How accurate are heart rate monitor watch

Tanie98
Tanie98 Posts: 675 Member
edited February 27 in Health and Weight Loss
I use a heart rate monitor watch to track my calories and I eat al back my calories. I have been thinking if to eat only half from now on since I don't know how accurate it is.Also is it normal for a hrm to read different calories sometimes doing the same activity? For instance, when I run outside for an hour, sometimes it says I burn 700 calories but other times it says only 300.when I use the machines at the gym , I don't burn much.La st time I was on the elliptical mechine it only said I burn 60 calories for an hour.I seem to burn more doing high cardio classes like body attack etc .I am just scared that i will gain weight by eating all my calories back if the calories are overestimated .So my question is, do you eat all your calories back using a hrm?

Replies

  • gizmo_2014
    gizmo_2014 Posts: 37
    What kind of heart rate monitor is it? Does it have a chest strap? Or do you need to press a button on the watch to get your heart rate? Did it let you input your age, sex, height and weight?
  • Tanie98
    Tanie98 Posts: 675 Member
    What kind of heart rate monitor is it? Does it have a chest strap? Or do you need to press a button on the watch to get your heart rate? Did it let you input your age, sex, height and weight?

    it doesn't have a strap and its a watch where you press start in the beggining of an activity.I. also recorded age and gender as well
  • thavoice
    thavoice Posts: 1,326 Member
    What kind of heart rate monitor is it? Does it have a chest strap? Or do you need to press a button on the watch to get your heart rate? Did it let you input your age, sex, height and weight?

    it doesn't have a strap and its a watch where you press start in the beggining of an activity.I. also recorded age and gender as well
    If it doesnt have some sort of sensor to count your HR then it is just generalizing by gender, speed, weight, sex and age.

    I wouldnt trust it a whole lot.
    I guage everything on how it feels according to running a mile. 1 mile is around 100-120 cals. I dont rely on the HR monitors for calories burned and guaging what I should eat back.

    To me, personally, I only use the HR monitors to guage my workout intensity.. Period. If a similar workout is producing lower HR's than I know I need to ratchet it up a bit.


    People get so tied up into calorie burns and what to eat back using these HRM's. I think a better way is to eat the cals you need for your lifestyle as you have it set and use the cal burns from exercise as a bonus but some rag on me about that approach.
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