does a heart rate monitor help?

Hi there!

A Heart Rate Monitor is used to measure your heart rate during exercise, which in turn calculates your caloric burn during the activity. It logs your resting heart rate and calculates your target activity heart rate for you, so that you know where to be to get the most out of your work out. It has a chest strap and a wrist unit (like a watch) -- the chest strap measures your heartbeats per minute and sends singles to the wrist unit, which in turn calculates your heart rate percentages, calorie burn, etc.

HRMs do not, in and of themselves, increase or maximize your caloric burn -- that's all up to you and your exercise choices and intensity. The reason so many people, including many of us on this site - use HRMs is that it provides the most accurate calculate of calories burned so we can log our exercise as precisely as possible.

Since using mine, I've found it extremely helpful. The numbers in the MFP exercise database and on other websites that guesstimate the calories burned for certain exercises are estimates only, and I have found I burn far more than I was logging when using those estimates.

Have a great day!

For me, I needed it to accurately log the cals I was burning. The numbers at the gym were about 1/2 of what I was actually burning, which meant I wasn't eating enough and was actually in starvation mode. Not good! As you get closer to your goal weight, and maintenance, they can be good for you to be in "aerobic" fat-burning heart rate, or for stamina, the anaerobic heart rate. I don't use that right now as i have a long way to go!

I love my Polar F4.

I love my Polar F6 !!!!

I honestly don't know what I would do without my HRM. I feel that it helps me really see how many calories I've burned which allows me to see how many calories I can eat! haha. Seriously, my HRM is fantastic and I have to wear it each time I work out. I love seeing the number of calories burned rise!

Oh, and I have a polar F6! But just like someone said, do some research and decide what you want in a HRM. I know that Polar has one that tracks distances if you are a runner and has some other features in the higher end models. But i would definitely recommend looking into a Polar. I haven't been disappointed.