Heart Rate Watch vs. Treadmill Calories

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briggitte59
briggitte59 Posts: 52 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I just recently bought a HRM -Mio Motiva Heart Rate Monitor Watch. And I've used it two times however I'm a little skeptical about it because it says that I burn 856 calories doing a 30 minute cardio workout. But my treadmill reads that I burned 244 calories. I'm just confused to which one believe or which one would be more accurate. Any advice is helpful Thank you !

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  • GOINSTD12
    GOINSTD12 Posts: 331 Member
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    I would be skeptical about that calorie burn also. I'm interested to see what replies you get.
  • chicanery5
    chicanery5 Posts: 3
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    I don't know anything about that brand specifically (I have a Polar FT7), but did you enter in your gender, age, height and weight when you set it up? I had a friend who didn't realize that her HRM was preset for a hefty 6ft tall man for a while. That will skew your calories burned significantly. For reference, I currently weigh 134lbs and even when I am totally slaying it in a spin class, at or above my ideal max HR, I rarely burn more than 600 calories in an hour.
  • briggitte59
    briggitte59 Posts: 52 Member
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    that's the thing i think it's a cheap HRM because I didn't enter any of that. I'm actually thinking of returning it and investing on maybe more expensive but more accurate HRM.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    Calorie burns depend upon height, weight, age, gender, exertion level & more.

    Does your treadmill have any of this information?

    Your HRM.....does it use a chest strap? A HRM with a chest strap compares your resting heart rate against your heart rate while working out.....that is used as your exertion level. Then it estimates based upon other factors above.

    HRMs w/o a chest strap are tricky. Some don't like movement....do you stop (pretty much)....take your pulse.....then move for a while......then stop (pretty much) ....then move again?

    Since runners can't come up with 1700 calories an hour, I would say your calorie counts are crazy high. I used to walk 4+MPH on a treadmill (not much of a hill) and would burn about 250 for 1/2 hour .... I'm 5'5"......150'ish
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    Calorie burned depend on weight and intensity.
    HRMs require additional information for their calorie estimation since they are based on averages. If you didn't imput any of that in there, I'd be very skeptical of the esimtation.

    A couple of good posts on your question

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/exercise-calories-sometimes-the-cardio-machines-are-more-accurate-404739

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

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