Calories burned

I would go by the hrm numbers (the one on the watch). Just make sure you've entered your data!

I just got back from the gym. I tried out my new Polar F55 HRM for the first time. The HRM was right on target with the th HRMs on the machines. However, the calorie burn was a lot more than what the machines showed. The stepper on the Polar had me at 354 cals for 15 minutes. I stretched for 6 minutes and it gave me 87 cals. I did weights for 55 mins, and it gave me 914 cals. I then finished with the elliptical for 30 mins, and the Polar showed 549 cals. The stepper and the elliptical machines both had me at around 200 less cals than the watch. I asked one of the trainers at the gym if there was any way the Polar numbers were accurate, and he said that he would go by the Polar numbers over the gym machines. He said it was possible to burn that number of calories. If those numbers are accurate, then why haven't I lost more weight? Surely I haven't put my body into "starvation mode" eating close to 2000 cals a day??? Any thoughts out there? Before I talked to the trainer, I was sure the watch wasn't working properly and that I would need to send it back. Now, I don't know. Thanks for any help!

BTW, I am 44 years old, 164 pounds, 5'7", and work out 5 days a week doing about what I outlined above. Maybe a little less on the weights. I also do a spin class for 45 minutes instead of the elliptical for 30 minutes, but there aren't any classes right now because of the holidays.

Bobbie

The thing I find suspect is the 87 calories burned by six minutes stretching. That's 870 calories/hour for a static activity! :noway: The MFP calorie calculator only gives you 3 calories earned / 10 minutes of yoga. That's a major discrepancy. The MFP cal.counter only gives me 714 calories burned for a hour jogging. Something doesn't add up.
FWIW

I have a different brand of HRM and that sounds very excessive for sure. I guess it depends on your HR though, but usually in an hour of hard high HR I burn around 600-700 tops! And even that I question. I'm not sure which machine to trust, although yours does sound a bit excessive.:sad:

Well, here's an example, P90X says you should burn 600 cal. a workout. I have to say that their workouts are tuff and I usually burn that much, maybe even less, but that's me slacking. Please let us know, cause now I'm wondering if I'm actuallly not burning off as I need to for what I eat.:grumble:

I've honestly become very suspicious of heart rate monitors. Maybe it depends on the quality of the HRM but I keep hearing some pretty ambitious numbers. I've noticed a lot of posts from people who are so excited because they are burniing more calories than they thought but if you look at their tickers they aren't loosing weight. If they were burning more calories than they thought, they'd loose weight. I find it more credible when people post that the monitors are recording less calories than the gym machines as it is generally accepted that those machines over estimate calories burned. I know I'm in the minority here as so many people love their HRMs. From the post's I've read, I think the higher quality (thus more expensive) ones are possibly more accurate.

Essentially a heart rate monitor is still an estimate and it uses your heart rate to estimate your calories burned. According to what I've read, your heart rate is not a completely accurate measure of calories burned. Calories burned is measured by rate of oxygen exchanged. If you could burn calories simply by getting your heart rate up then we could loose weight sitting in a horror movie and scaring ourselves.

I agree with the earlier post. Buring 800 calories in an hour for stretching seems unlikely. You might burn that running or doing elliptical but I doubt it for just stretching. If I were you, I'd proceed with caution and not assume this means you can eat those calories. Check the programming too. Maybe you accidently entered in incorrect info and it's overestimating your calorie burn.....