Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Heart rate monitor

I know I've been MIA lately - with Easter weekend, Beckett getting baptized, my inlaws staying with us... it's been a bit chaotic here. My head is also cloudy with a few other things. Things that perhaps involve a doctor, things that involve my family... you know, things.

Anyways, the point of my post. Does anyone here use a heart rate monitor or pedometer, or anything that has a "calories burned" display? And if so, do you find it accurate?

I had a talk with my trainer the other day about the scale not really moving and (surprise surprise) he said not to focus on the weight, but on body fat %. He looked at my results and was quite pleased but even he agreed that I could kick it up a notch.

We talked about calories. A person who isn't trying to lose weight, just maintaining their weight should eat about 10 times their weight in calories. So, I should be eating approximately 1800 calories. That's IF I wasn't trying to lose. To lose weight, you need a 3500 calories/week deficit. Which works out to about 1300 calories a day. That's without exercising. A lean and fit class (the classes I take) burns about 500 calories. So on the days I do my class, I can eat the regular 1800 calories.

I think I'm going to try fitday.com to record calories for a month and see what happens. It should be noted that I'm not a big fan of counting calories/points/whatever. BUT whatever I am doing is obviously not right, so I think I need something to get me back in line to remember what healthy portions are, and then hopefully, slowly I can get back to just eating and not counting.

3 people had this to say:

Teresa said...

My treadmill has both a heart monitor and a calorie counter. However my dietitian was adamant that these were not accurate measures. Good luck counting calories. From your pictures you do look like you are making progress.

Sonya said...

I heart you!

I meant to tell you that I found this calorie stuff really useful that you posted about. Didn't know about those calculations. Will be using that for sure.

Miss Gogo said...

I use myfitnesspal.com and I really love it (when I am using it that is, lol). Good luck with the calorie counting!