Heart Rate/Calories burned Question...complicated?

I went to this website that Techraven put up~~> http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/?page_id =483

And it said for an hour and 10 minutes at my age and weight I burn 968 calories! (my average heart rate is 150)...I have a condition called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) Which basically  means my pulse goes from bout 60 sitting to bout 120 when I stand up (without the beta-blocker I take 3 times a day). When I take my medicine my pulse stays at about 80-85 or so when Im standing up but when I exercise, well I like to bike ride, and last night I took my pulse and it was 194 when i stopped for a break. I know this isnt healthy! My mom said in aerobics once your HR gets to 130 you're supposed to stop and let it go back down....so at 160 or whatever it normally is when I exericse, Im damaging my heart.

Anyway, this is all beside the point. My question is, am I really burning that much?? at 1500 cals that I eat (my bmr is supposedly 1900 @ sedentary)  am i in starvation mode? ANd do I burn more calories walking or bike riding --if my pulse is the same during each activity?

Ok this is what I mean to ask:::: To keep my pulse down away from heart attack/stroke level, I need to go the pace of a slug on my bike...am I still burning calories at that slow pace???

Does any of this make sense... Im 22, 5'10, 167lbs--Goal 140

Much of what your thinking and being told is wrong for a healthy individual but since I know nothing about your medical condition (POTS) I hate to make any comments.

Yeah I'm kind of wondering the same thing.


When I run my heart rate is steadily between 170-190 BPM. And I run pretty slowly!

I would hate to run any slower. I've been running for almost two years and I know that I'm capable of at least a 12 min. mile ha!

I think that this is something that you should check with your doctor.  When I am running, my heart rate is about the 150 mark, and when I do interval sprints, it can jump up to the high 160's when I'm sprinting.   Your numbers seem fine, and I have certainly never heard of a 130bpm cut off point, but your medication / condition is going to interfere with your numbers, and you really need to check with your doctor about what's normal and advisable with your condition.

Let me just add this.  A healthy individual riding a bicycle for 1 hr. and 10 minutes at a moderate intense to intense effort can easily burn 968 calories.  And secondly, for a healthy individual there is no heart rate number that you should not exceed, in fact the purpose of HIIT (high intensity interval training) is to get you heart rate as high as you possibly can.  And thirdly, yes you need to adjust your diet in order to keep your deficit at or below 1000 cals a day until your reach your goal weight and then you need to up your calories to maintenance.

But with your condition you should check with your Dr. to see what you can and can't do in regard to exercising.

Definitely talk to your Dr about exercise. I take beta blockers for high blood pressure and don't have the same problem you do. But without a stress test to determine what your Max HR is you really don't know if you are doing damage to your heart.

Being on Beta Blockers its hard to calculate calorie burn rates. The machines will be wrong, and a heart rate monitor might not be correct either.

In my case, with high bp and post heart attack, my measured via stress test Max HR is 137. I use an F4 HRM and it consistently yields calories half of what the machines give. Even when I adjust the age to align with my Max HR. I still log the number because its the most accurate I have. Will have to calibrate based on weight loss at some point when there is enough data in the logs to eliminate/reduce variations in my food estimates.

Keep my calories at or below 1000 cals a day? really?? I thouht  1200 was good for most women and I'm a lot of woman! (5'10). Interesting. aeetheri- you have a really high pulse too wow. I was looking at this chart at the gym and it said theres different fitness levels for your heart. I'm only sposed to let my heart (@ 22 years old) get up past 160 for like 5 minutes a week, and the rest I need to keep it around 130-158 or so for bout 30-60 minutes 5 times a week it said---but thats for a healthy person. I am not healthy.

 

So i know I do need to go to my cardiologist and stuff cuz my family doctor is such a dip (he gave me diet pills when I have a heart condition lol). But its soo expensive and I already owe him a crap load of money that I cant pay yet. Ugh. We'll see. But thanks guys for the input :)

Keep your DEFICIT below 1000kcals a day - not your total calorie intake!!! You are correct never to go below 1200 per day, and probably eat quite a little more if you are exercising for over an hour, and still lose.

Yes keep your deficit below 1000 calories a day.  If you burn 1900 calories being sedentary and you burn another 950 calories exercising that is a total calorie burn for the day of 2850 so you need to eat at least 1850 calories that day and should pobably eat more if you intend to do that kind of exercise regularly. 

I still think you are confused about heart zone training though.  The zones are used for structuring your workouts to maximze fitness gains.  You need to spend a certain amount of time in the recovery mode or lower heart rate zones, most of your time in the middle zone (65-85% MHR), and some time each week doing HIIT where you go above 85%.  For a healthy fit individual there is no danger involve with cardio training and your training zones are specific to you determined by your maximum heart rate, not by age or level of fitness.  But in your situation, you need to find out if it is safe for you to work out at all and if so what level of intesity is okay.  The cardiologist may seem expensive but your life is priceless.

1850!? really?? daaang thats a lot. Im soooo scared to eat that much. Like...terrified. It really is important that I lose this weight quick because Im so stinking fickle lol.  The quicker it comes off, the less likely I am to be a loser and quit :P You are right about the doctor...I do know this.  And the training zones are a great idea if you are healthy..maybe someday I will be again. My mind is just so distorted when it comes to heart rates now. I cant even remember what it was like to have a normal pulse all the time. Every second of my life its always messed up, too fast, too slow, skipping beats bla bla bla. But it could be heaps worse! So thank God. I just dont think I can let myself eat that much. i will feel so depressed that I am going to gain weight! Sorry if that is maddening or annoying :( I just cant believe Im burning that much in a hour. It seems impossible.

Well, maybe your not.  Since your heart rate may be effected by your medication your calorie estimates are going to be different from the averages in the formulas that everyone else uses.  That is what bobev is working on now, trying to figure out how to estimate his calorie burn while taking beta blockers. 

