around the office.............I drop and do 20 on a moments notice.

I do not add each of these into my daily exercise log and I am set to sedentary.

SO when I work out, if I get 301 calories............I eat them!!!

I am not in the medical profression, I do not understand how and why the body works from the inside out, but I do know as a layman, my HRM can give me a pretty good idea of my exersion rate when working out. If my HR is 170, then I am sweating like a pig and burn lots! My HRM just confirms a number I can use without knowing complicated formulas.

:flowerforyou: