The treadmill lies!

I have been an avid fitness enthusiast for I don't know how long.  Back in the day, I used to teach Turbo Kick, I have done Crossfit, spin classes, DailyBurn, Les Mills On Demand, etc... you name it I have done it.  Now, I am successfully rotating Les Mills On Demand BodyPump, Pure Barre at home DVDs, and treadmill HIIT training.  But, through it all, I have never monitored my heart rate or calorie burn.  I have based everything out on how hard did I sweat.  Isn't that sad?  I mean, my treadmill at home has an estimated calorie tracker and I figured that couldn't be THAT far off.

Beets Blu contacted me recently to try out two of their new Bluetooth products that I could syn with my iPhone.  One was their Beets Blu Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor and the other was their Bluethooth Key Finder.  I jumped at the chance so that I could see if there was ready an added benefit to the heart rate monitor.

Beets Blu Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor

Here are a few key things to note:

1. It is a chest strap, but extremely comfortable to wear.  I didn't even know I was wearing it.
2. It is integrated with several different fitness apps.  I synced mine to Endomondo where I track my runs.  And, I synced mine to MyFitnessPal, where I track my calories in/food.  
3. What I found was mind blowing.  

After a pre-heart rate monitor workout, the treadmill was saying I was burning, easily 500 calories in a 30-min HIIT workout.  Based on the same workout with my heart rate with the monitor, it was much lower.  

 Was I disappointed?  Sure, but it really helped put my food consumption in order.  See, after a workout, I was famished so I was grubbing out after a workout to refuel.  But, I wasn't refueling on the proper foods all the time and was indulging because, hey, I burned 500 calories.

Now, I am mindfully eating and adding protein to my snack (protein shake, protein bar, etc.) that is lower in calorie, sugar, fat, etc. so that I am not washing away what I just accomplished.

I have been successfully tracking my calories in and my calories out thanks to finally getting on the heart rate monitor bandwagon.  Beets Blue made it 500x easier since it was a Bluetooth and immediately got to working as soon as I pressed "go" to start my workout on my Endomondo app.
______

Beets Blu Bluetooth Key Finder

While getting to try their heart rate monitor out, I was also gifted the opportunity to try their Bluetooth Key Finder out.

I honestly didn't know if I would really benefit from it and then my toddler entered a phase of hiding things.  Ryan is now in love with hiding everything.  We find puzzle pieces behind the window blinds (weird, I know).  All of his trains will be in a straight line under the couch.  And mama's keys, ha!  That's a game I have to play every single morning now.

When I got it, it was very easy to set up.  It is very thin and light, I hooked it to my keyring, pressed the button, and opened it on an app in my iPhone.  From there, I decided to wait and test it in a real-time scenario.

The next morning, of course, my keys were gone and when I asked Ryan where they were, he just laughed.  What would normally take a good 5-10 minutes of searching took less than 2 minutes!  I pulled up my app on my phone and I heard the little beep under the couch :)

___

If you are interested in trying these products out, because I know you are, (and you should because they are so cool), they can be purchased and shipped very quickly on Amazon.

Beets Blu Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor

Beets Blu Bluetooth Key Finder

Disclosure: Beets Blu did provide me a discount to purchase the products so that I could try them out for a review.  This post is 100% my own thoughts based on my experience.


So do you use a heart rate monitor? How do you use yours?


xoxo,
Sherri