Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor Review

I got the Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor for my Birthday in April so I guess it's about time I did my review.  There are more features on it then I actually use or know anything about.  I can't help you out by breaking down all the features because honestly, I'm sure I don't know what all of them are but the main take away here is that if I can figure this thing out well enough to calculate my calories during work outs then so can you.

The first Heart Rate Monitor I ever had was a Mio strapless.  I'd heard that the ones with chest straps are more accurate but I was afraid of the strap. I was worried that it would be uncomfortable, bulky and a pain in the butt to put on.  I couldn't even find pictures of what it looked like.  It so turns out that having to hold down a button to test my heart rate every 15 minutes is more of a pain in the butt then any chest strap could ever be.  The strapless totally interrupted my work out.  Sometimes I couldn't get it to read my heart rate at all and other times I would get a very obviously inaccurate reading which would totally ruin my calorie count for the entire work out.  It's inconsistent.  I wore the Polar and the Mio at the same time for a few days to test the difference. The majority of the time that I had the Mio it was grossly over calculating but then for some reason all my settings got erased after I got the Polar and after I re entered them then it started grossly under calculating.   

Chest Strap // HRM calorie burn = 543 // Machine calorie burn = 598

Do not be afraid of the strap.  It's not uncomfortable at all.  I mean, if I was going to sleep I wouldn't want to wear it but I'm going to move and sweat.  It feels the same as the elastic on the bottom of my sports bras and sits just under it.  If I'm wearing a very fitted top and you look real close you might see a small bulge but for the most part it's not very noticeable.  I run my fingers under the faucet while im already wearing the strap and then stick them under the strap to wet it. It's not weird or gross like I thought it would be. The unit that measures my heart rate snaps on and off of the chest strap so I can easily wash the strap.  The directions tell you to put it in the washer about every 5th wear so I rinse it with soap and water after work outs and let it dry out.  The functions on the watch are pretty simple to navigate and the set up was easy.  I can pause it mid work out if I need to.   The  numbers on the watch are big which is helpful for practically blind people like me.  I  can push a button to scroll between heart rate, calories burned and duration very easily as I work out.  It determines your target heart range based on your input and will tell you when you are out of range.  There is some beeping that goes on that I haven't totally figured out yet but I think it has to do with that.  And you will get the beep of doom if your strap becomes disconnected from your body and stops reading.  Trust me, you will know this one when you hear it.  It's only happened a few times.  Without me having to do a thing if I'm working out on a machine at the gym it syncs and my heart rate show up on the machine like magic.  I didn't even know that was a feature. It also wishes you a Happy Birthday with a Birthday cake on your birthday.  How sweet is that? And of course I love it that it comes in Pink.


I knew that machines over calculate calories even when you enter your age and weight and now I know exactly how much.  The average is about 55 calories over what I'm actually burning based on the Polar.  It's nice to have a number that I can rely on to be accurate.  I count the calories that go in and I like to count the ones I burn too.

Guilty Pleasures

Linking up with Leslie @A Blonde Ambition

Warm Chocolate Molten Lava cake with Ice Cream.

Chocolate for Breakfast.

Eating an entire medium Pizza.  I actually did this on our 2nd date.  Way to impress him right?

Doughnut run at 9 O'clock at night. To my credit my husband is usually the instigator although I happily partake.

Eating Doritos right out of the bag without regard to serving size while sitting on the couch watching TV.  Not that a Dorito's bag has graced our home in a looooong time.  For obvious reasons.

Drinking that extra glass of wine..or two because I want to get tipsy...but not drunk.

5 Splendas in my coffee because I don't want to use "real" sugar and it makes it taste good.  Almost everything causes cancers these days.  I'll take my chances.

Eating a cookie every time a fresh batch comes out of the oven because there are only so many opportunities for that warm gooey freshly baked cookie experience.  Gotta take advantage of it.

Strawberry Twizzlers and Red Vines.  The King size bags.

Leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight in favor of extra cuddles on the couch before bedtime.

Staying in pajamas on the couch and watching TV all day.

Mid afternoon naps just because.

Sitting on the couch watching House Hunters while he slaves away in the kitchen making dinner.  He's just so much better at it then me.  And he likes it.

