I have been known to wear a calorie counter while leading classes and, as incentive, will tell the class how many calories we have burned or set a goal to burn a certain amount in our 50 minutes.  Sometimes we are SO pleasanatly surprised!!  And, what I think is best of all, within the hour the counter continues to show even more calories being burned (all thanks to interval training!)  Sometimes, however, the number is not so pleasant.  Sometimes it doesn't really seem consistent with how hard we feel we are working.  That leads me to the question:  How reliable are these handy little tools?

When I first began wearing a heart rate monitor/calorie counter I wore the Polar brand with the strap around the chest to measure the heart rate and the watch on the arm which worked along with the strap.  I loved seeing my heart rate climb and the calories add up during a spinning class!  Recently, I have been wearing a Sportsline brand that is the wristwatch type only - no strap required.  Therefore, I basically wear it ALL the time like a normal watch.  (I can track calories burned throughout the entire day).  I had been told that this device was much more accurate than the calorie counters found in exercise machines.   The following is what my research brought to light.

First of all, I will address the calorie calculators found in most exercise equipment found in gyms.  ABC15.com presented an article on this subject where they put the machines to the test.  They put an investigator, Joe Ducey, through a V02 test (which is the most accurate test known for measuring exactly how many calories are burned doing an activity.)  They had him perform a ten minute walk on a treadmill.  Using the V02 measure he burned 60 calories.  He then walked on the treadmill for 10 minutes using the treadmill's calorie counter.  It showed he burned 57 calories.  The difference was only 3 calories - or five percent difference.  I can live with that difference!  That being said, you do have to keep in mind that the gym equipment is programmed with a textbook equation and "we all differ how we metabolize calories when we're doing exercise."

The same investigator performed the tests on a Stairmaster machine and  stationary bike.  Both machines underestimated the amount of calories burned.  I personally found this interesting as I have always assumed that the machines would OVER estimate the amount of calories burned.  Either way, I think the exerciser needs to realize the  number is a ballpark figure as each person is different and exercises differently.

"Treadmills, ellipticals, stationary cycles and similar units display two   metrics. . . . The displays of heart rate, speed and distance are straightforward and fairly accurate. . . But the calorie counter is crafted to reflect the burn of an average exerciser, not you in particular, and thus it could be off by a bit."  The Washington Post; Lies, Damn Lies and Calorie Counters.  

Now, as far as personal calorie counters, I use a Sportline heart rate monitor that has touch sensors on the watch face. Others may have a wireless chest transmtter.  This particular company has various devices ranging from $60 - $120.  Just as with the machines, the calorie counters give a rough estimate of the number of calories you burn during a workout. Some can have a margin of error of 20%.  There are so many variables that are considered in determining the amount of calories burned for each individual.   Many factors affect your caloric expenditure, and a pedometer or heart rate monitor cannot calculate some of these factors, such as body composition or metabolism rate. 


An article in www.livestrong.com on this subject states, the "more personal information you input into the device, such as your weight, age and gender, the more accurate the calorie information will be. Even if the numbers aren't exact, you can use them in relation to each other. You burn 200 calories in Monday's workout and only 150 calories in Wednesday's workout. If the length and style of the workouts were the same, you did not work as intensely on Wednesday."  I say that does make sense.  I think other considerations are how you feel on that given day, how much sleep you had, what you had to eat the evening before or the hour before your workout.  Lots of things can contribute to varying numbers, but, all in all, I think the ballpark range is great information to have.  I don't want my day (or anyone else's) to revolve around calories!  If you ARE trying to drop a few pounds, though, this knowledge is helpful, as we all know it comes down to calories in versus calories out!  The types of personal devices that contain heart rate monitors are also helpful in making sure you are actually working hard enough to get your heart rate up, and also make sure you are not overdoing it by allowing it to get too high. 

So, long story short, it seems that the calorie counters are reliable enough.  They are a great tool for looking at one workout in relation to another and are a reminder to make us work just a little harder at times!  

Do you wear a calorie counter?  What do you think about the numbers?

