As a personal trainer, I spend kind of a lot of money on fitness clothes. But I don't mind because I wear them so often and it SO beats having to wear real pants everyday. Just sayin'. But as a modern man or woman of today working at a desk or someplace where real pants are required, you may not want to shell out tons of cash at Lululemon. And that's fine! But the one thing I suggest you pony up for if you are, or want to be, consistent in your workouts, is a heart rate monitor.
The first reason I think you need a heart rate monitor is because they make you look super intense! Think Mega Man or Iron Man or Batman or even Inspector Gadget... you have a tool you can use to make your BODY your super power! You can get one for as cheap as $50 and you'll use it all the time, so I'd say it's money well spent.
It lets you know when you're in your "fat burning zone" as well. But keep in mind, staying in your fat-burning zone may not be ideal for your goals. Just because the treadmill says "fat burning zone" doesn't mean it will make you lose weight faster. When your heart rate increases above that zone, your body starts using its carbohydrates as its primary source of fuel, thus lessening the percentage of calories from fat being burned. So let's say you walked a half hour and burned 200 calories (and you may or may not burn that many- everyone is different. This is hypothetical). Of those 200 calories, 50% would be burned from fat. So 100 calories of fat = gone. Now, if you ran for a half hour and burned, say, 500 calories, you may have only burned 40% of fat. BUT, 40% of 500 is 200 so that's 200 calories of fat burned! The key to weight loss is creating a caloric deficit- taking in less calories than you burn. More work = less calories in you!
Anyway, the heart rate monitor is waaaay better at judging the amount of calories you burn in a workout than the treadmill. I've noticed that the machines often say you're burning about 20 more calories than you actually are, because it is guessing. Just putting your hands on the metal bars isn't enough for it to know what's going on in your body throughout the whole workout. A monitor let's you know exactly what you're doing. It also tells you in its data section where your heart rate was throughout. This is a pretty cool feature. It's fun to see how much more I can push myself as my fitness improves and which workouts burn more calories in a given amount of time. I usually try to burn roughly 300 when I train with weights and I reach that way faster on leg days.
For people with heart problems, it's great to have. If you know where your heart rate is at, it's easier to keep it at the healthy level that your doctor recommends for you.
So to sum up, push yourselves a healthy amount and if you need an extra kick in the pants/something to keep track of your success, get a heart rate monitor!
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