Calories Burned w/ Polar HRM?
Hi I am new to this forum,
I have been trying to perfect my daily calorie intake. I am a very left brained individual and it makes me feel better if I can see actual numbers/evidence.
I have a lot of free time so I have been trying to do a 24 hour monitor w/ a polar f6 HRM. I wear the monitor for 24hours straight in exercise mode (including showerng, sleeping etc.) The thing is it is not giving me anywhere near my bmr (1999). I have a sedentary lifestyle and must have done my bmr on 20 different online calculators and it says my bmr is 1999 and the number of calories I burn with a sedentary lifestyle is 2400. With my all my medical issue and slower metabolism however, I dont know if that is entirely correct (probably close though)
The monitor after 24hours however gives me like almost 4000! I know that these monitors are only meant for workouts and not meant for 24 hour analysis, but shouldnt it be a little more accurate than that??
my question is I think its something I am not getting with the how the hrm works related to bmr. I think what is happening (not sure though) is the HRM is adding all or part of my bmr (1999) onto the calrories it is counting in that 24hours that I am monitoring in exercise mode. Am I supposed to be monitoring for 12 hours not 24?? is there any way I can make the hrm give me a more accurate calorie burn?Because I do not know exactly how many calories I burn in a day but it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is no way I am burning even anywhere near 4000 cals! Is it something I have set wrong with the hrm?? is there any way I can make this work?
Someone out there who knows about how Polar's work, would you kindly help me?! thanks!
I'm not an expert by any means but I also have an F6 and I did a 24 hour test out of curiosity a few weeks ago and it told me that I burned almost exactly what my online estimates were giving me although it did lose my heart at some point in the night and I'm not sure how long I was off. Have you done all the personalization things that it has you do when you first get it?
ya I just looked at the hrm again and relaized that I didnt enter the advanced user settings that it has. I had set the correct weight, height and age, but the polar had still said that my resting hr was 60 when it is really 82-85 and it said my v02 max was like 32 when it is really like 14 or 15. I have set it to the proper settings now, but have not done a 24 hr monitor since (I am waiting for some conductivity gel that I ordered from heartratemonitorsusa.com to come in the mail because I found during the night the electrodes would dry up and the hrm would stop).
Do you think these new setting could help it be more accurate?
I would imagine if the HRM thought I weighed 257 lbs but had a resting hr of 60 and v02 max of 32 (which are both levels of an athlete, not an obese, sedentary woman) that it would have WAY overestimated my burn number.
When the gel comes I will do another 24hr monitor and post the results. Thanks for jarring my brain to this issue. I hope it works!
HRM's really arent designed to do a 24 hour test. If you want something that does that specifically I suggest you google body bug.
ya nice idea but I am a student and dont exactly have the $200 dollars to dish out + $99/year for the membership to keep the bug working. plus I found a pretty crappy review on the bodybugg here if anyone is looking to buy one read this first: http://www.bloggingaboutfitness.com/archive/2 007/09/27/bodybugg-review.aspx (I know his info isnt completely correct (from the users replies to the review) but still, thats a lot of money for something you can get a goodenough estimate of with an online calculator! I was just curious if I could get a figure a little bit closer to what my actual burn is, and why it was SO far off.
any other input on the HRM?
I agree HMR's arn't designed to calculate Cal's at rest, they simply arn't accurate once your heart beat go's below 100.
"The monitor after 24hours however gives me like almost 4000! I know that these monitors are only meant for workouts and not meant for 24 hour analysis, but shouldnt it be a little more accurate than that??"
No. You are using your HRM to do something it is not designed to do. It does not count calories, it counts heart beats. It estimates calories burned during exercise based on algorithms that were designed to estimate calories burned during exercise. It has no way of estimating calories burn while you are below your cardio zone or at rest so it does the best it can which is by giving you a number that is not in any way relevant.
Original Post by trhawley:
"The monitor after 24hours however gives me like almost 4000! I know that these monitors are only meant for workouts and not meant for 24 hour analysis, but shouldnt it be a little more accurate than that??"
No. You are using your HRM to do something it is not designed to do. It does not count calories, it counts heart beats. It estimates calories burned during exercise based on algorithms that were designed to estimate calories burned during exercise. It has no way of estimating calories burn while you are below your cardio zone or at rest so it does the best it can which is by giving you a number that is not in any way relevant.
Hmmm. So is it not accurate for measuring calories burned while walking briskly, where my HR ranges from 85-115?
Original Post by emilyd22222:
Original Post by trhawley:
"The monitor after 24hours however gives me like almost 4000! I know that these monitors are only meant for workouts and not meant for 24 hour analysis, but shouldnt it be a little more accurate than that??"
No. You are using your HRM to do something it is not designed to do. It does not count calories, it counts heart beats. It estimates calories burned during exercise based on algorithms that were designed to estimate calories burned during exercise. It has no way of estimating calories burn while you are below your cardio zone or at rest so it does the best it can which is by giving you a number that is not in any way relevant.
Hmmm. So is it not accurate for measuring calories burned while walking briskly, where my HR ranges from 85-115?
They are never accurate, but generally speaking they'll give you a good estimate and I would assume while "walking briskly" you would be in your cardio zone.
after messing around with the polar, I have discovered that a large part of its algorithm is dependent on the V02 max setting in user settings. This may be why ppl dont get an accurate reading with polar's if trying to do a 24hr monitor, or dont think the polar is capable of an accurate reading. A lot of people dont know this setting even exists cuz it is kind of "buried" in the user settings, and if they do know about it they do not bother to change it and leave it at default because a lot of people do not know their v02 max. This is because to get a very accurate reading of v02 max you have to be tested on a treadmill, in a lab setting with an oxygen mask.
When i first did the 24hr thing, I left v02 max at the default setting, which was 32 and that is when I got the reading of almost 4000. Then I discovered the setting and decided I should try to research my v02 max. I found a couple online calculators (the next best thing if u cant get it done in a lab) and discovered my v02 max was nowhere near 32..it was 14-15 because I am 80lbs overweight and out of shape. I then tried the 24hr monitor again and it gave me a pretty damb accurate estimate of my 24hr burn.
so to get an accurate burn estimate for a 24 hour reading, I guess the way the polar is designed, u can get a WAY overestimate if you do not have your v02max set correclty. If it is set correctly, YES, you should get a pretty accurate burn estimate. (at least I did)
I hope this helps anyone who wants to do a 24hr burn estimates with a polar (F series) and and does not want to go out and spend $200 on a body bug just because they are curious about how many calories they burn in a day.
My polar F11 has a VO2 test mode so the monitor does this function. I've done this and also a VO2 on a recumbant bike and they both were within 1-3 points of each other at different trys.
You can also do a test that is explained on the http://www.adultfitnesstest.org/
Presidential Fitness test website. We did the walk test in aerobic class one night using a flat walking track.
