HRM- Useless tech?

HRM is not useless tech but it also shouldn't be overly relied on. It depends on what you're using it for. HRMs are good for giving a closer estimate than you might get if you have it configured correctly but it could be wildly off if its not. Its very useful for things like HIIT and steady-state cardio since the goal of those exercises is elevated heart rate. If you're doing intervals on the bike or run, its great for measuring effort.

For something like weight lifting, I wouldn't give it as much importance. You'll raise your heart rate during lifting but that's not really the goal as much. And the weight loss benefit from weight lifting is the increased muscle mass which increases your daily TDEE over the long run.

HRMs aren't really designed as weight loss aids, though they can help measure your progress as much as any other tool. They are excellent training tools though.

raven56706 wrote: »

So i ask, how do you even calculate your calories burned in the diary?

For cycling, I estimate my calories as follows:

100 calories for every 5 km I cycle.

That gets me into the ballpark.

For walking, I use MFP's calculation, but choose a moderate pace even though I do walk quite briskly.


And as mentioned above, HRMs are not realy for calculating calories, they are mainly for determining training zones.

I wear mine sometimes when my husband and I ride our tandem. It helps him know when to back off just a bit ... when my HR is getting a bit too high.

its all useless if you demand 100% accuracy. An orange depending on its ripeness isn't going to be the exact same sugar content from the orange I ate yesterday. Packaged foods have a modest amount of approximation, stews. soups, casseroles i make at home, albeit, each ingredient meticulously weighed, will not be the exact calorie count per serving. I lost 100 pounds eating back every single calorie I burned off during what I considered exercise. And when i first started that was shuffling down the block. I do not have your dilemma. My advice is to stop overthinking it, and just move forward unless you are working on some serious training.

glevinso wrote: »

HRMs are not "useless" but they are only kinda sorta useful for calorie counting. It's like using a flathead screwdriver to turn a Philips screw. You can do it, but it isn't really what it was designed for.

That's a really good analogy.

HRMs are not designed for calorie counting, but their functionality can be (and has been) extended to include calorie ESTIMATION. It's just an estimate, just like websites, cardio machines, formulas, and everything else.

They give you a bit of convenience because using an HRM allows you to estimate the same way each and every time. Then, over time, you can identify trends and tweak how you estimate for more reliable results.

raven56706 wrote: »

see for me, i want to use it for my Insanity DVDs.

Curious how to factor it in the diary because i want to eat at least half my calories back.

Anyone else have this dilemma

Unfortunately, unless you are doing your workouts in a lab, hooked up to a bunch of machines, any calorie burn numbers will be estimates. That's why many people here only eat back @ 50% or so of their workout calories. That is usually a good place to start and then you can tweak that based on your results over several weeks. I think most people who are successful have played around with it for awhile to find what works for them.

This is just what I do, but no matter what workout I do, I determine whether it was cardio or strength. If it was cardio I log aerobics, if it was strength I log weightlifting. Then i aim to eat back half, and eat more if I'm still hungry. It has worked for me, but it is in no way scientific! I just decided it wasn't worth putting anymore thought into it than that considering my goals. It basically ensures I eat a bit extra to fuel my workouts but not so much I over-compensate. I do log everything on Fitbit and them it posts calorie adjustments here.

raven56706 wrote: »

So im looking to bring down my body fat while maintaining my muscle. Any advise when it comes to calories?

Personally, I find the TDEE method more useful as you're estimating all of your activity level in your activity setting and then cutting from that. I found the MFP method to be beneficial as a beginner because it showed me how pathetic my calorie targets are without exercise and it got me moving...but ultimately, as I became more consistent in training regularly, the TDEE method was just a lot easier and I wasn't guessing at calorie burns for various exercise activities.

Just use a TDEE calculator and cut 20% or so from your TDEE...this will give you a good place to start...from there you just adjust as per your real world results...you have to remember that it's all estimates...ultimately, it's up to you to do the math and figure things out for real world application.

To mitigate the loss of lean mass, make sure your deficit is reasonable and you're not losing weight too quickly...get in adequate protein, and resistance training.

For me it is more useful as a comparative calorie burn tracker. So, if I job for an hour and it says I burned 900 calories, then when I ride the static bike at the gym, I don't leave until I get the same 900 calories. That's not exactly what I do, but that's the idea. It's helpful to compare workouts. It's especially helpful like home exercise, cause sometimes I feel like I'm going hard, but my HR is only at like 145, so I ramp it up.

jacksonpt wrote: »

raven56706 wrote: »

TDEE

So i used this calculator and apparently MFP has me eating far less than the TDEE calculator. 1739 MFP vs TDEE at 2359 for cutting. How do you then calculate which one to go with?

https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=male&age=35&lbs=198&in=67&act=1.55&bf=24&f=1

You have to understand what they are calculating. With MFP you add exercise cals onto that 1739. With TDEE, you don't.

So if you burn, on average, 500 cals in exercise per day, then the numbers end up being very very close, within 100 or so of each other.

Neither one is necessarily better than the other. It's all personal preference.

^^Oh yeah, that is an excellent point that I should have mentioned earlier. Don't eat exercise cals back on TDEE.

For those of you that calculate calorie burn using the 'body weight x .63 x miles run' formula, I take it over time you've found it to be accurate? For example, if you consistently eat back calories burned according to the formula, you don't gain weight?

1992fx3 wrote: »

For those of you that calculate calorie burn using the 'body weight x .63 x miles run' formula, I take it over time you've found it to be accurate? For example, if you consistently eat back calories burned according to the formula, you don't gain weight?

2 years of maintaining my weight while running and it's been accurate for me. I originally used the estimate MFP spit out, which is 10-20% higher IIRC, but I slowly gained on that. I already had a my sedentary calorie needs well documented from over a year of maintenance and logging before I took up running.

raven56706 wrote: »

i just want to make sure im doing it the right way as opposed to the wrong one.

The right way is to pick a way, doesn't matter which, then while meticulously measuring calories in (the food you eat and drink) compare the results to the deficit numbers over 4 weeks or so. That will give you a far better picture of your calorie deficit than anything else.

rileysowner wrote: »

raven56706 wrote: »

i just want to make sure im doing it the right way as opposed to the wrong one.

The right way is to pick a way, doesn't matter which, then while meticulously measuring calories in (the food you eat and drink) compare the results to the deficit numbers over 4 weeks or so. That will give you a far better picture of your calorie deficit than anything else.

Just to bring up a point, I've never measured a single thing I've eaten on a food scale. But I've spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to more accurately log workouts. The right way for any individual can vary quite a bit.


That said, at this time I don't put much faith in calorie calculating HRMs as a whole. Some do well at certain functions and appear to be reasonably accurate. But some fail at many tasks as well, including anything other than steady state work. They are still useful in some cases for making a best educated guess, but not always.

I think apps are often almost as good for most types of exercise, if not better. HRMs help fill in and are probably capable of being better when no other measure of power or intensity is available.



For a lot of stuff there are accepted and proven formula's, or apps, or power measures. The HRM would remain useful, but not really always better IMO.