Accurate Calories Burned with Exercise

jennlynn49
jennlynn49 Posts: 8 Member
in Getting Started
I purchased and have tried a heart rate monitor. The heart rate monitor takes my age into consideration but not my weight. The exercise machines ( treadmill and elliptical) takes my weight into consideration with the calorie count. They both have completely different calorie counts.....which one should I believe?

Replies

  • cordianet
    cordianet Posts: 534 Member
    It seems exceedingly odd to me that your HRM would not have weight listed? That's the single most important factor! If it really doesn't, I have to wonder if you should that that sucker back and get a better one.
  • awesomocity0
    awesomocity0 Posts: 5
    I'd go with whatever takes your weight into account. I've never had a HRM that didn't ask me for my height, weight, and age. *scratches head*

    To verify, you can plug your heart rate average into an online calculator (just Google it), how long you exercised, and your height/weight, and it should give you similar numbers.
  • Bry_Fitness70
    Bry_Fitness70 Posts: 2,480 Member
    I use a wrist HRM, Mio Alpha, paired with Digifit (free app).

    Within the Digifit app, you can take a fitness assessment called a CP30 (nothing to do with robots), done with a 30 minute run on a treadmill, to calculate your VO2max (fitness level, age figures in). It then uses a calorie burn formula based upon your VO2max calculation, gender, weight, and height. Beyond that, it also establishes your HR zones, which can be useful in getting the most out of your cardio workouts.
  • gerla_k
    gerla_k Posts: 495 Member
    I use polar ft 4 with a chest strap. Mine asks for gender, weight, height, age. Also, my HRM will give me a totaly different calorie burn than gym machines. I belive my HRM in this case.
  • jennlynn49
    jennlynn49 Posts: 8 Member
    Thank you everyone. After reading your messages I found that my heart rate monitor does have a place to enter weight. I will go with my heart rate monitor calories now!
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    I have a Polar Loop with a H7 HRM - my Polar account has all my info so I think it's fairly accurate - but with anything the HRM is still just an estimate.

    Did you set up an online account with your HRM where you download the info to?
  • MarkC1963
    MarkC1963 Posts: 51 Member
    I have a Mio Alpha also and did the CP 30 and still find the calorie burn estimates way too excessive. I play competitive tennis and train hard for it. I'm 51 years old and the CP 30 done by running around an in door track over the 30 minutes said: VO2 Max 46; FitRank 100; Fitness Level 10 Superior; Max HR 167; Resting HR 48; Lactate Threshold HR 157; BMR 1642. Given all that my calorie burns are way too high from comparison with BodyFIT Armband calorie measurements over years of experience. For example, 2 hours and 18 minutes of Men's Doubles Tennis said I burned 1,448 calories! NO WAY!!! Best would be about 300 calories burned per 60 minutes for doubles and at most 600 calories per hour for singles and even those amounts are a little high. I am trying to figure out a way to customize the digifit calculations in the software for my experience and can't?

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