Heart Rate Monitors and Basic Metabolic Rate - ADVICE PLEASE

katieuk

Hi All

I usually workout at least 5 times a week, unfortunately at the moment I am having to rest due to lower back injury.

I have a daily calorie goal of 1410kcal (to get a 0.5lb weight loss per week) so I am trying to ensure that I stick to this whilst I am out of action.

However, my BRM is 1660kcal which basically means that my body needs that many calories a day even if I was just to sit and do nothing - to ensure that all my bodily functions can work accordingly!! So if I ate that many kcal then I would maintain my weight!!

So, I thought if I wear my Heart Rate Monitor from when I wake to when I go to bed at night then anything I burn over the required kcal I need to maintain my at rest bodily functions (anything over 1660kcal) is additional burn right?? So I thought maybe I would burn an extra 100kcal - so whilst I am not exercising to my usual high impact I will still get a little burn just from simply walking around the office / the house etc.

When I got to the end of my first day my HRM said that I had burned 2500kcal - and this was basically sitting at my desk, walking occasionally to the toilet / making lunch / making dinner - nothing really active, and obviously no exercise !! So essentially without doing my exercise as normal apparently I had burned an extra 800kcal over my BRM (laying about kcal intake) !!

This seemed a little excessive since I only burn on average 350kcal when I do 45 minutes of my Jillian Michaels workouts !!

Can I class this 800kcal as extra burn for my day - eg. input it as my daily exercise whilst I am out of action? that would mean that if I stuck to the suggested 1410kcal per day for 0.5lb loss then taking 800kcal from that I would have a net of 610kcal for the day - which is well under the recommended low of 1200kcal per day - so I just don't see how this could be right?

I just don't get it!!

Anyone able to help??