Accurately Measuring Calories Burned (without a HRM)?

joflo723
joflo723 Posts: 119 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Does anyone have luck, while exercising, manually measuring your heart rate (from your pulse) and using that data to get an accurate calculation of calories burned? I really don't want to buy and lug around yet another gadget (HRM). Wondering if this would work...even if just to verify against what MFP gives as calories burned.

Replies

  • smandymail
    smandymail Posts: 40 Member
    That's pretty hardcore - good for you. I'm really particular about logging nutriional data, but as for calories burned I just leave it up to the estimator.
  • astrose00
    astrose00 Posts: 754 Member
    edited November 2014
    I started a thread about this yesterday but no one commented. Here's a forula I found on the web. Hope it helps.

    C = (0.4472 x H – 0.05741 x W + 0.074 x A – 20.4022) x T / 4.184

    Where C = Calories Burned, H = Avg Heart rate, W = Weight (in lbs), A= Age and T= Time (in minutes).

    Count your pulse for 10 seconds and then multiply by 6 for beats per min estimate. You need to put in the average for your entire workout and your heartrate should be between 90-150bpm for most accuracy.
  • astrose00
    astrose00 Posts: 754 Member
    edited November 2014
    I tested it out for my 45 minute ride on my spinning bike and it said I burned about 410 calories. My average heartrate was 151bpm. I did have a HRM so my average was accurate. I never really knew how to take my own pulse.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    There's no such thing as a way to accurately measure calories burned, at least not that most of us can do on a day-to-day basis.

    Pick 1 method of estimating (and that's all it is - estimating)... an HRM, a website, an app, MFP, whatever you like... and use it consistently for a month, then compare your expected results with your actual results.

    If they line up fairly close, then keep doing what you're doing. If they are way off, then make a small adjustment and repeat the process.
  • funchords
    funchords Posts: 413 Member
    MFP uses your weight and the activity and the time spent against a MET database to figure out how many calories to give you. As you lose weight, the same exercise and time spent should reflect fewer calories. What it can't know is your conditioning and the time it takes your heart to return to its resting rate. So, without a heart rate monitor, you're possibly missing out on that effect -- but who cares?!

    While you're losing, you really shouldn't care. MFP is not a prodigious over-estimator of exercise calories. At least in my experience, I do as predicted or better than predicted in my weight loss and I eat my exercise calories.

    Where you might care is entering into maintenance. There it is more important to figure out your baseline and eat your calories or you will lose more weight than you wanted. But, at that point, you're also likely in good conditioning and don't have a long tail of metabolism boost after exercise. So a meter isn't going to differ much for that reason.

    And even if the database is wrong at that point, you're still going to need to tune your maintenance deficit to you. If you find that you're gaining or losing when you should be holding steady, you'll deduct or add calories from your goal.

    It's a gadget. For me, it's not worth it for accuracy, it's worth it if it motivates you to move more when you're not moving enough. If it won't do that, then ...

    ... well there's always somebody making money off of fat people wanting to be thin.
  • Verdenal
    Verdenal Posts: 625 Member
    joflo723 wrote: »
    Does anyone have luck, while exercising, manually measuring your heart rate (from your pulse) and using that data to get an accurate calculation of calories burned? I really don't want to buy and lug around yet another gadget (HRM). Wondering if this would work...even if just to verify against what MFP gives as calories burned.

    A heart rate monitor is a great tool for what it's meant to do: Monitor your heart rate. It's not particularly accurate for estimating calories burned, which can be done accurately only in a lab. Many factors are involved in calorie burn. Heart rate monitors and gym machines use algorithms to estimate heart rate.

  • joflo723
    joflo723 Posts: 119 Member
    Thanks everyone. I found an online calculator here. I'll give it a shot taking my pulse every 15 min during a 1 hr session, then take the average and plug it into that calculator and just for kicks, see how close I get to MFP's estimates. Thanks!
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    astrose00 wrote: »
    I started a thread about this yesterday but no one commented. Here's a forula I found on the web. Hope it helps.

    C = (0.4472 x H – 0.05741 x W + 0.074 x A – 20.4022) x T / 4.184

    Where C = Calories Burned, H = Avg Heart rate, W = Weight (in lbs), A= Age and T= Time (in minutes).

    Count your pulse for 10 seconds and then multiply by 6 for beats per min estimate. You need to put in the average for your entire workout and your heartrate should be between 90-150bpm for most accuracy.

    The problem is accurately calculating your average heart rate without continuous monitoring. If I take my pulse at the five minute mark and it's a hypothetical 110 .... then I check again at the twenty minute mark and it's 180 ... what is my true average HR without knowing any of the data points in between those two measurements?

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