New hrm, just got off treadmill. Anybody explain my stats??

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Ok. Yesterday without a hrm I walked on the treadmill for a 17 min mile and mfp said I burned about 72 cals which I'm told is about right.

Got my polar ft7 and used it this morning. Put in all my info and my max heart rate at 191-100%

I walked for 40min at 4 incline( my treadmill starts at 1 and goes by .5 to 10)
I went between 2.5 and 3.5, mostly 3 and 2.5 though
Here's what my hrm says:

357 calories burned
Average heart rate 148 although the few times I checked I was around 153
Max was 170
Fat burn 3:01
Fitness 36:59

Question one- did I really burn that many cals??? That was higher then even what my treadmill gave me and I reached 72 calories at the 10 min mark when it took me 17 min yesterday at a steady pace of 3.5 and no incline.

Two- wouldn't I want to stay in the fat burn zone?? Cause ideally I wanna loose fat and weight?

Replies

  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    Everything is an estimate. 72 for walking with no incline sounds about right but maybe low by 10-20% depending. 357 sounds decent for 40 minutes with your HR in the aerobic zone. You were somewhere around 75%MHR, which is great... it means you were working hard but not too hard for a sustained effort. Somewhere around 400/hour for hard walking sounds right to me for your weight (I weigh only slightly more than you do and burn about 700/hour running with a similar HR).

    Don't worry about the "fat burning zone" thing. It's an area where you're burning a higher proportion of fat vs. glycogen (stored sugar, basically), but as you increase the intensity, you burn a higher amount of glycogen vs. fat, but you burn more overall calories. So, say for instance, you burn 100 calories in the fat burning zone and 60% come from fat and 40% come from glycogen. You've burned off 60 calories of fat. But in the same amount of time, by bumping up the intensity, you could burn 150 calories but 50% come from fat and 50% from glycogen, well you've just burned 75 calories from fat and 75 calories from breakfast or whatever. Better to burn higher. You burn fat all day long as you do low intensity moving around - walking in the grocery store, mall, moving around your house etc.

    Use the numbers you get from your HRM. If you don't lose weight accordingly, adjust them slightly. What is your weight loss goal set to? How many pounds/week?
  • denisec226
    denisec226 Posts: 16 Member
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    Thanks. This is all very confusing to me. Ideally I wanna loose 20 lbs and be 130. I was 120 when I became pregnant but I don't think I'll get backdown to that again so I'm happy with 130. I'd like to lose two lbs a week but I'd take loosing one.
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    So do you have your MFP goal to lose 2 lbs/week? If so, count 357 and eat them all. 2 lbs/week is aggressive for someone with only 20-30 lbs to lose. You're better off aiming for 1 lb/week... or maybe 1.5. But if your HRM is overestimating at all, it's just fine to eat them all if your goal already has you eating at a 1000 calorie deficit each day.
  • A_Fit_Mom
    A_Fit_Mom Posts: 602 Member
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    Sounds about right. I always go by my HRM and for 45 mins at 3.6mph on a 4 incline..I burn about 420-435 calories. I have used my Polar HRM for all of my weight loss, so it has worked for me to use those numbers.
  • hannaawh
    hannaawh Posts: 51
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    357calories for walking sounds pretty high. Are those net calories burned? I burn 350 for 50 minutes of running. :O
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    357calories for walking sounds pretty high. Are those net calories burned? I burn 350 for 50 minutes of running. :O

    Where are you getting 350 for 50 minutes of running? If you weigh nearly 150 lbs, you'd have to be jogging about 4mph. I'm 157 lbs and burn about 600 in 50 minutes of running... and that's net calories burned using a Garmin Forerunner 410. 350 is low for running over about 30 minutes at 150 lbs.
  • denisec226
    denisec226 Posts: 16 Member
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    So do you have your MFP goal to lose 2 lbs/week? If so, count 357 and eat them all. 2 lbs/week is aggressive for someone with only 20-30 lbs to lose. You're better off aiming for 1 lb/week... or maybe 1.5. But if your HRM is overestimating at all, it's just fine to eat them all if your goal already has you eating at a 1000 calorie deficit each day.

