calorie monitor

Fitbits are activity monitors. HRMs monitor heart rate then use that to calculate caloric burn based on several other factors during cardio ... they aren't good for calculating calories burned in anaerobic events.

What are you really looking for?

looking to see how many calories I burn during my workouts such as Insanity or cardio challenge at the YMCA. so that I may eat the right calories

OK ... more of a heart rate monitor then. Big things to look for ... a comfortable chest strap, ease of inputting personal data, fitness testing or ability to manually input VO2 max, and does it sync with what you want. I personally use a bluetooth strap linked to my phone and the app then syncs with MFP and Fitbit so I don't have to input anything manually.

Polar is a good brand to look at. You can get a chest strap only that links to an app on your phone for $60-90 depending where you buy from (H6 or H7 ). The apps run from free to $50 per year depending which one you go with. I have Polar Beat (free) and Digifit ($6 one time fee) as my alternate and primary apps. There are also strap/phone combos if you don't want to use a phone based app ... the Polar FT series under $120 list price for the FT7, less for the lower end models with the FT1 listed at around $70. There are multiple threads on MFP by people using the FT4 and FT7 models discussing the pros and cons.

The calorie estimates are only as good as the info you put into the device and the algorithm it uses.