Exercise, as I mentioned in my
'Small Changes' post, has helped me with mental clarity, and I've lost a small amount of weight. I feel the key to success and keeping track is monitoring, that goes for diet and exercise. This little device is called the Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor, and it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Why is measuring you heart rate beneficial, you may ask. I use to calculate how many calories I have burnt during my workout. The Polar FT4 does have other features, which I will show and talk about below, but the purpose of this review is mainly how well it measures calorie burn for me.
The heart rate monitor comes in two parts, the watch and the chest strap. You need both parts to successfully monitor and see your results. The wrist watch comes in different colours but of course I chose pink, and so it seems most of the girly fitness instagrammers I follow, have too.
The watch has an adjustable strap which has holes all the way round, this means it will fit any wrist. The digital face of the watch is easy to read and functions can be changed by pressing the silver buttons on the sides.
Downfall of this product mainly was the lack of instructions, I'd already found this out from Amazon reviews but figured I could work it out for myself. It asks you to input your information, such as, age, sex, height and weight to help work things out.
If you are not using the watch, just displays the date and time, meaning this has practical value as well as fitness monitoring. To start you must wet the chest strap lightly and place it under where your bra would sit. The monitor does not work unless the rubber piece inside of the band is wet. It was a little fabric hook on the right side, which you slot the fastener in. It is elasticated so would fit most people and I forget I have mine on, so it's comfortable.
To start you press the silver button on the right, that is in the middle. This brings up this start screen, you must then wait until it has tracked your resting heart beat, which is shown in the middle.
You then click the middle button again and this begins the recordings.
If you push either the top right, or bottom right buttons, you can flick between the screens that monitor different things. This one is showing my heart rate.
The next is the calories burned, this is the most important to me.
This screen is quiet useful as you can see what heart rate range you are in. My optimum range is 129-168 beats per minute.
This last screen is shown when you stop your workout, this is done by pressing the left bottom button. It usually says your duration and the calorie burn, but I took these photos while I wasn't exercising so they were clear.
Overall, I do think that the Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor is worth the money if you are a fitness freak or trying to loose weight. What I like about it is that I can then input my calorie burn into the FitnessPal app and it will accurately show me how many calories I have left.
What I also like this that its more accurate than the general machines at the gym, they only give an estimation. When I see how much I have burnt, it sometimes spurs me on and I'll stay at the gym an extra 10 or 15 minutes to reach a target.
What do I dislike about this product? Well, the only thing I wish this monitor had was a hook up to the computer, so you could track your progress. What I normally do it take pictures of the screen and save them to my phone and record on FitnessPal.
I got mine from Amazon, you can view them
here.
Have you used a heart rate monitor?
Tell me your favourite way to exercise in the comments.
Love Kat
xoxo
