HRM and resting calories

becka63
becka63 Posts: 712 Member
edited October 3 in Fitness and Exercise
I'm not quite sure of the correct terminology here, so apologies if I am incorrect and mislead people.

I have a HRM with a chest strap and I have read a few times that some people subtract their normal caloric rate from the calories burned while exercising. I read an interesting blog post yesterday where the blogger had worked out her normal caloric rate from information given to MFP and subtracted that amount from the total number of calories burned per hour of exercise.

So, I have a couple of questions:

1. Why doesn't my HRM take this into account when it gives me my calories for exercise?

And

2. Does anyone else reduce their calories burned during exercise by their normal caloric rate to compensate for this?

I'm going to trawl through the blogs on here to find the one I read and post a link on here, which I probably should have done anyway!

Replies

  • staceyseeger
    staceyseeger Posts: 778 Member
    bump
  • Jesse13
    Jesse13 Posts: 72
    ?
  • Hirundo
    Hirundo Posts: 148 Member
    Bump !
    interesting question !

    Do you have the adress of that blog post ?
  • becka63
    becka63 Posts: 712 Member
    I've just trawled through 30+ pages of blogs on here and I can't find it!
  • becka63
    becka63 Posts: 712 Member
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Huskeryogi/view/my-personal-thoughts-on-logging-cleaning-calories-154113

    Found it!! It was the equation and its implications I was interested in rather than the debate about logging cleaning calories.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    IMO, it's not worth the effort.

    1. Estimates of calorie expenditures, esp from HRMs, are only rough estimates anyway. Trying to tinker with rough estimates is a waste of time and energy.

    2. The resting metabolic rate is often only 1-2 calories per minute. Again, not enough to bother with.

    3. The whole concept of trying to precisely account for exercise calories is flawed to begin with. Nothing about the process--calorie intake or calorie expenditure--is accurate enough to justify being worried about a 100-calorie swing in either direction. Those who say they are successful because they "eat back" exercise calories and those who say they are successful because they don't do so are basically saying the same thing--i.e. "we don't really have an accurate idea of what is going on and our results are due as much to chance as to planning".

    Hopefully those three things will also answer your first question of why HRMs don't take resting metabolic rate into account (the other reason being that calorie counts on HRMs are considered marketing tools, not actual measuring devices).
  • bassettpig
    bassettpig Posts: 79 Member
    As far as the reason why the HRM does not automatically subtract the calories you would burn even if you were just sitting on the couch, I can't say--they just aren't set that way. However, you are correct in noticing that they do not subtract.

    As far as whether to subtract those resting calories manually or not, it seems to be a personal preference. For myself, I don't bother if I'm doing something for a relatively short period of time, say a half-hour jog. I burn about 1 calorie per minute while resting, so for a 30-minute jog, the difference is 30 calories and I'm just not that worried about that. However, if it's Saturday and I'm going to take a 45-mile bike ride and will be spending 3 hours or so on the bike, now we're talking about a difference of 180 calories in that 3-hour period. That amount, I definitely DO subtract.

    Hope that's somewhat helpful.
  • Coltsman4ever
    Coltsman4ever Posts: 602 Member
    Your HRM calculates how many calories you burn during exercise based on your heart rate during the exercise. It makes these calculations using your information such as age, height, and weight.
    MFP sets up the amount of calories you get each day based on your lifestyle, height, weight and age and then it subtracts a certain amount of calories based on your selection of how many lbs you want to lose each week. This is accomplished by subtracting calories from your BMR (Basal Metobolic Rate). There are approximately 3500 calories in a pound. To lose 1 lb of weight in a week, you need a 500 calorie deficit per day. If your BMR is 2000 calories, MFP subtracts 500 calories from that and this gives you your 500 calorie deficit per day.
    Any exercise you do on top of that creates even more deficit. Whether or not you should eat those calories back is a whole other issue with plenty of topics on MFP boards.
    Clear as mud?
  • becka63
    becka63 Posts: 712 Member
    Thanks for your input :smile:
This discussion has been closed.

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