I'm new as well and just started today! I'm 26, have been married for 5 years, and have one three year old son. I never lost the pregnancy weight despite having my son over 3 years ago! I have yo-yod between 190 and 160 and am currently 188. In 12 weeks I would like to be 168! I have a really hard time sticking to my workouts so I am really holding myself accountable this go-round!

I have a Polar F4 and absolutely love it! I paid about $60 at heartratemonitorsusa.com (they also have an eBay store). I initially started with a cheaper Mio Drive HRM ($15 at stores.ebay.com/N-Y-Bill) that worked well but did not have a chest strap so my calorie burns weren't as accurate as they could be.

I did a lot of research before getting my Polar and went with that brand because they developed and use the most accurate algorithm for determining calorie burn (this only applies to steady-state cardio - while you can, and I do, track burn during HIIT and strength training, hrm's just can't account for variables within your body that have an impact on calorie burn during these exercises).

Initially I bought the much more expensive Polar FT7 training computer/hrm but it was giving me ridiculously low readings - like 95 calories for Fire 30 - and then the transmitter completely stopped working. I searched additional reviews about this specific issue with the FT7 and found the low burn amount and transmitter malfunction were committed issues with this model. I contacted HRMUSA.com and was very easily able to exchange the faulty FT7 for the more reliable, cheaper and bright pink F7.

I haven't had any issues with my F7 since getting it almost a year ago. It's user friendly, has useful info like target heart rate zone and time spent in these zones during each workout, saves 30 workout sessions (I think, maybe more) and the chest strap is barely noticeable under my sports bra. The manufacturer recommends using electrode gel to get a good signal but a little bit of water on the back of the strap works just as well and is free.

I also use a Fitbit One to track my daily activity. While a Fitbit is an activity tracker and does not measure my heart rate, it is a neat little gadget to get an overall snapshot of my daily activity level (when I enter my calorie burn from my hrm in mfp, it replaces the Fitbit data for the time period of my workout) and syncs with mfp to adjust my daily calorie goal accordingly.

If you're looking to determine actual calorie burn during your workouts, a hrm is the way to go. If you're trying to track overall activity for the day or your primary cardio activity is running/jogging/walking, a Fitbit or similar device will be more useful since they track your activity through steps and vertical movement. Either way the only way to really know how many calories you burn is to track them with some sort of device so I'd definitely recommend choosing one that best fits your needs or using a combination of an hrm and activity tracker

If you want more info on any of the devices I use or have questions, I'm happy to help!

^^^^ I hope you don't have the same issues I did! Which color did you get? I loved the maroon which was a deciding factor in my initial decision.

The 7 definitely stores a lot more info about your workouts too in addition to the extra training files. It works best if you get the Polar Link to sync your files with the website. You may also be able to sync wirelessly by upgrading to the H7 chest strap transmitter but the Polar app only works with Apple mobile devices and the Samsung S4. Of course I have a Samsung S3 phone, Galaxy tablet and my laptop crashed last year so I would have had to enter the data manually which I tried to do but the website wasn't compatible with my phone or tablet so the extra features were completely useless to me. It actually worked in my favor that the watch I got had so many software and hardware issues because I would have been changed to exchange it otherwise. If you have the same issue with comparability and want a different model instead, hrmusa charges a restocking fee to exchange products that don't have a manufacturer defect so I'd just say your calorie burns are way off since it's a common issue with the model anyway.

Had I not experienced the issues that I did with compatibility, I definitely would have exchanged the faulty watch for a new one because it has some really powerful and interesting analytic capabilities regarding target heart rate zones, how long you were in each zone, how long you should work out in each zone weekly according to your goals (increased, fitness, endurance or weight loss), and lots of other cool/useful features to make my workouts as effective as possible.

Good luck and let me know how it works out!