    Maybe u can make sense of this?
    If I go into update your diet profile, I have two lbs listed a week but if I go into my goals, mfp only gives me 1.1
  • _Josee_
    _Josee_ Posts: 625 Member
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    357calories for walking sounds pretty high. Are those net calories burned? I burn 350 for 50 minutes of running. :O

    357 calories for 40 minutes of any exercise with an average HR of 148 sound about right to me!


    It doesn't matter if you are running or walking... You can't compare speed and effort with others... I would need to run pretty fast for some people standards (or slow for others) to get an average HR of 148.. Clearly the OP gets there by walking.. Who cares? In a couple of months she'll need to walk faster to get her HR there, and eventually maybe run... Nobody has the same level of fitness!
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    So do you have your MFP goal to lose 2 lbs/week? If so, count 357 and eat them all. 2 lbs/week is aggressive for someone with only 20-30 lbs to lose. You're better off aiming for 1 lb/week... or maybe 1.5. But if your HRM is overestimating at all, it's just fine to eat them all if your goal already has you eating at a 1000 calorie deficit each day.

    Maybe u can make sense of this?
    If I go into update your diet profile, I have two lbs listed a week but if I go into my goals, mfp only gives me 1.1

    So then MFP has given you a target of 1200 calories, right? MFP's lowest target is 1200, so if you put in that you're sedentary, it assumes you burn less than 2200 calories/day required to allow a 2 lb/week loss. So if it's estimating you'll lose 1.1 lbs/week, then it assumes you'll have about a 550 calorie daily deficit... or your estimated sedentary total burn (before exercise) is 1750/day. If it estimates you burn 1750/day, you'd need to eat only 750 calories daily to lose 2 lbs/week, which is way too low.

    So eat the 1200 plus all your exercise calories and see how much you've lost after a month. If you find that too hard, bump up to 1400 plus exercise calories. That will reduce your deficit to a bit over 1/2 lb weekly loss, BUT... only those who are disabled or housebound are truly sedentary. You are more than likely lightly active anyway, and your TDEE is probably more than 1750/day at 150 lbs.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Ok. Yesterday without a hrm I walked on the treadmill for a 17 min mile and mfp said I burned about 72 cals which I'm told is about right.

    Got my polar ft7 and used it this morning. Put in all my info and my max heart rate at 191-100%

    I walked for 40min at 4 incline( my treadmill starts at 1 and goes by .5 to 10)
    I went between 2.5 and 3.5, mostly 3 and 2.5 though
    Here's what my hrm says:

    357 calories burned
    Average heart rate 148 although the few times I checked I was around 153
    Max was 170
    Fat burn 3:01
    Fitness 36:59

    Question one- did I really burn that many cals??? That was higher then even what my treadmill gave me and I reached 72 calories at the 10 min mark when it took me 17 min yesterday at a steady pace of 3.5 and no incline.

    Two- wouldn't I want to stay in the fat burn zone?? Cause ideally I wanna loose fat and weight?

    When just starting exercise, the HRM is going to be very off more than normal.

    Treadmill may be using this same very accurate formula. HRM and treadmill would both reporting Gross option. For purpose of eatback, it would be NET option.
    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

    In studies, that formula is within 5% of measured, much better than HRM.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

    So with walking 4% incline for 40 min at perhaps 2.75 mph, to burn 357 GROSS (which is what HRM would report), you'd need to weigh 243 lbs.

    Yes, I'd say at this point your HR was really high because of starting exercise.
    Once it settles down a tad, test again.

    Of course, that's also where the HRM fails - your HR can adjust a lot, and you could weigh exactly the same doing that same workout burning in reality the exact same calories - but HR won't reflect that fact, and HRM will be fooled in to reporting different values.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    357calories for walking sounds pretty high. Are those net calories burned? I burn 350 for 50 minutes of running. :O

    Oh, you are being badly under-estimated, unless running really slow, like 3 mph perhaps.

    Even if 5 mph, that's going to be about 540 calories gross.