Calories without a heart monitor?

BioShocked89

I can't afford a heart monitor right now-I'm just now able to afford 3 lb weights this weekend so I can start Insanity.
But I've seen on here how people will exercise for an hour with a heart monitor and the monitor will say you've burned 500 calories and the system on here may over estimate as much as 200 calories.

So my question is, how can I calculate my calories more appropriately until I can afford a heart monitor?

I'm 5'6, 22 yrs old, and I weigh 303.6 lbs.

An hour of walking at 3.0 is listed as 454 calories burned.
An hour of Tennis, general is listed as 964 calories burned.

How far off are we talking here? Because 954 calories is a really high number of calories to be burned, and as I realize that my high weight will make my calories burned higher, I don't want to list a 964 calorie burn when it's really more like a 600-700 calorie burn.

Suggestions?

lreyenga

Bump

The MFP estimates definitely estimate my calories burned higher than what my HRM does. I'm assuming that MFP assumes you are working at a hard level the whole time while the HRM knows that I'm not? I'm also curious how people have worked around this without the equipment.

BrianSharpe

Perhaps, as a sanity check, compare the results from MFP to another calorie calculator like http://www.healthstatus.com/cgi-bin/calc/calculator.cgi to see if there's a big variance and then go with whichever gives you the lower number.

You should probably try to make a heart rate monitor a priority, the website calculators have no way of accounting for intensity (other than walking speed) whereas a HRM properly set up should give you a more reasonable estimate.

CaseRat

If you can't afford a heart rate monitor, it's easy enough to at least get a rough estimate yourself during the exercise. Every 5 minutes, whip out the watch/phone/anything with a clock on it and count how many times your heart beats over 15 seconds then times that by 4 for your beats per minute.

Average them all out and find a trustworthy online calculator to enter the average bpm and length of activity - try a few and go for the middle option.

964 calories/hour would mean you're working DAMN hard - sweating like a beast and almost sprinting for the entire hour.
450cal/hour for a 3m/h pace is very high, too.

animatorswearbras

Because MFP's cals can be way off as they assume alot (ie with tennis really going for it red faced and sweating) or are just a rough calculation I would log what it says but maybe if you're eating those calories back only eat 1/2 or 2/3's back to be on the safe side so you don't go over

However I don't consider the calculations to be rediculously high, if you're 300 than that's equivilent of a 200 pound person carrying a 100 pound rucksack whilst walking 3 miles an hour, it's takes alot more effort and is harder, but as I said just assume they are high because they might be.

Good luck x

clarechieri

I've never had a hrm and don't intend to get one. I have always just logged my activity and only eaten a maximum of half of them just to make sure. It's got me this far so don't see the point of getting one!