Are HRMs REALLY all that important?

I never had one and was able to lose. I did not use the MFP "eat back exercise calories" system, though, when I first lost the bulk of my weight, I factored in a guesstimate and ate within the range provided for me on another site. I did not rely on website calories burned info as gospel.

Yeah it's a cool toy and you might enjoy using one (which is great), but there's absolutely no need for one, nor are they important.

They only accurately measure HR and calories burned while walking/jogging/running, so if you use it for something else you're going to get sloppy numbers.

A much better way to do things is to monitor your calories and weight loss/gain over a couple weeks. From that you can calculate what your maintenance levels are with regular activity and exercise, and just subtract calories from that to plan your weight loss.

For instance, when I workout 4 times a week on my program, I average around 2,400 calories/day to maintain my bodyweight.

So if I eat only 1,900/day (2,400 - 500 cal), I will loose a pound a week. No HRM or guessing necessary.

On the other hand, right now I'm injured and not working out regularly, so I'm just using conservative estimates of calories burned using the calculators on MFP, and eating back what I burn. It hasn't failed me yet.

It was for me. I eat back my cardio calories so I needed to use a HRM to know exactly how many calories I burned during my cardio. Without it I felt like I was guessing. It is what worked for me because I'm someone that will go right up to within 50 calories of my limit.

I lost alot of my weight without one, so its defintely not something you HAVE to have. However, I did hit a plateau and when I got with my current trainer she pushed for me to get one and it has been a huge help. HRM are more reliable than the machines so you can better gauge how hard or easy you are taking it when working out. If you dont plan on trying to workout in specific Heart Rate Zones then I dont think you need one. I love mine, but at same time Im sure I would surive without it. Its just another tool to help you be more efficient in your workouts.

Yeah it's a cool toy and you might enjoy using one (which is great), but there's absolutely no need for one, nor are they important.

They only accurately measure HR and calories burned while walking/jogging/running, so if you use it for something else you're going to get sloppy numbers.

A much better way to do things is to monitor your calories and weight loss/gain over a couple weeks. From that you can calculate what your maintenance levels are with regular activity and exercise, and just subtract calories from that to plan your weight loss.

For instance, when I workout 4 times a week on my program, I average around 2,400 calories/day to maintain my bodyweight.

So if I eat only 1,900/day (2,400 - 500 cal), I will loose a pound a week. No HRM or guessing necessary.

On the other hand, right now I'm injured and not working out regularly, so I'm just using conservative estimates of calories burned using the calculators on MFP, and eating back what I burn. It hasn't failed me yet.

This.

It's mostly a toy, unless you're an athlete looking for conditioning information.

Nothing electronic is needed to lose weight. What a HRM can give you is data. They are good for gleaning insight to your conditioning and can help calculate caloric burn from some activities (while nearly worthless for calculating from others). If one is right for you depends on what you plan on doing with it and what data about yourself you're looking for but don't currently have.

EXCEPT MY FITNESS PAL, PAL!

JOKE

goodness.

People worry too much.