In other words, when you work your large muscle groups running, cycling, etc.,  those muscle are consuming calories at an elevated rate.  Because they are also consuming oxygen at an elevated rate your heart rate increases accordingly.  The calorie burn tables use heart rate as a percent of it's maximum to determine a level of exertion and then use exertion and duration to estimate calories burned.  But if your heart rate is elevated and your muscle groups are not engaged in activity then you are not burning a substantial amount of additional calories.  Or if your heart rate is supressed by medication during exercise you my actually be working the muscles harder and burning more calories that your heart rate would predict. 

That is why I recommend that you work with your Dr. to determine what level of exercise is appropriate for you and how that will effect your diet.

awesome explanation! that was brilliant and made complete sense! Thank you!  I dont know if my doctor is smart enough however to figure all of this out lol :P

I'm 44 and my highest heart is suppose to be 150 but when I work out doing interval training I get it up as far as 171 I hope this isn't hurting my heart any I can still talk and when I am done my workout which last 75 min I'm not totally fatiqued so fiqure it is all good going over my limit If I was to stay within my limit I wouldn't win a race with a turtle....lol

Why is your highest heart rate supposed to be 150?  Getting your heart rate up as high as you can, 171 or higher, during intervals is not hurting your heart it is helping your heart.  Assuming you are healthy.

I have no idea about any of this. I think if your heart gets to working harder than it should you can have a stroke or heart attack, wether you are healthy or not. Pretty sure you can at least have heat stroke but anyways.

Yesterday after all this talking about it I had about 1965 calories! :D and I biked for 70 minutes. I took breaks intermittently, working them to fatigue then resting, letting my heart get to pumping good and the sweat start dripping then a break and do it over and over again. I dont know if its good or bad or whatever, but it suuuure does feel good! :D I dont know what I'll do if my doctors tell me I shouldnt exercise. It's envigorating and the feeling after...its like "whoa...that seemed impossible to me when I started and now I've finished it!" Its a great feeling.

Oh and i dont know if it has to do with eating more calories yesterday or what but today the scaled was 166.6 instead of 167.4 :)

"I have no idea about any of this. I think if your heart gets to working harder than it should you can have a stroke or heart attack, wether you are healthy or not"

This is not true.  Heart Attacks and Strokes are not caused by overexerting yourself.  A Heart Attack is caused by the loss of blood flow to a portion of the heart usually cause by arterial blockage.  A Stroke is a disruption of the blood flow to a portion of the brain often cause by a blood clot or blockage that effects the flow of blood in the brain.  In other words, physically activity will not trigger a heart attack unless the person already has the plaque building up in the arteries and is causing a blockage or some other type of heart desease.

This is not a medical opinion but you can do the research and you will understand that what I'm getting at is that a healthy person by exercising is not putting themselves in danger of having a heart attack.  The precursers of the heart attack have to already be present.  So for a healthy person there is no heart rate number or percentage that cannot safely be exceeded.  But the same is not true for someone with a pre-existing heart condition or arterial plaque build up.  That is why they always tell you to check with your doctor before starting any new fitness program.

If you have any type of heart condition/abnormality/whatever, go see your DOCTOR!  He/she can give you the best advice!!!!

ahhh I've been pondering this question for sooo long! glad to see I'm not alone.

I'm a naturally smaller person for the most part, and I eat a lot of calories when I'm not monitoring for anything special or trying to do anything to my diet (we're talking something like...2,500-4,000 cals daily.) The website says with my stats that on sedentary I only burn 1575 cals a day, which mathematically makes like NO sense. I haven't gained weight since I lost 9 pounds last spring, and I haven't been limiting my calories really at all.

Anyway, when I'm jogging super slow my heart rate is averagely about 198 and I'm 21, so recommended level (meaning to not get passy-outy) is to not go above 180 (it's 160-180 recommended for average healthy 20-24 yr old individuals at the cardio level btw. It's 130-160 bpm for a "fat burn" and anything below that isn't benefiting the heart much----for an average person our age anyway. Of course your situation might and most likely will be different!)

I figure maybe since my heart rate fluctuates so much, and gets so high all of the time, it can account for a high metabolism sort of effect where I burn through more calories? I mean, after drinking coffee for a few days I usually lose a little weight even! (Not water weight, I drink at least 9 glasses a day.)

So I want to know! Does elevated heart rate help to burn more calories than average???

p.s. I went to the link and it told me that cardio for 20 minutes at 160 bpm is burning 281 calories, which is grossly overestimated. When cycling at the gym on a machine for 20 minutes, the machine tells me I've bunt about 140, which is supposedly 50-100% more than what you actually burn according to my instructor at the gym. Something is definitely wrong with using that calculator for this situation, so I wouldn't listen to anything it spits out.

Well I for one would seek out a professional - like a cardiologist and have them tell you exactly what your limits should be.  personally 130 for me being 48 yrs old is nothing and if your resting heart rate is high then your max heart rate is going to be higher than "normal" IMHO.  When I was in terrible shape my RHR was over 100 now that I am in better cardiovascular health my RHR is 48 and its all I can do to get it up to a good 70% MHR.  Based on the old fashioned standard formula 220 - age my MHR is 174 but I've technically blown my heart up many times having reached 180 on some occassions while working out. 

Due to your unique condition you need to seek out a professionals recommendation and toss out any and all others recommendations and I'd like to know as your cardiovascular health improves if you condition also improves.

Also want to add that a heart rate monitor is usually the best tool to use to determine calorie burns don't ever trust machines or your average website calculations etc as they are usually not very reliable.  Also invest in a hrm that does constant measuring of heart rate and a Vo2 max rate is even better.