Hey Look It’s Me

It’s been a while since I have posted anything so I figured I would go over something.

I have been asked before and some of you may be wondering how I figure my calories burned, well here is my method:

It begins with heart rate monitors, these wonderful and frustrating devices are the crux of any method of figuring calories burned.

I use two different HRMs one is a Polar FT4 with a rigid chest strap (http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/products/get_active/fitness_crosstraining/FT4), the other is a Scosche Rhythm with an arm strap (http://www.scosche.com/rhythm/). I use both of these great devices to record my numbers for my various exercise routines. When I finish a routine I then add the results from each HRM together and divide the sum by 2 to get an average (the results from each device are pretty close to each other but never the same).

Next I take this averaged number and then subtract my Basal Metabolic Rate (the calories I would have burned just sitting around on my arse in the same period). You can find a rough estimate of yours here: http://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html

Take the number you get for a BMR and divide it by 1440 (the number of minutes in a day) and that is how much you burn per minute just sitting on your butt doing nothing.

For me that number is 1.5 (well actually 1.4868 but I round up) so if I do 30 minutes of exercise and burn 600 calories I would need to subtract 45 calories from the result (30 minutes x 1.5 per minute) because I would have burned that amount of calories even if I was just being a bum, that leaves me with 555 calories burned for that routine.

I am the only guy I know that uses a calculator at the gym, but I feel it gives me a more accurate set of numbers, which will be better in the long run. I hope this makes sense to you guys and perhaps you will start using this method for yourself.