I'm starting Insanity today and am curious how others track it on their exercise diary. I don't have a HRM so is there anyway to do it without that? Thanks!!

anyone???

Hey there. I just started Insanity too. Totally a killer, but it's awesome. I don't have a HRM and without one unfortunately, no, there isn't an exact way to know how many calories you've burned. I'm using "circuit training" as my indicator for it, it estimates how many you've burned when you enter it into your diary, but take that with a grain of salt I guess, knowing how touch insanity is, depending on how hard you go at it, it could be higher than that. Hope this helps.

I use a heart rate monitor....actually bought on just for that :) You can get ones for a decent price, if you wanted. Other than that I know some people list it under - strength- calisthenics - vigorous effort!! :)

This from http://www.calorie-blog.com/2011/05/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-doing.html

"Some people have reported burning 300 calories an hour for some of the Insanity workouts while others have burned as much as 800 or more. The average amount of calories burned per workout over the course of the Total Insanity workout routine is around 650 calories per DVD. If you are overweight your total calories burned using Insanity could be up to 200 more than the average. If you are very thin then your total calories burned using Insanity could be up to 200 calories less than average. The higher your intensity during your workouts the higher number of calories you will burn. Also some of the Insanity workouts are not as intense or as long as others. So you must average them out over the course of your workout week. Some of the maximum intensity Insanity workouts may burn up to 1000 calories an hour while others more in the 400-500 range. So be sure you take the average over the week to find out what kind of calorie deficit you are creating.

The only way to know for sure how many calories you burn doing insanity is to buy a heart rate monitor that also tracks the amount of calories you burn. You can pick one of these up at your local Wal Mart or fitness store for fairly cheap."

Sorry I can't help you - I'm new to all of this. :) I have a similar question: Any ideas of how to record Jillian Michaels workouts in the exercise log without a heart rate monitor?

ooo thank you...at least having a range is helpful. Looks like I'll have to get HRM eventually though.

Thanks all for your responses, very helpful :-)

hmmm... I'm about 20-30 lbs overweight and I burn about 350 for the Insanity workouts I've done so far (haven't done them all, mind you) - and they're 40 minutes each. My HR doing Insanity goes from about 150-180 during all the intervals (30 minutes of the DVD) but drops to about 120 while stretching after the warm-up and at the end. I'm working pretty hard... average HR is usually about 150 (75% for me) for the entire video including the stretch portion. Because it slows down, I don't burn as many calories doing insanity as I do running... except for my long slow run days where my HR is under 75%.

Unless someone is really out of shape and maxing their HR for the entire video I fail to see how someone can bur 800 calories for a 40 minute DVD that has at least 7 minutes of stretching in it.

800-1000 calorie burn is BALONEY.....I estimate I'm somewhere in the 3-400 range. A couple estimators have told me 450 but I think that might be generous.

ITA. I have a HRM and I burned 250-350 in month 1 of Insanity. I burn 450-550 for the hour long sessions in month 2.

Maybe a 300 lb guy...

I burn slightly more (measured with my HRM) than I was inputting when I was using "circuit training" or "high impact aerobics" to guesstimate my calorie burn for each session, but they actually aren't far off what I'm burning, so not bad in terms of estimating. Play it safe and don't eat back ALL the calories you burn, and you'll be fine.

my first day after the first fit test I burned 600 and something. I would suggest a HRM as everyone burns differently depending on your size, how much fat/muscle u have, how hard u work, and how high your heart rate goes.

walmart has them for $50

I use to Zumba, which is an hour long workout, and it claimed you would loose 1000 calories in one hour. The insanity is only 20 minutes shorter, and it works me WAY much harder than the Zumba ever did. I can see someone losing 800 cal. It just depends on body type, whether they are use to exercise, and how hard they really push themselves during the exercises.

By the way, I'm still trying to figure out how to log the Insanity. How do YOU do it?

Thanks for the info! Ordered the workout today (and a HRM). Wish me luck! =)

Actually, I just bought an HRM yesterday with calorie burn included and according to heart rate (I checked constantly through warm up, stretching, working out, and cool down) I burned 800 calories within the 43 minutes of doing the Plyometric Cardio Circuit.. I was literally dripping sweat mind you.. But that's not from being a "300lb guy" lol .. I think it really depends on how hard you work out and of course how many breaks you take... so yes, I highly recommend buying an HRM! It makes every thing better! Especially since logging it on MFP as high impact aerobics which gave me about 350 cal. burn.. so it had been way off (I wasn't even losing weight and that was probably why lol)

you should dig deeper if your only burning 400 cal

What's an hrm?

I use my HRM.

Heart Rate Monitor.

Thanks I feel stupid

According to my HRM ($30 @ Walmart), I'm averaging between 650-700 per DVD. I'm constantly checking my HRM, especially after doing anything in the DVD that really has me breathing hard. I end up checking my HR between 5-10 times throughout the workout to ensure I get accurate results.

Can't afford a H.R.M.... Isn't there other places where we can buy it 20 or under?

a lot depends on your size and fitness level. My burn avgs. 400 cal per 45 min. I keep pace with the video and rarely stop so there's not much I can do to make that go higher.

Not sure where you live but you can check Walmart, Target, Best Buy. I found a somewhat decent one for about $25. It's not very accurate but it helps. Also try Ebay, Amazon, craigs list and freecycle (yahoo group). I'm sure you will find something inexpensive it just may take a little hunting.