How Accurate Are Heart Rate Monitors At Reading Calories?

JoanneLkinn

I replaced an old heart rate monitor I had with a new one were the strap goes around your chest..the one before was a watch you touched to read your heart rate. The old one said I burned almost twice as many calories. So which is the more accurate one? Thanks :-)

rgrstetson

Joanne, I wish this were easy to answer and cut and dry...but the short of it is, neither are accurate. There are so many things that go into caloric burn, and so many factors about your body, about the intensity in which you exercise, your recovery, hydration, nutrition, and many other things that effect your overall metabolic rate. Some HRMs calculate what you burn during exercise plus the amount of energy required to recover. The problem is that this is all speculation. Why? It comes down to lean muscle mass. It is possible to have two people that are the exact same height and the exact same weight but have very different daily minimal intake amounts. if a person is 6ft tall, weighs 200 lbs, 26% of which is fat, then that individuals resting metabolic rate is significantly lower than someone that is the same height, weight but has only 16% body fat.

This is exactly why trainers that are focusing on weight loss do not simply stick to cardio for the calorie burn, but focus on weight training to build lean muscle mass to fire the metabolism up. In the interest of getting more bang for your buck though I would go by what the lower one says because if you are trying to lose it is better to underestimate the amount of caloric burn than overestimate. That is what I would do...simply because I am a compensatory eater and try to match my intake closely to what my output is. Sorry about the long reply...