Skipping my work out.  I always feel guilty later on but in that particular moment that you decide not to put on your gym clothes and get all sweaty it feels great.

Sleeping in past 10am.   The guilt point used to be 12pm but I haven't been able to sleep in that late in years.

Running to Express or The Limited every time they send me a coupon because you just can't beat $15 off $30 minimum purchase.

Buying that shirt in both colors because it's just so darn cute.  Then, suddenly feeling an insatiable urge to buy shoes too.

Saying screw it and letting the house work go undone for another week.

Reality TV full of gossip and scandal.  It's taking every ounce of strength I have NOT to watch Pretty Wicked Wives on Lifetime.

Staring out the window at work thinking about what I wish I was doing instead long enough to forget what I was actually supposed to be doing.

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Shredding and Writing

The home key on my iPhone is not working.  I literally have to turn my phone off and back on again every time I need to navigate to a different area.  No bueno.  I'll be spending my lunch break at the genius bar. 

Last weekend was exactly the kind of weekend I was hoping for. I wasn't going to blog about it because I didn't really DO much of anything but then I thought about it. Maybe I didn't DO anything but it was still a great weekend in my book if not exciting, so why not?  Allow me to bore you with the details.

Saturday morning I woke up and did the 30 Day Shred first thing.  It was my first day of Level 3.  If I don't knock it out of the way in the morning it's not going to happen.  After that I headed straight to my favorite coffee shop for writing, Cosmo's Cafe.  I'm so glad I discovered this little gem.  It's in the downtown part of this cute little town near our house.  The prices are good and the refills are cheap.  There is plenty of seating with outlets for laptop chargers and plenty of room to spread out.  It's just got this really relaxing vibe to it that makes me feel right at home and allows me to focus.  They have these gluten free oat bars that are made by some local bakery that you can't get anywhere else.  I get all disappointed if they run out but they were fully stocked so I bought a giant coffee to go with it and settled down to write.  I was feeling bummed out because I didn't think I got much work done last month.  I started at the very beginning and cleaned house with edits and changes.  When your book is over 60,000 words it takes a loooong time to go through.  It's like reading a book.  Duh, 'cause I'm writing a book.  It turns out that with all that editing I actually added on about 13 more pages so I was still on track.  I finished reading through to the end from where I left on then started writing new pages.  When I hit a wall I left and went home.  That night we made dinner together and watched Side Effects. 

Sunday morning and guess what?  30 Day Shred. I was thinking about going back to Cosmo's because my creative juices were still flowing and I wanted to get more done but I didn't want to leave the house.  Lately, I haven't been able to write at home because I'm to distracted.  I put Pandora on the Classical Music for Studying Station; yes that's exactly what it's called! I sat there at the dining room table with my lap top and got a lot done.  Maybe I can write at home.  I watched a random foreign film on Netflix complete with French subtitles about 17 French high school girls who round up baby daddy's wherever they can find 'em and intentionally get pregnant at the same time.  I said it was random! I took a nap that afternoon because, you know I literally wore myself out doing almost nothing.  There wasn't a whole lot of TV watching going on because my DVR is finally empty.  I'm glad, but still not 100% sure how I feel about that.  I felt lost when I hit List and there was nothing there but at the same time it's nice for TV watching not to feel like a chore.  That night we watched Snitch and ate Carne Asada filled Mexican food from our favorite taco shop.

I didn't leave the house at all Sunday.  I was basically a pajama wearing shut in.  The best part is that I didn't feel guilty at all because I was at least somewhat productive with the exercise and writing.  If we had kids I'm betting almost none of that would have happened.  Which is just one of the reasons that we don't have any.

Productive.  Relaxing.  Pajamas.  Just what I needed.

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Friday Randoms

SUMMER or lack thereof
Well hello there Friday. Nice of you to make an appearance! This week seemed to last forever but it kind of feels like every week is that way right now. Like, the sunnier and warmer it gets outside and the more what I'm doing for summer vacation posts I read the longer the work days seem to get.  And I am having serious issues with focusing.  My attention span is shot.  I'd rather be outside enjoying the longer days then sitting in an air conditioned office.  Not that summer vacation actually exists for me.  Our weather is mostly awesome year round, I don't have kids out of school and I still go to work every day.  The concept of Summer is really nice but nothing much really changes around these parts.  At least not for me.

