Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Exercise and Heart Rate Monitors

Borrowed from the movie Field of Dreams, "If you do it, the weight loss will come."  While that's not always true, its sure not going to put weight on you.  I feel walking is the easiest thing to get started with.  No one is so busy they cant take 30 mins out of their day and go for a walk.  You only get a 15 min break at work, walk it.  Just do something to get your heart rate elevated a little.  No way I could have lost the weight I have without exercise.  If you ask any coach I've had my entire life, runner is not a word that would come out of their mouth.  I hit balls over 400 feet and still almost got thrown out.  I can honestly say I enjoy exercise.  I take my 2 boys out in the stroller and cruise the neighborhood.   Sometimes I even get to go for walks on my own!  Crazy I know!  It's just nice to get out of the house, enjoy the fresh smog, and burn off some stress.  I'm not saying go out and do a marathon, but 30 mins of walking can burn upwards of 175+ calories.  While pushing my boys when I was around 300 lbs, I could burn 300-350 calories in 30 mins.  I added a few hills in there from time to time to up the intensity.  How did I know it was 300-350?  I use a Heart Rate Monitor.

HRM for short can be a watch or a chest strap with a gizmo on it.  There are many designs but they are all intended to monitor your heart rate.  I use a Polar FT7 HRM with a chest strap.  It lets me know in real time what my current heart rate is and how many calories I'm burning (plus some other crap).  If you are serious about exercise, I highly recommend getting a HRM.  This way it takes all the guessing out of how many calories you burned.  I'm not going to go into details on them but they can get super fancy.  Some are Bluetooth ready where they can connect to your smart phone.  I purchased mine in month 2 and it made recording my burn 1000 times easier.  I purchased mine at Best Buy but I've seen them at Wal-Mart, Sears, Dicks Sporting Goods, etc.  You could probably get online and find a better deal then the store.  

Note:  I am not a doctor nor play one on TV.  These are my opinions and mine only so please use my advice with caution.  This might be the only blog that comes with a warning label.

6 comments:

  1. Found your link through MFP(sds76), wow what an inspiration. I have just started my journey and like you I expected lose maybe 5-8lbs the first month but when the scale showed me a loss of 19lbs I knew I could do this. Thanks for posting, people out there like me need to here from people like you.

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  2. Thanks momma! Its that first taste of success that had me hooked. Well I plenty of post still to go, so please stick around and enjoy the party.

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  3. Just read up on your blog. Great inspiration :)

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  4. I invested in a Polar FT4 and I am so glad I did. At first I was wondering if the chest strap would be uncomfortable but honestly I dont even know its there once I start exercising.

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    1. I thought the same thing. I'm supposed to wear this? Thank god it was an elastic strap. I needed it.

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