Love, Love, Heart Rate monitors

Today I was completing my Chest/Arm workout and then needed to get my cardio in. It was tough. Our weather is horrible and it is just difficult to workout when it is April, Easter weekend and all I see are continuing squalls of snow!
I have Nordic Trak ski machine and that in and of itself can be a challenge. After about 10 minutes I was ready to give up. I stopped, took a drink of water and said, nope finish this. So I did five minutes of HIIT training alternating 30 seconds of hard arms and legs with 30 seconds of just slow legs. Then I continued on through the next five minutes of just legs. As I got closer to my goal of 45 minutes I realized that I was only a few calories away from hitting 600 calories. So I continued on for an additional two minutes just so I could get over that 600 calorie mark.
Now, prior to getting my HRM I would have probably just given up at that ten minute mark and to think that at 10 minutes I had only burned about 230 calories. The heart rate monitor really shows me that putting in the extra time and effort will pay off. If you don't own one, I would highly recommend it as another tool to get yourself to the next level. Each of those little calories adds up.