My heart rate monitor experiment...

sweebum · May 2012

HRM are only accurate during cardiovascular exercise, not day to day activities.

njmp · May 2012

Your heart rate monitor is not meant to be worn for that long a period. I'm not sure if that means your results aren't accurate, but I know I've read this a couple of times. Interesting though!

erickirb · May 2012

I have heard that hrms aren't accurate for tracking daily activity, just exercise.

Ok, thanks! I'll do some research on that.

This is correct. The calculation in the HRM assumes a certain oxygen uptake based on the preserved intensity (based on avg HR vs. Max HR) and since you are not working our the oxygen uptake portion of the HRM's equation will be way off, and should not be used to calculate caloires burned while doing anything other than cardio (HRM's are also unreliable during strength training as you HR is elevated due to different physiological reasons)

I keep hearing this but don't understand why. Is there a reliable way to measure strength training? I want to know more accurately what I burn when I do my strength training.

No accurate why that I am aware of. You have to keep in mind that with strength training the majority of your burn comes in the following 48 hour period as your muscles are recovering and rebuilding, and this takes energy. So your resting burn is higher, even though you didn't burn "a lot" of cals during the workout itself. And depending on what muscle you worked how hard you pushed, your fitness level, your after burn could be higher or lower, and this makes it very difficult to track what you actually burn from strength training.

dwiebe85 · May 2012

bump

jacquejl · May 2012

Wow, what a coincidence. I did the same thing yesterday and my hrm said I burned 2871, but by BEE calculation says 1315. Huge difference!

Aperture_Science · May 2012

I have heard that hrms aren't accurate for tracking daily activity, just exercise.

Ok, thanks! I'll do some research on that.

This is correct. The calculation in the HRM assumes a certain oxygen uptake based on the preserved intensity (based on avg HR vs. Max HR) and since you are not working our the oxygen uptake portion of the HRM's equation will be way off, and should not be used to calculate caloires burned while doing anything other than cardio (HRM's are also unreliable during strength training as you HR is elevated due to different physiological reasons)

I keep hearing this but don't understand why. Is there a reliable way to measure strength training? I want to know more accurately what I burn when I do my strength training.

@neverstray:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/hrms-cannot-count-calories-during-strength-training-17698

From Azdak's blog.

elwinberry · May 2012

I use the MFP reccomendations for BMR and then add in what my HRM says for exercise. I added it the first time so if I ever forget my HRM I can just put it in under that catagory. Its been working well for me. Might be worth a try. I was going to try that for the day but when I drove the car it blanked it out. Computer cross over.

ChristyP0303 · May 2012

I decided to wear my heart rate monitor (Polar FT4 with chest strap) for a full 24 hours to see how many calories I actually burn per day. It ended this morning at 3200 calories. I did NOT do any exercise during this time period. So this is normal daily activity. MFP calculates my normal daily activity as 2160. I have it set to sedentary since I have a desk job. I have been working out 6 days a week for the last 13 months. Including a mixture of cardio, weights and personal training 2X per week. I am currently 230 pounds and 5'3. I was not expecting such a big difference between the heart rate monitor and what MFP calculates. Any thoughts?

The real question is was it close to your TDEE?

If I calculate my TDEE based on working out 6-7 days per week...Yes it is close to this. However, I did not work out during this time period.

dancinmami · May 2012

Try spicing up your food and your exercise. The element of surprise works wonders. Maybe change your workout order, vary weights, add something very different... on the food issue, some of the spices actually help rev up metabolism, so think chiles, ginger, cinnamon, ect, and add some spice or ethnic foods more often.

ChristyP0303 · May 2012

I have been stuck in a 5 month plateau. Its driving me nuts! I'm wondering if this could possibly be the reason...

Have you gone back through the setup/goal planner since you lost 80 pounds? (AMAZING, by the way, nice work!).

I've only lost 14, and I went back through the setup and it took 30 calories a day away from me. It could be that you have reached equilibrium because there's less of you to lug around now, and your daily routine is burning FEWER calories than it once did...

Thank you! Yes, I have done that many times. Trying different combinations of calories...decreasing and increasing with 0 results. I finally set it to maintainence last week. Thought I havent tried that yet. Why not!?!? Maybe I need to do maintainence for a while then maybe reduce calories again. Perhaps my body will respond then...