The Single Best Tool for Burning Fat

March 7th, 2009

Every overweight person looking to get in shape should get one. Every serious athlete already has one. They give you insight you couldn’t find anywhere else, or substitute with anything else. In my own experience of loosing around 50 pounds I couldn’t think of anything that helped more. Five years ago they were impossible to get in my hometown and I had to order one from abroad. They’ve been around a while but have only really entered retail stores recently. What is this important tool?

Well, what it is isn’t important, what it does is. A heart rate monitor kit did more for my fitness than I would have ever thought possible, and for reasons I never would have imagined. Combined with the included exercise tracking software, the surprise benefits outweighed the obvious ones.

Surprise Benefits

• They make you aware of how lazy you actually are. A good heartrate monitor can upload your workout to your computer and display your exercises in a calendar. When you see it’s been 17 days since your last exercise, it’s a powerful reminder that you’ve been lazy and making excuses.
• They identify exercise breakdowns. The tracking calendar can help you identify what’s been stopping you from exercising. If you are supposed to exercise on Wednesday evenings but haven’t done so for weeks, you can explore what’s stopping you in that particular situation. Chances are it’s some little bad habit which can be easily fixed.
• They make it easy to notice beneficial trends. Looking through the calendar you can easily recognize the situations where you exercise hardest. Maybe it was with a friend, maybe it was in the mornings, maybe when you’re running instead of biking.
• They help you avoid injury. Whenever you get the ball rolling and consistently exercise, one of your biggest concerns should be avoiding injury. Nothing kills momentum like it. Maybe ending a routine on hillwork destroys your legs, maybe starting with it does. With the help of the calendar you’ll see which exercises and exercise patterns result in pain, so you know what to avoid.
• They challenge you to work harder. If you see your heart rate stayed at a measly 140 beats per minute (BPM) whilst using the elliptical, perhaps 160 BPM on the treadmill is a more productive use of your time. The monitor will help you find exercises that give the most gain for the least pain.
• They encourage you. When you see you used to run 10km in 90 minutes and now run it in 60, you’re efforts are vindicated and you’re encouraged to keep going.
• They teach you to understand your body. You may think you know what it feels like to be exhausted, but chances are you just know what it’s like to be lethargic. You can feel 100% spent and not be burning many calories at all. There are subtle nuances in bodily cues that you couldn’t identify without the training of a heart rate monitor.
• They’re cool! For the gadgetminded amongst us, these watches take techie to the next level. Sure some watches have a compass built in, but how many can tell you how efficient your lungs are at processing oxygen?

Selection

Back in the day, Polar Electro from Finland was the only real choice for fitness heart rate monitors. Now everyone from Nike to Timex is pumping them out. I have a soft spot in my heart for companies that focus on doing one thing really well and my Polar S410 has served me exceptionally, taking my abuse with good nature all these years. Midrange models are good so long as they upload to computer. Low end models that do not upload to your computer will forego the aforementioned benefits, so avoid them. While I usually encourage saving money, on my next Polar I will spend lavishly. It’s worth it. I say this with no connection to Polar whatsoever, other than my satisfaction with their product.

Surprisingly Effective

Let’s be honest. We all spend money on fitness equipment, gym memberships, diet food, et cetera, deceiving ourselves into thinking they’ll finally solve our fitness issues. I purchased my Polar heart rate monitor telling myself it would get me in shape, but not truly believing it. The shocker is that it not only lived up to my purchase justification, it drastically exceeded it and in ways I couldn’t have foreseen. For those seriously looking to get in shape and stay that way, I couldn’t recommend anything else as strongly.