“Heartless Monitor” - Lite Lesson Week Two by Devon Sasser

Devon will be documenting her experience as she goes through our body transformation package! Stay tuned for her results and story! Go Devon!!! This is her second "Lite Lesson"

I have a love/hate relationship with my heart rate monitor. I love it because it helps me maximize my workout, but hate it, because it has been a rocky start tracking my results.

My Guru (aka David Kimmerle) wanted me to wear the monitor to see how many calories I burned. Being technologically challenged, it took a good week before I realized I was pushing the wrong buttons which deleted my entire workout results. The second week I got the buttons right, but my results seemed weird. For instance, an entire 45-50 minute spin class only averaged around 300 calories burned. That outcome could not be correct; Bambi promised me I would burn between 500-700 calories!
Next, I was suppose to monitor my results for a whole day’s worth of activity, so I positioned that uncomfortable chest strap under my bra and wore it for the entire day. My chest strap must have moved sometime that evening, because I noticed that the display read zero after 15 hrs, and I only burned 1827 calories. I was getting pretty frustrated at this point and dubbed the gadget a Heartless Monitor for all the grief it was causing me.
Take two resulted in 2338 calories over 16 ½ hrs including a 45 minute spin class. I thought “that looks better” and promptly told David my results. He informed me that he wanted my results for a 24 hr period. Okay, Okay, on my third attempt, the monitor produced 3448 calories burned within 23 hrs 30 minutes (30 mins off for a shower), which included two back to back workouts of pilates and spin.
“Gotcha” I shouted, this should be good, so I decided to take the next day off from exercise to compare calories burned with exercise and without exercise.
Results: 3045 calories burned; what? You mean to tell me that doing almost 2 hrs of spin and pilates classes only resulted in a difference of 400 calories burned? I cried to Bambi, and she assured me that those numbers couldn’t be correct. She fiddled with the adjustments, and even mentioned that I might want to look into investing in a new one.
Since then I have been doing a lot of research about heart rate monitors and training zones to determine how to achieve my goals.
I always heard that you burned a higher proportion of calories from fat during low-intensity exercise at longer periods of time. This concept never made sense to me. Shouldn’t calories burned at any intensity level still be calories burned? I finally found an article that agreed with me. According to this article the reality is that you do burn a higher proportion of calories from fat during low-intensity exercise...but, you burn more total calories during high-intensity exercise. So I was half right, regardless, I am concerned with total calories burned when it comes to my weight loss, not the percentage of fat or carbs used. Great, now, I just need to find a heart rate monitor that accurately tracks calories burned, so I am on a quest for an upgrade.
While researching, I have seen a lot of brands and models. It looks like Polar, Garmin, and Timex are among the most popular, but don’t count out other brands if they have the features on your “wish list”. All models come in what I call a Honda “Civic Model” and an “Accord Model” (one that is more basic, and one with a little more). Also, there are a lot more models in between and ones designed for particular sports training such as cycling, ironman training, and running. In addition, there are wireless devices where you don’t need a chest strap, not to mention, with the new smartphone craze, there are numerous apps that integrate the monitor with your phone.
I didn’t really want a wireless model; because everything I read said that a chest strap and wrist monitor are more accurate. But for all you tekkies, the apps are cool and help track all your information, results, and compare workouts with graphs, etc. right on your phone. The non-app devices also have the capability to do those things, but you have to upload the information into tracking software usually supplied from the company and track results online (i.e. polarpersonaltrainer.com).
So, have I found the perfect fit for myself and my training needs? The jury is still out but I do know I want the following in a device:
Nothing too top of the line, as I am not a professional athlete and some of the features would be underutilized.
It must show my heart rate ranges in zones 1-5 (1 being the easiest and 5 being maximum), since Cyclelates is trying to incorporate “Zone Training” into more of their rides.
The option to upload my information and track results. Hey, I am not a tekkie, but I am a math geek (accountant by day), so I like all the charts and graphs.
The option to be used as a stopwatch and possibly GPS enabled, which would be useful if I trained again for another race event.
And last but not least, it must be appealing and sporty looking. I am still a female after all.
I will definitely let you know when I pick the winner. And despite all the headaches in the beginning, it is a handy tool to have in order to take your workouts to the next level, so think about investing. Come on, this is Hollywood, CA; anyone who is anyone has one.

Devon Sasser resides in North Hollywood with her mother and fur roommates. She considers herself a recovering pessimist, and her favorite pastimes include cynicism, smart arse remarks, and telling funny stories.