HRM calories question

nlhawthorne
nlhawthorne Posts: 34
edited September 25 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,

Sorry I'm sure this is probably one of those "we answer this every 5 minutes" questions but I've searched the forums and genuinely can't find an answer, so I hope someone can advise!

I've recently started using a heart rate monitor (Polar F7) when I'm exercising to make sure my calories in/calories burned records are as accurate as possible. In a typical gym session I work out for about an hour and according to my heart rate monitor I burn off 700-800 calories during this time.

I'm a great believer (especially since lurking on this forum!) in eating back my exercise calories but I'm wondering now whether I should just take what my HRM says at face value and eat ALL of those extra calories or whether to factor in the fact that I would have burned maybe 100-140 calories during that hour even if I was sitting on the sofa watching TV and therefore maybe only eat back something like 600 kcals?

Grateful for advice from those in the know! Thanks! :-)

Replies

  • Charli666
    Charli666 Posts: 407
    I've had the opposite with my HRM, where i find i burn less calories than i think i should, spoke to my dietician, turns out my body needs less calories to run apparently, so i'd say trust the HRM, but in terms of logging and eating back, i would enter the exercise on MFP, compare to your HRM reading, and log the lowest number! In terms of eating them back, i would do exactly as you suggested (though i dont eat mine back often) and leave 150 or so as normal activity.

    sorry i'm not much help, x
  • Selaen
    Selaen Posts: 31 Member
    Some HRM's take that into account already; check the usage instructions and it should tell you. Most "advanced" HRM's do take your "basic spend" into account when calculating your calorie spend whilst exercising. This is considered by some as the "correct" way, which I tend to agree with.

    So, check your HRM. Mine's just a cheapo one, which does the basic calculations, and I really should keep this in mind when eating back the calories & keep a "reserve"...
  • nlhawthorne
    nlhawthorne Posts: 34
    Thanks for the replies - greatly appreciated! I did read the manual that came with my HRM but it doesn't say anything about whether or not it takes normal resting calorie burn into account. I don't think it does because there is no option to store my resting heart rate or anything and surely it would need that information to deduct my "resting" calorie burn? Hmmm. This is all new to me :-/ Any other thoughts / suggestions based on what others actually do? Thanks!
  • WrenLynn
    WrenLynn Posts: 213
    I have the same HRM and I always deduct 1.5 calories per minute for what I would have normally burned so for a 60 minute workout I would reduce the total the hrm says by 90. So if it says I burned 500 I would only log that I burned 410 into MFP exercise log.
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