Running With A Heartrate Monitor.

RS100 Heartrate Monitor, $159 @ Polar Australia

 

It's the start of our seven-week countdown to Christmas and for day one, I decided to whip out the heartrate monitor. If you've never used one before, it's a nifty little gadget that straps on around your chest (invisible under a sports bra) and feeds your heart-rate info to you in a very profesh-looking watch. It's great for keeping track of exactly how hard you're working – whether you really are pushing your body as hard as it will go – and it keeps a very honest count of just how many calories you're burning. 

 

Weight loss is always going to come down to a simple equation – what you're putting in needs to be less than what your putting out – so it's well worth knowing just how much that sweat session has burned up. I don't use mine every time I work out – I find it becomes too intense as I'm constantly trying to one-up my last session (competitive, me?) – but it's a great tool to use to check your progress and give you a little reality check. I used it this morning and shaved a minute off my run. I don't quite know how but it seems knowing all my results will be there in black and white at the end of the run makes me move that much faster. We're off to a good start, folks.