Yeah this makes my 3rd thread I just can't get enough of all the anwsered questions I get on here!
I was wondering.......i've seen people on here who are talking about working off so many calories.
How do you know how many calories you've burned?
Do you go by how long you work out or the kind of exercise you do?
I love to walk and get at least a mile in everyday.....how many calories do you think I burn off? (walking at normal speed)

I use a heart rate monitor which will give you a pretty accurate number. Although I really view calories eaten and calories burned as 2 separate things that don't affect eachother.

Hey ... don't worry about asking questions. We all did it at first ... and still have opportunity to do it. Asking questions is good!

I use a heart rate monitor to measure the calories I burn. I have Polar F6 (I keep typing F5, but I finally went and looked at it, and it is an F6). It allows you to program in your height, weight, sex, etc. Then you wear the chest strap while working out. It's still an estimate, but a really good estimate.

You can find sites online that will help you to get close, but you also have to accurately measure how vigorous your exercise is based on your heart rate.

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I go by heart rate also. I keep my heart rate at cardio level, which for me is 153 bpm for at least 60 minutes and up to 75 minutes 3-4 times a week. at this rate I usually burn, depending on the activity, around 500 to 620 calories. I like to mix up my cardio workouts between an ellipitcal, a treadmill and a recumbent bike. On days that I don't do cardio I strength train, which I don't count calories burned for that.

Oh, just to confuse things even more ..

When you do things like interval training (HIIT) and weight lifting (which is a form of interval training in and of itself), you will burn fewer calories DURING the exercise, but your metabolism stays raised for longer afterward and so there's residual calorie burn.

So when I do HIIT and my HRM shows 270 calories or 310 calories, I know that I'll wind up burning at least 1.5x that from the residual burn.

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How much does one of those heart rate monitors cost?
Where do you get them?

I also wear a heart rate monitor, mine is pretty old so it doesn't tell me how many calories burned, just the real time heart rate. I have to keep an eye on the number and then go back and try to figure out an estimate based on the average heart rate and number of minutes in each range, if I can remember it... Complicated... (have a Polar F11 on the Christmas list).

Look on Amazon.com - Polar is a good brand and they have several different ones with user reviews. They also have other brands, too...

Dick's Sporting Goods carries them in store, but mainly Timex. I don't know much about those.

I have my heart set on the Polar F11, but right this second I can't remember why I wanted it over the F10... Oh yeah I do - I wanted the fancy cloth chest strap that comes with F11 standard. It comes out to more expensive to get the comfy strap & the F10, but the F10 itself would do everything I wanted otherwise...

I have an F6, like PhotoChick, and I LOVE it. I believe mine was $110-ish.

I got mine at Target on sale and with a coupon and I think I paid $87 for it. But normally it's around $110.

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Hey Shannon,

I have both the f6 and the f11. Honestly and truly, I love the old style strap more. The softer one is not worth the extra money IMO. The softer cloth one tends to slip around on my chest, despite a tight fit and gives wonky readings at least 2-3 times per workout.

I wear an underwire, and this may have something to do with it, but really, the older style fits better.

I grab the old strap to use with the f11 wristwatch most days.

Jelly- You can find them almost anywhere, from the sporting goods section of Target to a specialty sports store. Range in price from $20.00 to hundreds.

I have this Polar F6 - got it here.

LOVE IT. It even works while swimming. Worth every penny.