Why You Need a Heart Rate Monitor

By Terry Dunkle, DietPower Editor-in-Chief

Decades of study have show that the human body selectively burns fat when exercised hard enough to condition heart and lungs, but not enough to build muscles. Trainers call this the Target Zone.

Where is your Target Zone? It's the sweet spot between 60-percent and 85-percent of your maximum heart rate. If you keep your pulse there during workouts, you'll rapidly burn fat.

The problem is, you can't find your Target Zone without knowing your maximum heart rate. Worse, your maximum heart rate depends partly on the type of exercise you're doing. And even worse, your Zone changes as your fitness level rises.

The good news is that you can solve all three problems instantly with DietPower's new Target Zone Finder. I urge you to try it (and bookmark it) now. You won't find a better zone calculator anywhere. Ours considers not only your age (where most other calculators stop), but your resting heart rate, your choice of exercise, your training level, and even your sex. (Men's heart rates peak higher than women's.)

One problem remains, however. Suppose the Target Zone Finder has pegged your Zone for medium-intensity walking at 126 to 135 beats per minute. You're about to go out for a jaunt. How can you stay in your Zone? How can you monitor whether you're walking too slow or fast?

1. For $100 to $700, you can buy a fancy-schmancy heart-rate monitor to wear during workouts. A sensor in a chest strap radios your heart rate to a unit resembling a wristwatch, which beeps when you stray from the Zone. I tried one of these a few years ago. On the plus side, it helped me get rid of a lot of money. On the minus side, the strap drove me crazy. It was not only uncomfortable, but a nuisance to put on.
   
   
2. For absolutely zero dollars, you can use the monitor you already have: your wristwatch and two fingers. Check your heart rate every five or ten minutes by 1) stopping your workout, 2) pressing an index and middle finger into the crook of your jaw and neck to find your pulse, 3) counting heartbeats for six seconds, and 4) adding a zero. The downside is that you have to stop your workout each time you take a reading. This not only makes you look silly to passersby, but underestimates your heart rate because it begins slowing the moment you stop.
   
   
3. As a compromise, DietPower has begun offering heart-rate monitors that sit only on your wrist—they don't make you wear a chest strap. These newer models use the same technology as the electrocardiograph at your doctor's office. They're just as comfortable as a watch. (In fact, they are watches, complete with time of day, stopwatch, countdown timer, and alarm.) They let you take a reading without stopping your workout: you simply press a fingerpad and look at the screen. Two models even estimate the number of calories your workout has burned.

To see some of these heart-rate monitors, click the blue wristwatch above "Exercise in Your Target Zone" in the advertisements at right. I'm not necessarily urging you to buy one (I'm wearing my editor's hat, not my founder-and-CEO's), but I do recommend that you use something to make sure your workouts are helping you as much as they should be.