Some days it truly is difficult to fit in a real workout!  Saturdays are normally crazy busy with three boys and their sports schedules so I have to get pretty creative about carving out that "me" time to exercise.  Yesterday I was mostly housebound caring for my oldest son following knee surgery and I just wasn't up to a basement elliptical cardio session. Being home forced me to focus on the home and getting LOTS done around here.  I spent the day running up and down stairs getting this and that for the injured one, completed six loads of laundry, cleaned the windows and glass around that showed doggie and boy prints, used tons of elbow grease on the white door facing and jams that tend to gather all sorts of marks and stains, planted pots, cleaned off the deck and garage, cleaned out two closets . . and the list continues.  I was far too tired by the afternoon to think of running!  That made me consider the "non-exercise" exercise we get throughout the day that truly benefits our well-being.  AND, it has a name. . . it's called NEAT.  What is that, you may ask.  Well, here goes.

It is Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  First, thermogenesis is fat burning. NEAT is fat-burning or calorie burning that is not related to a typical planned exercise, such as a gym workout, aerobics class, run, bike ride, etc.  It can be any activity specifically done to expend energy.  A  non-exercise thermogenic activity burns fat and is usually classified as necessary labor, not exercise, that still burns calories.  Therefore, it is the things we DO when we are not sitting on our bottoms.

In the past, most everyone stayed healthy and lean by just going about their normal everyday activities and chores.  However, in this day and age elevators have replaced the use of stairs, leaf blowers have replaced the need for rakes, dishwashers replace the act of manually washing dishes, cars replace biking and walking and the computer  and email have drastically reduced the amount of activity in our normal day.  According to researcher Dr. James Levine the NEAT activities account for “100-200 kcal/day (kcal is the same as calorie); a caloric deficit that potentially could account for the entire obesity epidemic.”  Levine is a doctor from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota who has studied the rold NEAT plays in metabolism.  He determines that folks who tap their feet, fidget, walk while on the phone and such burn up to 350 more calories a day than others who sit still.  (That adds up to 37 pounds in a year!) 

In fact, research shows that the majority of the calories we burn are actually from NEAT and not from our hard earned workouts!  Here is the example: a 180-pound adult who burns 2500 ocalories per day and runs five miles daily (at a six minute per mile pace) is burning 750 calories at each running session, according to the Health Discovery Calorie Counter, but the majority of energy that the individual expends (the remaining 1750 calories) are from NEAT activities.   Hmmm. . . 

The basic metabolic rate (BMR) can even be interpreted as NEAT activities of the body systems. Breathing, digestion, maintaining heartbeat and blood flow are non-exercise activities inside of the body that consume Calories. The Mayo Clinic article "Metabolism and Weight Loss: How you Burn Calories" explains that "Your basal metabolic rate accounts for about 60 to 75 percent of the calories you burn every day."  Therefore, non-exercise activities account for a large amount of calories burned. 
However, please don't read this as a reason to give up your exercise routine or as a reason to not begin one!

This is just another factor to be considered and gives us a reason to think about non-exercise activities and to think about the effort involved in standing up and walking to the television to change the channel compared to sitting and clicking a remote, actually getting up and taking a walk rather than watching TV!

According to Levine, the average individual misses dozens of opportunities to engage in such mundane exercises and the obesity epidemic is the result. So, we can all think of ways to use NEAT in our daily routines.  Simple measures like washing dishes, using the stairs, parking farther away from the entrance at the grocery store, mowing grass, standing while talking on the phone and when possible, walking to the bank, drugstore or other feasible errand.

I'll bet you can think of someone who doesn't partake in a lot of traditional exercise, but always seems healthy and trim and always seems to be moving -now you know how they stay slim!  Therefore, after a little bit of research I didn't feel quite so bad about skipping a traditional workout yesterday.
I think I'll cut the grass tomorrow. . . 

WHAT ARE SOME THINGS YOU DO TO STAY ACTIVE OUTSIDE OF TRADITIONAL EXERCISE ROUTINES?


References:
Levine, James. “Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.” Mayo Clinic. 2010