Polar?

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TreeSF1989
TreeSF1989 Posts: 3 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello all,

Newbie to the forums :)

Exploring the idea of a heart rate monitor to track what I'm actually burning off when I'm moving around rather than just a fitbit to tell me my steps etc and when I sleep.

Are there any good heart rate monitors that do sync with MFP or do people manually enter their own exercise etc once they've completed a workout with Polar?

Any input much appreciated (nice input obviously ;) )

Replies

  • debubbie
    debubbie Posts: 767 Member
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    I have the Polar Loop activity tracker that I wear every day as it calculates steps, calories burned, activity meter, and sleep. I have the Polar HR7 that I sync to my phone through their Polar Beat app to see how many calories I burn in a workout. HRMs are not completely accurate, but I feel they give me a much better idea of how many calories I am burning through exercise. I also like the graphs I get from the app as it gives me a log of my workouts and I can see how I have progressed. I enter my calories burned after I have completed a workout instead of relying on MFP's calorie estimates.
  • lmr0528
    lmr0528 Posts: 427 Member
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    I love my Polar FT60. I manually put everything into MFP after my workouts.
  • FitPhillygirl
    FitPhillygirl Posts: 7,124 Member
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    I have been using the Polar FT4 for over a year now and still love it. Ordered the Polar FT 7 now which should arrive next week. I don't calorie count anymore, but when I did I just recorded the excercises that I did along with the calories burned on MFP.
  • TreeSF1989
    TreeSF1989 Posts: 3 Member
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    Thanks everyone that's really good info :)
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

    If a HRM will even come close to accurately calculating a caloric estimate for you depends on what you do. They don't do all day wear estimates accurately ... they don't do lifting or yoga accurately ... what they can do is estimate based on certain steady state cardio activities.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    BrewerS89 wrote: »
    Exploring the idea of a heart rate monitor to track what I'm actually burning off when I'm moving around rather than just a fitbit to tell me my steps etc and when I sleep.

    A fitbit or similar is the most appropriate tool to use for background level activities. An HRM will use an algorithm based on steady state aerobic range activity to approximate calorie expenditure.

    If you're talking about walking around type activity then your HR never gets high enough that it's a meaningful proxy for calorie expenditure. You'll get an overestimation.

    The same applies if your HR gets into the anaerobic range, the relationship between HR and calorie expenditure breaks down.

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