1100 calories?????????????????

From what I understand, HRMs only work during exercise and aren't reliable for non-exercising time. Personally, I wouldn't rely on what its saying you burned when you weren't actually working out.

My head hurts

My head hurts

LOL...mine too. But in response to the original question, I'd go by what MFP says on the estimates. MFP says you should go by what the machines say (because they usually factor in your weight, while MFP are average estimates), but I've found sometimes machine numbers can be a lot less or a lot more than MFP estimates. Go by what MFP says & if you are losing too fast (more than 2 lbs a week), then add in a couple of hundred calories. If you're not losing at all, then either cut the calories by a couple hundred or increase the workouts. But it doesn't sound like the latter would be the issue.

Hmmm you may be over thinking this a bit. I would just wear the HRM during actual exercise, log that figure and be done with it. All the rest is just part of our normal daily activities...we can't account for every single calorie burned within a day, at some point a line has to be drawn.

HRM's are only relatively accurate in calculating calories burned during an aerobic event...Polar models have been independently tested and show to be about 75% accurate. They are not accurate for anaerobic activity (like weight lifting) or just wearing around doing nothing.

Calorie burning isn't determined by heart rate, it's determined by the number of muscle cells that are activated to perform a given activity. It's the working cells that actually use the energy (calories) and consume oxygen. When working muscle cells need more energy and oxygen, your heart rate goes up to deliver these things to the cells via the blood stream. HRMs are programmed with the assumption that a number of muscles cells will be working, as is the case when you run or do elliptical, or whatever...this is not the case when you're sitting around or when you weight train and focus on a singular muscle or muscle group.

This is the best explanation I have read on this issue. Now I get it. Thanks.

It could also be total gross calories and includes you BMR. What HRM do you have? I have a watch and it is total gross calories.

sportline from walmart, its the watch and it cost 30 dollars.. S.O.B better be accurate!

Then it is gross and shows the toal calories burned all day. When I was tracking exercise calories I would manually make an adjustment like you see the fitbit or bodymedia does after I figured what my normal bum day was and subtracted that number. So for instance it shows after midnight 2,600 and you had put 500 as an exercise already and 2,000 was bum day calories I would add another 100 as calories burned. Or to log an exercise get the calories burned during the time spent 600 and figure what your baseline calories are and subtract those. But then your baseline awake is more than your baseline sleeping like 100 vs 60 per hour so simplified method is less 100 per hour for calories burned.

This can make someone head hurt.

I decided all that was too complicated in guesses my exercise calories and now I eat the same calories per day no matter what.
I am using my actual TDEE minus 20-30%. I figure my actuals every four weeks using calories in plus pounds lostx3,500 and cut from that number. I started with 1,500 not knowing what to use and then went to 1,650 after losing 6 pounds in four weeks. This week will be my next four and I have lost another 5.5 so far so I will be bumping up again. Since changing the settings on my watch from medium to low the calorie number is very close to actual but the number of steps are lower.
Hope this helps.

Sorry to everyone else's headaches.