HRM: Resting Calories - Exercise Calories = Real Calories Bu

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dewoods
dewoods Posts: 148
in Health and Weight Loss
It was brought to my attention that when I use a HRM during exercise, when I am done I need to subtract the calories that my body burned at rest to get the TRUE total calories burned from the EXERCISE alone.

At first this didn't make since to me but after doing some research it is clear that for a true caloric burn you need to subtract out your BMR calories.

If you go to my profile, tools, BMR, there is a calculator that will measure your daily BMR based on the current information you provide.

Here is the definition of BMR:

Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is an estimate of how many calories you'd burn if you were to do nothing but rest for 24 hours. It represents the minimum amount of energy needed to keep your body functioning, including breathing and keeping your heart beating.

Your BMR does not include the calories you burn from normal daily activities or exercise.



My current BMR is 1760/day

1,7601/24 (hr/day) = 73.33/hour
73.33/60 = 1.22/min

So I would need to subtract 1.22 cals for every minute I work out, because MFP already accounts for that amount of resting caloric burn. Example: 30 minutes of working out, I would subtract 36.6 calories from what my HRM says I burned in order to get the calories burned from exercise alone.

I wanted to mention this as there has been a lot of discussion about eating your exercise calories. I personally do not eat all my exercise calories back as my thoughts are this is what you want to do if your in maintenance mode. For those who decide to eat them all just make sure your eating the correct amount otherwise you may go in the wrong direction.

Replies

  • bbygrl5
    bbygrl5 Posts: 964 Member
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    Yes! This is a great post and an amazing point! Azdak (a friend of mine on mfp) is always talking about this and I haven't traded in my HRM I got for Christmas for my Polar yet, but when I do, I will be sure I'm doing this.

    The last thing I want is to stop my progress because of inaccurately recording my true HRM readings.

    Great information!!
  • ZacFields
    ZacFields Posts: 62 Member
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    You're exactly right, but it depends heavily on which HRM you're using. The Polar HRMs count every calorie from the moment you hit "Start" on the watch. If you don't trust me, test it out next time you exercise: Hit the "Start" button and then lay down on your couch for about 10 minutes. You'll find out that you've just burned probably in the area of 10-15 calories. Of course, these shouldn't be counted, but as dewoods pointed out, it's really easy to subtract them out and it usually doesn't account for very many calories anyway. I burned about 300 calories the other day in 30 minutes, and had to subtract just about 45 or 50 of them out. No big deal.

    Now, some HRMs only start counting calories once your heart rate is above 95 or 100 calories. With these types of HRMs, you probably wouldn't need to do that because the HRM is already cheating you out of calories burned while you're raising your heart rate up and while you're cooling down.
  • NikkisNewStart
    NikkisNewStart Posts: 1,100 Member
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    I understand what you are saying... but when it comes down to it- the calories in your food are only an estimate as well... and even if you measure using measuring cups, spoons, and a scale- it is still only an estimate... and the BMR calculator on MFP is also an estimate and isn't 100% accurate. Taking all of this into consideration- this is too much work for me to factor out estimated BMR calories from my estimated burned calories... you know? To me, it all comes out in the wash and I've lost consistently not factoring out BMR calories and eating within 100 under to 100 over my weekly net calorie goal.
  • robin52077
    robin52077 Posts: 4,383 Member
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    It makes perfect sense. I do it, and it's not "too much work"
    Just estimate a calorie per minute. Burn 320 in 40 minutes? Log 280. Simple.
  • NikkisNewStart
    NikkisNewStart Posts: 1,100 Member
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    To each his/her own I guess! Just seems silly to try to get an exact caloric burn when every number used (bmr, calories ate, calories burned) is an estimate anyway... however, if I had a better measurement of my bmr other than an arbitrary calculator online- this would make more sense to me... if you want to do this- A+ for your effort. There are many who do this and lose weight and many who don't do this and lose weight... whatever floats your boat!

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