calories burned according to heart rate monitor?

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AvalonsUnicorn
AvalonsUnicorn Posts: 425 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'll keep this short as I need a shower! lol I just got done planting a bunch of stuff out side. MY heart rate monitor says in 2 hours and 50 minutes that I burned 1596 calories.I am 5'7" and about 226 pounds. That's a LOT of calories! can some one tell me if that's fairly accurate? I was sitting in a chair bending over to plant the flowers and my body tells me I'm exhausted but that many calories? I planed only to eat enough to get me back up to 1200 or 1400 calories for the day but now that seems like it would be a LOT of food compared to what I normally eat! Any how I'm really just wondering if that is fairly accurate? And if math is involved in the answers just let it be known I can add and subtract any fancy stuff and you'll lose me! Thanks all! I'm off to grab a shower so I stop tracking dirt all over haha I'll reply when I get back :)

Replies

  • brenda_men
    brenda_men Posts: 13 Member
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    That's a lot of calories!!!! But you are tall so the more muscle you have the more calories you burn. I use a chest strap heart rate monitor much more accurate.
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
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    Heart rate monitors are only going to be accurate for steady state cardio and really shouldn't be used unless you're walking, running, cycling, etc. If you had walked at 3mph for that amount of time, you would have burned ~1500 calories. While you probably burned a fair number of calories, I don't think it's anywhere near that high as you were sitting and probably not continuously moving.

    Also keep in mind that it's giving you the total number of calories you burned in that amount of time, including your BMR. MFP already has given you calories for your BMR, so you need to take at least 10% off to make sure you're not double-dipping. If your HRM is synced to MFP, I believe MFP deducts that automatically for you (but not sure).
  • AvalonsUnicorn
    AvalonsUnicorn Posts: 425 Member
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    thank you! mine doesn't sync to MFP it's a Polar ft4. I had always heard they are good for exercise and I consider the gardening exercise as it's not something I do even once a year normally. lol just was something I thought I'd try my hand at to help me become more active. I gotta say it was fun! and I am sore! but I did not believe the burn so thought it best to ask and I'm glad I did :)
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Sorry but that activity is a country mile away from something that a HRM could come up with an even remotely useful calorie estimate.
    Log duration under gardening perhaps.....?
  • AvalonsUnicorn
    AvalonsUnicorn Posts: 425 Member
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    I don't know I just know what it told me. I am REALLY unfit as I do spend most of my time playing video games... I'm working on that. I looked up gardening general on the MFP data base typed in my time and still got about 1600? I knew the ground was fairly tough and my hand has a blister from the hand shovel.
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
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    I think I've seen comments on here that the gardening entry is exaggerated. Also, "gardening" means different things to different people - for some, it involves digging big holes, carrying heavy sacks of fertilizer over decent distances, lots of shifting from kneeling to standing, etc. and I could see where that would be a bigger calorie burn. I think I'd log it as strength training, you'll probably get about 800 calories for 3 hours and would be more in line with what you actually did. Or just don't worry about it and eat how you were planning on eating :)
  • AvalonsUnicorn
    AvalonsUnicorn Posts: 425 Member
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    again thank you! :)

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