First time HRM user, how accurate

Mandanbil
Mandanbil Posts: 40
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, I decided to buy a HRM with chest strap, I am in the UK and brought a Crivit Sports brand from Lidl to try out before I bought a more expensive brand. I input my age, height, weight at start up. I am trying to wear it most of the day today but am puzzled lready. It is showing from 5 am in the early morning to 8.15 am already a calorie burn of 662 and I have done not a lot walked a bit and went back to bed. As I am 244lbs a female 46 years is this likely to be accurate as the days total will be way over what I thought at this rate. The heart beats per minute figure seems about right ranging from 60to 74 mostly. Thanks for any input, Mandy.

Replies

  • Telugammayi87
    Telugammayi87 Posts: 170 Member
    HRMs are not meant to be worn all day.... for exercise only... it's not going to be accurate if you wear it 24/7... I wish this wasn't the case! ;)
  • Mandanbil
    Mandanbil Posts: 40
    Oh ok thanks for that.
  • MrsODriscoll
    MrsODriscoll Posts: 127 Member
    I have the same one and wear it for exercise and it seems pretty accurate to me ie it tallies with what the MFP database says for walking/jogging.
  • davert123
    davert123 Posts: 1,568 Member
    I really don't think HRM are any good at working out calorie burn at all. they are very good at helping you train in a particular heart rate zone. If you are fit your heart rate will be less even if you are doing more work and there is no way a cheap one can compensate for this. Its not a waste of money though. I've got a £15 one which does really help while I'm exercising. The best way to count calories on this site if you are inexperienced is to allow MFP to calculate the amount of calories you are burning. These are approximates but I think they are most probably more accurate than the HRM

    Also have a look at BMR on the internet - this is the amount of calories you are going to burn by just breathing. This is taken into account by MFP though so don't add it as exercise :-)
  • RockTomorrow
    RockTomorrow Posts: 1 Member
    I have a more expensive (though not bank breaking) model by Polar. I agree that it should really only be used for exercise. The reason being that below 100 bpm, they really aren't accurate enough to gauge your calorie burn rate.

    Interestingly my partner has a cheaper, though newer model by a different company (I forget which), and it refuses to track calories below 100 bpm. The manual mentions the inaccuracies of tracking below 100 bpm, so she knows if she wants to earn some calories back, then she better be actually doing some exercise!

    Also bear in mind, if you use an HRM to track low intensity exercise like walking over long periods (say half an hour or more), when you track the calories burnt you should probably think about factoring in the calories you would have burnt anyway if you hadn't done the exercise. For instance, I know I burn around 100 calories an hour on average (my daily rate divided by 24), so if I do an hour's walking and monitor that with my HRM, I usually knock 100 calories off the total burned before tracking it on MFP.
  • Mandanbil
    Mandanbil Posts: 40
    Thanks everyone for your input

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