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Author: Don
Date: 07-01-04 11:11
I purchased a Polar M61 heart rate monitor over the web to get a more accurate reading of my workouts. The M61 allows you to enter your age, height, weight, sex and activity level into the settings so it can give you an accurate reading of your calories burned based on your personal statistics. I read the manual, entered all of the data and jumped on the elliptical machine. I set it to manual mode because I wanted to rely on the new heart rate monitor to set the workout rate.
The first thing I noticed is the Elliptical heart rate monitor was reading 240 without me touching the handles. I put my hands on the handles to see if I could get a reading from it, but it fluctuated between 200 and 230. I guess my new heart rate monitor interferes with the elliptical machine’s monitor. So, I will not be able to tell you anything about the accuracy of the equipment heart monitors.
After 40 minutes, the elliptical machine said I had burned 420 calories. My heart rate monitor said I had burned 494. Therefore, the machine that I use was conservative based on my statistics. Remember, that the number of calories you burn is based on your own personal statistics. If you do not enter your age, height and weight into an exercise machine’s monitor it is probably not very accurate.
Another discovery is that I had been estimating my workouts to be between 400 and 500 calorie burns. I actually burned 762 today. That means I have been grossly underestimating the affects of exercise on my daily calorie charts. Since that would make the calculated weight loss compared to the actual weight loss even wider, I assume that the difference is muscle mass. I estimate that since 3/25/04, I’ve put on around 8 pounds of muscle mass and lost 44 pounds!
I was so worried that I had been over estimating my workouts. Whooo HOOOOO!
Let me know if you have any questions about the heart rate monitor. They’re pretty neat little gadgets and this toy will be a wonderful addition in charting my progress.
Don
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely
in a well preserved body, but rather to skid-in-sideways,
totally worn out, shouting... "holy **** what a ride!"
232/166/166
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Author: BFL Michelle
Date: 07-01-04 11:20
Thanks Don - this is great information! I think I need one of those things. Was it expensive?
The elliptical I use here at work does allow you to enter you current weight and age, but not height. I wonder how accurate its numbers are? I use to could burn 200 calories according to the machine, but the more I lose the harder it gets. I can ususally burn abound 170-180 calories when I push really hard. This is in 20 minutes.
139/104/104 - 5'1
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Author: Don
Date: 07-01-04 11:38
The monitors range in price. I got a middle of the road one that has all of the features that I wanted for around $160. You can get them for under $100 if you look around. Since calories burned was important to me, I made sure that it had that feature. The Polar monitors have an "ownCal" calculation that at least sounds like it is pretty accurate.
If you consider what you pay for other things (gym fees, clothes, videos, dumbells, etc.) it seemed like a pretty small price to see how effective my workouts are.
Don
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely
in a well preserved body, but rather to skid-in-sideways,
totally worn out, shouting... "holy **** what a ride!"
232/166/166
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Author: Lady
Date: 07-02-04 10:42
Since it has a calories burned feature, can you just keep it on you all day to see how many calories you've burned throughout the day?
Lady
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