Heart rate monitor/ calories burned

Wow, mine is the opposite problem high cals given by mfp and a LOT less from my stingy but fabulous Christmas present! I say accept the lowest number of cals burned and the highest number for calorific values of foods then you have got to win! Good luck

Wow, mine is the opposite problem high cals given by mfp and a LOT less from my stingy but fabulous Christmas present! I say accept the lowest number of cals burned and the highest number for calorific values of foods then you have got to win! Good luck

Mine is the same way!

my HRM is also higher than the numbers on here, but you have to remember that the bigger you are, the more out of shape and the higher your HR goes, the more calories you burn. people who are in better shape actually have to work harder to burn calories than those of us who are out of shape. (it's probably about the only place we catch a break!) so it's probably more accurate than the amounts on here. of course i'm no expert, but i know that i am very out of shape and my HR goes pretty high so I believe that I do burn a little more than average.

I am in my second week of P90X and I bought a heart rate monitor before I started. It crapped out in about 3 days so I went and got a better one that offered way more. I just started using it today. It will work with or without the chest strap, I am currently using the chest strap. It has a calorie counter on it as well, does anyone know how accurate the calorie couture is in a watch like this? It is saying I am burning more calories than I believe I really am. I am a very large guy and my heart rate does get up in the 170s at peak. Should I go by the one on my watch or should I just stick to the more moderate ratings that are on the site? Sorry it took so long to ask a couple basic questions. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

It's hard to comment without more detail--type of HRM, your weight, and what calorie numbers you are actually seeing.

HRMs do not measure calories. They measure heart rate. From heart rate, assumptions about your fitness level, and some personal data you input, they use equations to estimate calories burned.

Some companies (Polar, Suunto) have done a lot of research in this area and have developed proprietary algorithms that are likely more accurate than other brands. It's relatively easy to program a simple equation in an HRM that will "calculate calories" and display a number. They know the average person has no way of independently evaluating the accuracy of that number, so they don't have to put that much effort into it.

I would say that the average person who is overweight and just starting a program like P90x is going to burn between 5 and 8 calories per kg of body weight per hour. So, someone who weighs 100kg is going to burn between 500 and 800 in an hour, depending on how coordinated they are at doing the movements and how fit they are. So, use that as a "check" on your HRM.

Where HRMs really go out of whack is for people whose max HR is substantially higher or lower than the "220-age" estimated number. If the HRM thinks your max HR is 180, but it's actually 200, then it is going to assume that when you are in the 170s, you are working at 100% of max effort instead of about 75%.

While you are figuring all this out, just be conservative about eating back those exercise calories.

And BTW, the post about people being out of shape burning more calories is wrong--it's actually just the opposite. If you are just starting a program, you might have an exaggerated HR response for the first couple of sessions as you go through adaptation, but an unfit person usually is more limited by mechanical inefficiency, low endurance, and low fitness level. For a program like P90x, as you master the moves, build up some strength and endurance, etc, you will be able to push yourself a lot harder and thus burn more calories in your workout.

I don't know what heart rate monitor you are using, but some of the polar watches have a feature called the ownindex which is a rudimentary way to guess at your VO2 max. The watch then adds this information into the algorithm to refine your caloric expenditure. In my experience, it has increased the accuracy as it really determines the range of your heart rate. Your watch may have a similar feature?

I doubt it. I don't like sounding like a shill for Polar (because I don't think their algorithms are as good as they claim they are), but their stuff is proprietary and they have years and years of research behind it and they're crazy Finns who have nothing else to do but think about this stuff, so that's what makes it better than most of the other products out there.

If it's working right, it's probably more accurate than any other measure out there to figure out how many calories you're burning.

This ^^