The rate at which you burn calories bears a direct relationship to your heart rate. This means that you can use your heart rate and other factors to calculate your calorie expenditure. This calculation is most accurate when your heart rate is within the range of 90 to 150 beats per minute. Your calorie expenditure during exercise allows you to determine the amount of exercise you need to meet your weight loss goals.
Step 1
Weigh yourself with a bathroom scale to obtain your weight in pounds. Let your weight be 156 lbs. in this example.
Step 2
Wear your heart monitor and begin your exercise routine. Start your heart rate recorder once your heart rate increases to 90 beats per minute. Speed up or slow down as needed to keep your heart rate within the target range of 90 to 150 bpm. Stop the heart rate recorder once you complete your exercise routine.
This will provide your average heart rate during the exercise session and the duration of that session. Let your average heart rate be 136 bpm, and let the duration of the exercise session be 34 minutes.
Step 3
Compute the calorie expenditure for females with the following equation from the Journal of Sports Sciences: [(0.4472 x heart rate) + (0.0574 x weight) + (0.074 x age) -- 20.4022] x time / 4.184. This equation requires your heart rate in units of bpm, your weight in pounds, your age in years and the time of your exercise session in minutes.
Assume you are a 29-year-old female for this example. You burned [(0.4472 x 136) + (0.0574 x 156) + (0.074 x 29) -- 20.4022] x 34 / 4.184 = 419 calories during the exercise session.
Step 4
Calculate the calorie expenditure for males with the following equation from the Journal of Sports Sciences: [(0.6309 x heart rate) + (0.09036 x weight) + (0.2017 x age) -- 55.0969] x time / 4.184. This equation requires your heart rate in units of bpm, your weight in pounds, your age in years and the time of your exercise session in minutes.
Assume you are a 35-year-old male for this example. You burned [(0.6309 x 136) + (0.09036 x 156) + (0.2017 x 35) -- 55.0969] x 34 / 4.184 = 421 calories during the exercise session.
Things You'll Need
- Bathroom scale
- Heart monitor
- Calculator
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