HRM Calories Burned

allie_00
allie_00 Posts: 73
edited September 26 in Fitness and Exercise
I'm questioning the accuracy of my HRM. It seems I burn a lot more calories than most people! (I'm 5'8, 148 lbs and in pretty decent shape)

I was running outside yesterday for about 40 mins and I supposedly burned about 600 calories. Does this seem crazy? I have a hard time judging my speed as it's sometimes difficult to keep it constant but I imagine it was between 6.3-6.8 the entire time. I was a little tired, truth be told. My heart rate was 160 + for most of the time, reaching a maximum of 171 (or about 85 %) I run both indoors and outdoors but it seems to me that I'm burning a lot more cals than other runners on here! I'm 25 so my maximum heart rate should be 195. Is a heart rate of 171 pretty high?

You can see which heart rate monitor I have here: http://www.amazon.ca/Sportline-Womens-Solo-Heart-Watch/dp/B002GGELIS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sports&qid=1302780087&sr=8-1

Replies

  • tmthorn0927
    tmthorn0927 Posts: 155 Member
    seems ok to me... I am short and much heavier and burn less, my husband is taller than me and a healthy weight and burns much more... My HRM matches what the machines at the gym say so I just go with it... I have a Polar and love it!
  • nursekay914
    nursekay914 Posts: 3
    My friends and I discuss this often. It depends on the type of HRM you have. THe most accurate HRM is the one that comes with the chest strap as it can accurately and constantly monitor your HR to give you the correct number of calories burned. The watch without the Chest strap depends on you to monitor your HR whenever you get a chance to check it. It does not account for the times you may have slowed down, or sped up. I have had the watch, and then upgraded to the Chest strap. I noticed a big difference in the calories burned. (the chest strap said calories burned was less) and was closer to that of the database on MFP. I LOVE my chest strap now and use it everyday...

    When I ran a few days ago for about 40-45 mins at about a 6.0 pace, I burned 300 calories.
  • superboltman714a
    superboltman714a Posts: 4
    My niece uses this body bug to record her calories. http://ht.ly/32L6s
    I also question the caloric activity ammounts. I do the same type of activity on the treadmill at my fitness club and the same types of machines give me different calorie figures.
  • ElliMC
    ElliMC Posts: 53
    I'm questioning the accuracy of my HRM. It seems I burn a lot more calories than most people! (I'm 5'8, 148 lbs and in pretty decent shape)

    I was running outside yesterday for about 40 mins and I supposedly burned about 600 calories. Does this seem crazy? I have a hard time judging my speed as it's sometimes difficult to keep it constant but I imagine it was between 6.3-6.8 the entire time. I was a little tired, truth be told. My heart rate was 160 + for most of the time, reaching a maximum of 171 (or about 85 %) I run both indoors and outdoors but it seems to me that I'm burning a lot more cals than other runners on here! I'm 25 so my maximum heart rate should be 195. Is a heart rate of 171 pretty high?

    You can see which heart rate monitor I have here: http://www.amazon.ca/Sportline-Womens-Solo-Heart-Watch/dp/B002GGELIS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sports&qid=1302780087&sr=8-1



    Bump! I'm 5'9, 149lbs, according to my HRM I burned 680 cals just by running 40 mins and doing about 20 mins of strenght exercises. It does seem like a lot but I have a chest strap and everyone says that they're quite reliable! Strange!
  • MOM2SWEETNESSx3
    MOM2SWEETNESSx3 Posts: 6 Member
    Mine runs high like that too. I'm not sure to believe it or not because so many people do similar activities and have much lower cals burned. I would guess it's more accurate than what the machines guess it is or plugging it in on here because you set the height, weight, and age in it.
  • allie_00
    allie_00 Posts: 73
    My friends and I discuss this often. It depends on the type of HRM you have. THe most accurate HRM is the one that comes with the chest strap as it can accurately and constantly monitor your HR to give you the correct number of calories burned. The watch without the Chest strap depends on you to monitor your HR whenever you get a chance to check it. It does not account for the times you may have slowed down, or sped up. I have had the watch, and then upgraded to the Chest strap. I noticed a big difference in the calories burned. (the chest strap said calories burned was less) and was closer to that of the database on MFP. I LOVE my chest strap now and use it everyday...

    When I ran a few days ago for about 40-45 mins at about a 6.0 pace, I burned 300 calories.

    What's your height/weight if you don't mind me asking! Lol. I'm just curious. I'm over the numbers suggested by MFP but I was thinking that maybe it's because my heart rate is higher than most people's? It's strange, though, because I have a very low resting heart rate of about 50.
  • darrenham
    darrenham Posts: 110 Member
    Heartrate monitors are not intended to be calorie-counters, any calorie estimation in them will be similar to that used on this site, just a simple calculation albeit possibly using different factors.

    Either way they're estimations.

    The only way to find out whether you're actually in energy balance or not is to monitor your weight / body fat percentage.
  • meagalayne
    meagalayne Posts: 3,382 Member
    Keep in mind that the HRM is also accounting for your maintenance burn - the calories your body would burn at rest, anyway. I'm totally OCD and so I always subtract those from my HRM count before logging my exercise here, since MFP accounts for that burn in my daily calorie count anyway...

    I hope this is clear, but here's my math.

    My maintenance calories, according to my height (5'7) and my weight (125-ish lbs): 1690

    1690 / 24 hours / 60 mins = 1.1736 - calories burned per min in my normal day to day activities

    So, assuming my HRM reads that on a 30 mins run I burn 387 calories....

    1.1736 * 30 = 35.208
    387 - 35 = 352 calories burned running

    Basically, running or any other exercise is burning so many calories but your body is naturally doing the rest of the work it has to do all the time to keep you alive. So added calories. I eat back all my exercise calories - I just don't count them twice! Hope this is helpful.

    Also, for my weight and height, running at around a 10min/mile pace I usually burn about 115-125 calories every mile. Hope that's helpful, Allie.
  • brityn
    brityn Posts: 443 Member
    I have a garmin 410 running watch with the chest strap heart rate monitor. I've been running hills and doing speed work for the past few months and my heart rate averages around 175 but gets as high as 195 (at the peak of the hill) and I usually burn 450-500 calories an hour. That's on a really strenuous run, though. My regular jogs are 300-400 an hour. I'm 127 5'5" and 130 lbs
  • pyro13g
    pyro13g Posts: 1,127 Member
    No chest strap so it's probably a bit off. at 170lbs and 90+% of max I'll burn 600 in that time at age 43.
  • fitaliciag
    fitaliciag Posts: 373
    seems ok to me... I am short and much heavier and burn less, my husband is taller than me and a healthy weight and burns much more... My HRM matches what the machines at the gym say so I just go with it... I have a Polar and love it!

    I noticed that the machines at the gym have WAAAY lower readings than my chest strap....i always average them out. but when i am not on a machine....i will eat back only half of my exercise calories just to be safe. i lost 30 pounds doing that before so i think it works. for me anyway
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