Burn, Baby, Burn... with a Heart Rate Monitor

By now, you know I love the My Fitness Pal (MFP) app on my iPhone. I have it on my iPad too, and on occasion  I will log into the website directly. This app helped me lose my first 20(ish) pounds by tracking my calories consumed and burned daily. I thought that since it had my basic information saved (age, weight, etc) that it would accurately calculate the calories I burned working out. Then I hit a plateau. It was hard for me to be sure that it was accurately calculating these calories for my workouts, so I decided it was time to invest in a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM)... perhaps this would help me break through my plateau.

And it did! I noticed quite a variance (in both directions). No wonder I was stuck! And the biggest problem was with my Wii Zumba Fitness Core. If you're not familiar with this workout, it will give you up to 5 stars per workout based on how accurately the system believes you followed the routine. And it also calculates the calories it believes you burned. I decided to try a quick 20 minute class to see what my HRM shows I burned vs. MFP and the Wii system. I knew there was always a variance between Wii and MFP. Results:

Wii: 259 calories burned 

MFP: 173 calories burned

Actual with HRM: 134 calories burned

HUGE DIFFERENCE! And I was logging the 259, so I was logging over 100 calories burned more than I actually had burned. Well no wonder I was stuck!!

I wanted to try out two of my Jillian Michaels workouts too because I never really knew what to log these workouts as.

Jillian's Kickbox FastFix is a collection of 3 workouts (each 20 minutes long) that seemed to be a cross between circuit training and kickboxing. I'd googled it online and saw most people were logging this as kickboxing, so that's what I did. So I tried the first two workout with my HRM and checked it in MFP against the calories for Circuit Training and Kickboxing. Results:
MFP Circuit Training: 175
MFP Kickboxing: 222
Actual with HRM for Workout 1 (arms): 129

Actual with HRM for Workout 2 (legs): 163

Considering I was logging these workouts as kickboxing, I was logging 444 calories when I completed the first two workouts together when in actuality, I was burning somewhere around 300 calories... Big difference again!!

Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30. 30 minutes of circuit training using her 3-2-1 method (this is what she's best known for with her DVDs). I left off on Week 3 of 4 when I switched to Brazil Butt Lift so that's what I wanted to check the calories burned on the HRM vs. MFP. Results:
MFP Circuit Training: 263
Actual with HRM: 213

Still a 50 calories difference. With each workout, I'm more astounded by how many more calories I was logging as burned that I didn't actually burn.

Jazzercise Jazz Cardio Strength Stretch. I love dance workouts. This DVD was purchased from the Jazzercise website as I believe it's the only way they can be purchased. I went to the live classes for about a year when I was living in DC and loved every moment of it. This particular DVD has 3 half-hour classes so I like having the opportunity to squeeze in one quick workout or doing multiple one right after another. These workouts are really only 27 minutes long... I thought for sure MFP was underestimating the calories burned for this because I usually work up a good sweat. I tested it with my HRM on the first workout on the DVD... Boy was I wrong! Results:

MFP Slimnastics/Jazzercise: 178

Actual with HRM: 128

What's funny though is that the variance seems to works both ways. I love to go walking in the park with my daughter on nice days. She usually falls asleep for an hour or so in her stroller, and I know that I'm burning extra calories pushing her, but it seems that tid theory of logging incorrect numbers works both ways... I have the EB Walk! app on my iPhone that I had been using to keep track of how many miles I was walking and to monitor my pace so I knew I was logging the correct speed I was walking at in MFP. I realize these calories burned below don't take the stroller pushing into account so these numbers might be slightly off but here's what I found from walking. Results:
110 minutes of walking at the park (up and down hills) 3.0mph (it was a very muggy day --- 3.5mph or faster just wasn't happening)
EB Walk! App: 482 calories burned
MFP: 399 calories burned
Actual with HRM: 600 calories burned

However, I also tested the EB Walk! app walking on flat ground to see how it held up and was pleasantly surprised by its accuracy when compared to the actual calories burned using my HRM. Even MFP was pretty close to being accurate. Results:

106 minutes of walking on flat ground at roughly 3.5mph...

EB Walk! App: 459.9 calories burned

MFP: 441

Actual with HRM: 463

So if you're a walker on fairly flat surfaces, I definitely would suggest using the EB Walk! App to track your calories, distance and time walking.

Ultimately, the moral of all of this is if you can invest in a good Heart Rate Monitor, it's the best way to ensure you are accurately accounting for all your calories daily. I love my Polar FT4!! I tried a New Balance one from Target first and I ended up returning it because it didn't seem to be accurate for me. Everyone I knew with a HRM had a Polar and loved it. Good luck, and enjoy your workout! 

~ Aly