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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

One day closer

Good morning!  It's rainy and gray here in CT, but that's OK.  It's easier to be at work on a day like today.  But spring is getting closer, so that's encouraging.

As a follow up to my heart rate monitor/calorie question yesterday I did a little comparison.  I had a meeting last night at 6:30 but made it to the gym for a quick workout on the elliptical.  I figured I'd test out the machine's calorie burn and heart rate and compare it with that of my monitor.  Things started out well.

The heart rate on the machine was pretty close to that on my monitor, so that was encouraging.  However, there was some disparity between the calories.  At the end of the workout, my HRM said 397 and the machine said 337, so that's a difference of 60 calories, or about 20%.

This got me thinking.  All along I have thought that my HRM was WAY high.
On the elliptical, I input my weight and my age.  Then it determines my calorie burn based off my incline, resistance, and speed.  The machine has no clue how heavy my heart is beating unless I grab on to the sensors (which I did only a few times to test the accuracy).
Therefore I'm now thinking that maybe my HRM is accurate since it's basing the calories off of my age, weight, and actual exertion.

Although it still seems high to me.  Can I really burn over 800 calories in an hour without going all out?  And if so, maybe the reason I can't lose weight is that i'm not eating enough?

Looks like someone just opened a can of worms.

2 comments:

Cynthia said...

I think machines are more inaccurate than HRM. I used to use mine all the time and there was often a disparity between the two numbers. Since my HRM knows for sure how hard I am working, I trust it a little but more.

Jessica said...

That logic definitely makes sense. However I'm still a bit skeptical about my numbers. Oh well!

Have a great one!