body fat scale and/or hrm investment

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  • JeneticTraining
    JeneticTraining Posts: 663 Member
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    Fitness and nutrition has become a huge part of my life. So, I am willing to splurge a bit, $150 Max.
    Polar has really good reviews. Also, I see Garmin chest strap has a lot of good reviews
  • JeneticTraining
    JeneticTraining Posts: 663 Member
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    I love my Polar FT7 but then again I use it as a heart rate monitor (for heart rate zone exercising) and not just as a calorie counter.
    (FT4 also gets good feedback).

    Going to disagree about bodytfat scales being useless - I use an Omron (BF508) and find it very consistent if you use if correctly. The accuracy was only 1% different when I had a professional body fat measurement done using a BodPod.

    Haha, I feel like 1% difference is a big difference. I am trying to get down to 18% BF. I think I'll just pay a professional to check my BF every other month.
  • lilmiss_sunshine29
    lilmiss_sunshine29 Posts: 136 Member
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    Can anyone tell me how they know their HRM is accurate? Accurate against what? Yes, you are getting consistant readings from your workouts but how do you know the calorie count is correct?

    I used a Polar FT4 for a set exercise and I got a reading of around 400, upgraded to Polar FT40 and got a reading of 700! OK, so do I eat more? Is the FT40 too generous?

    Unless you are able to compare your HRM to laboratory fitness equipment and wear your HRM for the same test exercise, I can't see that you can say you have an accurate reading or that one HRM is better than another.

    Unless you have a cardio problem where you need to keep an eye on your heart rate, you really don't need a HRM. Better to just enjoy your workouts, forget the calorie burn and adjust your diet according to whether you need to reduce, maintain or build.

    I guess my question before I can make comment on accuracy is what your average heart rate the same when you did the set exercise? Because that will influence your total calorie burn. I've had the opportunity to use both an FT40 & FT7 from the Polar range, both of which worked well for me. The FT40 has a few more features (like Fitness test) than the FT7 - which was and is the main difference I noted.

    I don't believe you need to have a Cardio problem to justify buying a HRM.
    I (like previously mentioned by someone else) like to see how many calories I've burnt because that's motivating for me. I don't have a Cardio problem...it's just my preference to have a HRM and since investing in an FT7....I haven't regretted it once! I do near enough the same circuits and my overall burn/output is based on my Heart Rate for the session - even though the distance and terrain are the same.

    As for the scale - can't comment because don't have one. I've been using a tape measure monthly to measure my waist, neck circumference and hips. I enter this into a BMI app i downloaded onto my phone. Don't know how accurate a way of measuring body fat it is but it's giving me an idea of my progress...
  • abbzpwn
    abbzpwn Posts: 38 Member
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    heart rate monitors are really useful :D i think it would be a great tool to have to see if you're hitting your target heart rate and really see how much calories you're burning. It's accurate >.< I love my polar ft40 and I can't stop using it. MFP can be really off with calorie burns. MFP would say I burn 400 calories. My HRM would say I burned 1000. And I think a bodyfat scale is unnecessary. Just use the mirror.
  • JeneticTraining
    JeneticTraining Posts: 663 Member
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    Alright thanks guys.

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