Fab Find: The Polar F^ Heart Rate Monitor

First off, I have to say how proud of myself that I am.  I started exercising again in October and have stuck with it for seven whole months!!!  (Pat on the back for me!)  For my birthday, B got me this awesome heart rate monitor by Polar USA, the F6.  So simple to use, I just strap a monitor around my chest and strap a watch to my wrist each time I work out.  I went the sensor on the monitor down, click the button on the side of the watch a few times and it monitors my heart rate throughout my workout.  But it not only monitors my heart rate, it calculates how many calories I have burned – which is awesome when it gets nice and you can be outside again!  I have found that certain things that I didn’t think would burn much, actually burn much more and certain things don’t burn as much as you thought they did!  I have also figured out that the calorie counters on the machines at the gym?  Yeah, not accurate at all.

When you first get your monitor, you enter in a bunch of information about yourself, height, weight, age – everything.  Then that information paired with your heart rate determines how many calories you have burned during exercise.  (Machines at the gym do not take into account your height and your heart rate when calculating how many calories you have burned, thus its inaccuracy.)

B got my monitor off of eBay for about $90.  A little pricy, but these things can get up to $500.  If you want to get really into it, you can download your information from your watch to your PC and track your progress.  (I am not that into it… yet.)  When I first got it, I wasn’t sure how much I’d actually use it, but I have actually found that it encourages me to work out more because I want my calorie burn to be higher!  Totally recommend this for every one!