secondly, i FINALLY got my polar F4 heart rate monitor in the mail and i have to say it's awesome. although the cold, hard truth has shown its hideous face to me. i can't decide if i like this hideous face or not.
this is what it looks like (i got this pretty cherry colour):
here is what i've learned so far:
1) last night i wore the monitor for 1/2 an hour, just to set it up and test it out. in 30 minutes of pretty much doing nothing, i burned 25 calories. i did the math and that's 1200 calories burned a day when i'm doing nothing. sleeping is probably less. obviously "living" is more, but not sitting at my desk at work.
2) my regular heart rate is between 56-58 beats per minute. i checked online what was normal, and the average resting heart rate for a woman, aged 26-35 is 73 to 76 beats per minute. at first i was worried, until i found this chart, which tells that i am not going to die, but instead, am better than excellent, have the heart rate of an ATHLETE, otherwise known as being HARDCORE.
3) i went downstairs to the gymbo this morning and tried it out. sometimes when i go to the gym, as opposed to running outside, i like to do an incline walk on the treadmill. i usually walk at 4 mph, at an incline of 4.5% or so, for 60-75 minutes. when i put in my weight, the treadmill tells me i burned between 600-615 calories for this time period. the treadmill is a LIAR!
walking at 4 mph at 4.5% didn't even put me into my target heart rate zone (126-165 beats per minute). i upped the incline to 5.5% and the speed to 4.2 mph and still my heart rate wasn't in my target zone. 4.2 mph is a really, really, REALLY speedy walk people. in about 40 minutes i burned 200 calories, maybe 5-10 more. that's the cold, hard truth.
4) moving on. after the treadmill i did a bit of free-weights, then tried out the elliptical. normally i don't use the elliptical, because the ones at my gym really poop me out. but i went on, and my heart rate rose, up to 155-160 which is pretty amazing. and of course when your heart rate is higher, you burn more calories. so i stayed on for about 11 minutes, which took me up to 300 calories burned. for the record - i'm sure i always won't pay so much attention to the amount of calories i'm burning... right now i am a supernerd with a new toy.
5) continuing... i did a few more free weights and then got on the stationary bike. i kept my heart rate around 130 bpm, and i really had to focus to keep it there. i went up to 400 calories burned on the bike. then i did some sit-ups and stretches which brought me up to 425 calories burned.
6) i was at the gym for 1 hour and 20 minutes, and none of this time was slacking off at all. here is what i learned: a) i really have to push myself in a major way to get into my target zone. b) gym machines over-estimate calories burned big time and c) ok i only learned two things. but aren't they interesting? i am excited to see what my heart rate stats are during an outdoor run.
in non HRM news, it's friday! HOORAY! things are still weird at my office (with the roof caving in), so i might go home after or at lunch. tomorrow i am going for a run, and then my boyfriend and i have a dance lesson at the new dance studio near my pad. so far we have learned swing, rumba, tango, waltz, and foxtrot. by learned i mean we can do the basic steps and forget most of it every time we walk out the door. actually we practice swing the most and have learned some pretty rad moves that we put into action last saturday night. on saturday night we are inviting some friends over, then going back to the dance studio for the grand opening party. there will be champagne and some food, and the 3-time canadian dance champions are performing. ooh la la. and then after it will be early still so we'll go out somewhere else. time to par-tay!
today the menu is:
1/2 fibre source bar
instant regular oatmeal
2 fat free yogurts with frozen berries
and then i don't know... i didn't bring a lunch which is unlike me. happy weekend!
12 comments:
that thing is so cute. i love it. :)
I've got the polar F6 and I'm still in the process of figuring it all out. I couldn't get it to recognize the strap was on and my calorie burn amounted to 0 so I'm not sure what I did wrong. I'm not exactly technology savvy, so I've got some figuring out to do. I also found that the strap was really uncomfortable along my breast/chest bone...it sort of rubbed uncomfortably, what gives? how did you master yours so fast?!! do tell, clearly I need some help :) thanks!
hk: are you moistening behind the center of the chest strap? it doesn't work unless it's moist (or you are sweating...) but you have to wet it first. i didn't find the chest strap uncomfortable... the attaching strap comes in different sizes... maybe you have the wrong one?
it took me a few minutes to a regular reading, but after that it was fine.
Cute :). Way to be an athlete!
P.S. New blog: small-chick-big-mouth.blogspot.com
Exercise equipment is notoriously bad for calculating calorie burns, but treadmills are thought to be the most accurate since they have basically been around the longest, and so the formulas have changed here and there to be more accurate. I always add 5 pounds onto my real weight to get a more accurate reading.
Whoops....plural formula = formulae??
I am such a geek....
No! No, no, no, no, no.
This is why I haven't gotten one yet.
It is amazing I can maintain at all considering how much I eat. Seriously. I guess I have to give the breastfeeding some mad props.
Oh no...I really want to buy a better HRM and I THINK you just talked me into it...oh well...it's for my health right??? I always new the equipment was WAY off but I didn't realize THAT much!!!
Have fun at dancing and the opening tomorrow night! sounds like a blast!!!
you are HARDCORE! I love it!!
Oh man, I really want one of those now!
I love dancing, your so lucky to be able to try it! Thanks for hte gym run down, I often wonder what the real truth to what the machines say is.. I always think my garmin knows better than the machine after all it knows how old I am, that I'm a girl and it knows when I go up and down hills
hmmm, did you just talk me into this? Or do I want the GPS more? But I'm definately gonna get a gadget! So cool!
You'll drop those pounds no problem now that you know how hard you have to work out! you'll be so much more efficient!
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