My New Toy

Now nothing can stop me! I just got my Timex Digital Heart Rate Monitor in the mail. It is wonderful! After digging up some reviews on the internet and asking some friends, I have found my newest essential work out tool. For those of you who might not be familiar, a heart rate monitor (HRM) is a device that allows you to measure your heart rate in real time. It comes with a strap that you secure around your sternum. That is the part that measures your beats per minute. It then transmits the information to your watch. I can time my workout, see what my highest and lowest heart rates were during the workout, and even how many calories I burned.

With my heart rate monitor I completed a fitness test that showed me what my maximum heart rate is. Then I learned about 5 "zones" in which I can workout. The levels are different percentages of your maximum heart rate. For example the level 1 zone is the least strenuous. Your don't burn as many calories. Zone 5 will push you closer to your maximum heart rate. For the best fitness results, it is best to workout in the different zones throughout the week.

I am really excited about my new "toy". I have been logging calories according to what different websites and fitness programs say. I am always curious as to whether the cardio calories that I'm logging are accurate. Now I don't have to wonder :) This is perfect because myfitnesspal.com, which is the online service I use to log calories, urges users to eat the calories they burn. I don't want to log too many calories because I don't want to eat calories that I didn't burn. I also don't want to log too few calories and not get credit for the hard workout ;)