Resting with a heart rate monitor?

Conchiron
Conchiron Posts: 3 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I've recently started using a heart rate monitor, and FT4, and I'm not sure on the calories counted.

I run to a park (2 miles away), rest a few mins, run laps equal to another 2 miles, rest, and run back home. I can't finish the whole run without rest right at this moment in time.

During my rest, my HRM is still on and my heart is pounding, and calories burned are still racking up even though I'm sitting down.

:wink: TL;DR: Should I let my HRM keep counting calories while I'm resting a few mins during my run or should I pause it and only count whilst I'm actually running?

Basically, I'm aiming for 1000kcal burned every other day which means I only need to be at a 500kcal deficit from diet to lose 2lb a week.

I consistently lost 2lb a week when I was just doing 1000kcal deficit from diet and no cardio so I know roughly where my maintenance is.

Replies

  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    You're getting an inflated burn from letting the HRM keep counting while resting because the device cannot differentiate between exertion and rest ... it just counts heart beats and plugs that information into a formula to estimate calories. If you're using it for calorie burn, pause it ... if you're more interested in tracking cardio recovery (how well your heart rate returns to something close to normal after exertion), leave it running and understand that the calorie totals will skew high.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    You're getting an inflated burn from letting the HRM keep counting while resting because the device cannot differentiate between exertion and rest ... it just counts heart beats and plugs that information into a formula to estimate calories. If you're using it for calorie burn, pause it ... if you're more interested in tracking cardio recovery (how well your heart rate returns to something close to normal after exertion), leave it running and understand that the calorie totals will skew high.

    Exactly this.

    HR is not directly related to calories burned. When you are resting, and your HR is still up, you are not still burning the same amount of calories but your HRM assumes you are still doing cardio activity.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    I doubt it's enough to bother pausing it or taking it off every rest break. Just take the calorie total with a grain of salt. It's just an estimate anyway. And your body does have some extra calorie burn during that time, it's not like it drops back to RMR levels in seconds.
  • Conchiron
    Conchiron Posts: 3 Member
    Thanks for the replies, I'll pause it from now on.
    I know they're not perfectly accurate but doing what I was doing can increase the calorie counter by 15-20% easy.
    If anything, pausing the monitor will only make me do more anyway, which in my situation will most likely help a little more with the weight loss.
    Thanks again! :]
  • neil_machen
    neil_machen Posts: 26 Member
    The other thing to remember is that you should take your "normal" calories off to get the total. For example, if your HRM shows you have burned 1000 calories in an hour, then you need to subtract the calories that you would burn when going about your normal day.

Categories