Too many calories burned??

Hi folks.  I was hoping someone would be able to help me.  I have the Nike 10S Heart Monitor (does not have chest strap to calculate heart rate).  I use it mainly to determine the number of calories I burn thru-out the day.  According to the monitor, I have been using about 3000 calories per day.  Last night, I was reading the owner's manual for this heart monitor and discovered that I should have set my age and sex into the monitor, which I did.  Now, only one day later, this thing is showing that I have used 5600+ calories today -- there is NO way that I have used that today - I didn't even exercise as I had appointments all day.  Does anyone know what the heck is going on here??  Thanks in advance.

Heart rate monitors aren't designed to be worn all day, and the ones without chest straps are very inaccurate.

Yep what ankow said-  you also have to consider its not taking into consideration your sleep time its thinking if I am at this heart rate from this time to the next time you put your finger on the thing you'd burn x cals- well obviously if you are walking to the bathroom vs walking for exercise you are going to be burning a different amount of cals and your heart rate is never constant.

I have a very nice polar F11 and my cal burn for the same type of workout can vary day to day just depending on my "mood" amt of sleep I may have had the night before or even what I ate the day before. 

So best to use this sites BMR calculations and then add the workouts Also might want to invest in a chest strap model in the future.

so in reality, i have a polar f11 w chestrap of course.  If i wear it all day it will still be inaccurate????   worn during waking hours only

The F11 must be moist to work, and you will have trouble keeping it moist all day. Plus you will run your battery down...

A simple way to estimate your calories burned is just to determine how much time you spend working...playing...sitting and so on. You do not need an expensive gadget for this...many places on the web can calculate it for you...

I like http://www.stevenscreek.com/goodies/calories. shtml

What I have learned through my F11 though is I have a resting rate at about 56 bpm, a standing rate of about 75 bpm and a walking rate of about 88-95 bpm. I exercise at about 120 to 158 bpm...this has helped me determine that I burn about 1800-2600 calories a day. I eat between 1400 to 1960 calories a day  depending on my activity level for the day(I cycle my calories)...My goal is 500 to 800 calorie deficit a day.

It has worked so far. I have lost half a pound to 2 lbs a week since I started recording everything I eat here on calorie count...

Sarah, but the battery works the whole day anyway. You can't turn it off. I wear mine without the strap during the day. I only wear it with the strap during my workouts.  what do you think?

Yeah those things for the most part are inaccurate. To put things in perspective. Today I rode 94 miles on my bike, the ones you pedal. According to the power meter I did 2500 KJ of work. Accounting for bodies inefficiencies and what not it basically translates to 2500 calories burned. So total calorie expenditure for today for me would be around 4.1k Calories. For reference I am 26 years old, male 5 feet 9 inches, 133 pounds.

UD

elaine - basically yes- if you are not working out the HRM isn't really giving you an accurate calorie burn for your day. 

Even though I am fairly active I set my activity level to sedentary on this website and then only add my actual "workout" calories that my polar F11 recorded.