I found this cute striped maxi at Papaya for $12.99 // Link

SHOPPED OUT
I'm so over shopping right now.  Thank goodness!  I don't know how long it will last but I'm thrilled.  I've been on a shopping frenzy over the last year and I think I have finally beefed up my wardrobe enough to the point where I have options that I really like when I get dressed.   I still haven't even worn a lot of it because I'm weird like that and like to hold onto those I have new clothes to wear moments for as long as possible.  I don't feel driven to be out buying anything and this is a very good thing for my bank account.  I was getting tired of the spending and it was really starting to feel really excessive.  Now I can save more.  BUT, I wanted a maxi dress.  They will be perfect for our Maui trip in December and I knew if I waited they'd be out of season and I'd never find them in stores.  I went on a find a maxi dress mission and found three.  It was exhausting.  It's kind of hard to shop when you are kind of over shopping.  I've never owned a Maxi but I've been seeing everyone else in them.  Fashion bloggers are posting them left and right so they must be cool and they look so comfortable that even though I'm not a "dress" person I wanted one.  Or three.  Wonder how long it will take before I actually wear it or model it on my blog.

THE ELLIPTICAL
I haven't been going to the gym lately.  I've been doing the 30 day shred almost every day at home instead, but on Tuesday I decided to skip out on Jillian for an elliptical session at the gym.  Oddly, I kind of missed it.  Don't ever let anyone tell you that the Elliptical is not a good work out!  Before I started the shred I was doing the elliptical every week for 30-60 minutes.  This has been going on for years and had become routine.  It had almost started to seem easy.  But after a month off I did the elliptical for an hour and it was so HARD! Even at the half way point I was about to die and I was thinking to myself how did I do this every single week?  I about fell off when my hour was up, I burned 570 calories and even after three weeks with Jillian my legs were tired and fatigued for the rest of the night.  Well, I guess that's why they say you are supposed to mix up your exercise routine.  When your body gets used to it then it becomes routine, starts to feel easy and you aren't getting as much benefit out of it.  Yes, Mj you were right! He's been telling me I needed to switch things up for a while now but I wouldn't listen.  I do the elliptical on the interval setting and it's nice to throw in there because it's low impact on my old lady knees.  So maybe it shouldn't be your ONLY work out but it is definitely a good cardio work out.

THE WEEKEND
This weekend we have nothing planned.  Not a single thing.  It seems like the first weekend this has happened in a while and I'm glad.  I don't even have to clean the house.  I'm caught up on my DVR so now I'm like, well what am I going to do?  There will be a lot of sitting on the couch and of course Jillian but I plan on doing at least one productive thing.  I should be able to handle that.

Have a nice weekend!!! 

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Thermostat Wars: Him vs Me

When it gets warmer outside it gets warmer inside and when it gets warmer inside the AC goes on. And when the AC goes on so begins the AC wars. I'm always cold. He's always hot. So you can imagine the kind of battles we have in our household.   When we first moved into our house he thought it was cool to have the thermostat running on low all day long.  I was skeptical (and cold) but I didn't argue.  Some theory about your bill being lower if you just keep it cool so that the system doesn't have to work so hard cooling it down after it gets too warm.  Our electric bill told a different story so we don't do that anymore.  That theory is bunk as far as I'm concerned.

This is what Air Conditioning can do to you

But every year the minute the weather starts warming up his first instinct is to run to the thermostat and crank it down to arctic freeze.  I know it's warmer now, but do we really want our electric bill to double?  He literally wants to freeze me out of  house and home.  I complain and reach for my granny robe even though it's almost Summer and 90 degrees outside.  We take turns turning it up and down on each other.  In my book anything below 74 is ridiculous unless I'm working out and leaving it that low overnight is way too cold AND expensive when a fan can do the job.  Or an open window.  Either way, I often find myself going to bed in a cute nightie and waking up looking like a bag lady as I blindly reach for more clothes to put on throughout the night.  After a year of seasons in our house I figured out in general when it should come on and off and at what temperature.  We aren't always home on weekends so it's set really high or really low depending on the season so it doesn't come on unless we adjust it so it's not running all day in case we forget to turn it off.  He better not mess with my thermostat settings but I can't do anything about him sneaking over there before bed and putting it on whatever he wants to.  

He does the same thing but in reverse when it starts to get cold.  As soon as it starts getting chilly in the house he goes for broke and starts cranking up the heat except this time he's the one complaining about being too cold.   I tell him to put on more clothes.  If you can put on some pants and a robe and not be cold then do that first before costing us money by running over to the thermostat says the bag lady.  I mean, that's what I do.  If I have to be a bag lady then he can be a bag man every now and then.

My dad is the exact same way only 10x worse and he absolutely refuses to listen to reason.  He turns on the heat full blast until the house is a sauna and my mom is always the one who has to turn it off.  What is it with men and their thermostat?  Or is it just that I'm cheap?  Probably a little bit of both.  When I lived alone in my condo I had one of those built in Electric AC Units that sit right below the window.  There were times I'd literally be sitting up in my house sweating because I didn't want to use it.  Mj does not believe in suffering when he doesn't have to so he places comfort over budget every time.  I on the other hand am a glutton for punishment.  If it will save me money I'm willing to suffer a little bit.

The good news is that once we settle into the new climate he tends to back off a little and let my strategically planned thermostat settings do it's thing.  I'm cold, he's hot, I put on more clothes, he has to take some off.  We figure it out.  It's just one more training exercise in compromise.

Linking up with Shanna for Random Wednesday.

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The 4th, Etc

Sister's

The Fourth was great. My little sister was in town from San Francisco so our whole family was together hanging out at the rent's house.  We relaxed and ate some good old fashioned diet busting holiday food.  You know, the usual hamburgers, hotdogs, baked beans and a whole bunch of other stuff even though my mom claimed she wasn't making that much food.  My dad disappeared for a minute and somehow Mj ended up on grill duty.  It was a lovely day.  Then I went to work the next day and it totally sucked.  We didn't leave until about 9:30pm which means I didn't get home until around 10:15pm which means I didn't get to bed until about 11pm.  Which means that I was not a happy camper on Friday. 

Mj workin' it on the grill

Dad and Big Sis

Little Sis and Mom

My nephew was obsessed with the new train track and the bubbles around his neck

My little sis made the delicious Bruschetta // I can never get enough cheese!

I was so jealous that Mj was sound asleep while  I was trudging off to work.  My body was there but my mind was having an out of body experience. And how did so many bloggers already have their what I did for the 4th of July posts up that morning? How? When? Work was deserted so at least hardly anybody saw me looking like road kill. I did not want to be there and it was awful.  That's what I get for hoarding my vacation days and insisting on coming in until 2pm instead of just taking the whole day off.

Me and my beautiful sisters

Thank goodness I left early to meet up with my sisters.  I had to try really, really hard to pep myself up.  Once we made it to our happy hour spot and I was half way through a glass of wine I was good.  We had a really fun time.  It makes me sad that this will be the last time that the three of us are in the same city for a long time.

Chillin' at the winery

Saturday morning I did my work out. 30 Day Shred. Ugh! I cleaned house. Ugh! Then we went to breakfast and wine tasting. Yeah! Another Groupon date. It was our first time at Bernardo Winery but I'm already planning on going back.  Wineries are so amazingly relaxing and calming.  There is all this beautiful greenery and everyone is walking around with a glass of wine eating cheese, bread and chocolate.  It's the best.  I wish the winery was our backyard and I really want to do a Napa wine tasting vacation so I can be at a winery every single day. We did our tastings then spent a few hours on the blanket enjoying the perfect weather.   I closed my eyes and enjoyed the cool breeze on my face and the sounds of birds and trees blowing in the wind.   Heavenly! I did not want to leave. 

My little sister ended up staying one more night. Her flight got delayed because of the SFO plane crash. I still can't believe that happened. They say the odds of it ever happening to you are slim to none, and yet. It happens. I'm still booking my airfare for Maui but when I hear about things like this I can't help but wonder. 

Can I just live at the Winery?

Going to work on Friday was the death of my 4 day weekend, but I still got my fun in.  Next year it falls on a Friday so we won't have to worry about getting gypped.