Men's HRM for women?

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MamaMaryC
MamaMaryC Posts: 142 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I have a question for anyone who understands HRMs. My husband was not paying attention to the label when he got me a HRM for Christams. He bought me a men's HRM. However, it did have an option where I could go in and change the sex to female and input my information (birth year, weight, height, and so on).

Before I had a HRM I did some research and got an average of how many calories others were burning with Turbo Jam and TurboFire. I subtracted a few cals/ minute to be safe and used that number to be safe. For example, most said they were burning at least 10 cals/ minute, I estimated I was burning 7 cals/ minute. Of course the TurboFire book says an average class burns 650. I highly doubt it, so I didn't use that #.

Since I have been using the HRM, I am lucky if I can burn 300 calories in an hour. That is with all of my effort put into my workout. I am not babying my workouts or taking frequent breaks. I am 30, 5'3 and 125. I have been working out 5-6 days a week since the beginning of Aug. Does 300 cals in an hr sound about right or do I need to consider buying a HRM made for females? I am asking because I am trying to maintain and do not want to be burning more calories than what the HRM says I am.

Replies

  • MamaMaryC
    MamaMaryC Posts: 142 Member
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    Bump. :)
  • bluetrumpet01
    bluetrumpet01 Posts: 131 Member
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    If your HRM lets you switch the gender to female, you should be fine. What kind of exercise are you doing?

    By the way, I've noticed that the calorie estimates on the site are extremely generous, I'll do 2 hours of cycling and the site will say 4k calories when my garmin tells me 1.4k. You also have to remember that at 125 pounds, you are burning many less calories than someone at 200 pounds
  • MamaMaryC
    MamaMaryC Posts: 142 Member
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    I am doing Turbo Jam and TurboFire. :) I have noticed the inaccuracy of the calories burned on this site versus the calories burned on the HRM. However, I didn't expect that big of a difference. And it confuses me because I lost 80+ lbs using the calories burnt according to MFP. So to switch over to a HRM and see how grossly inaccurate the site is from my HRM was shocking.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
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    Usually the only difference between a mens and womens monitor is the color and size. If it asks you for age, sex etc then it's got the algorithms set for that. The only make the has an issue is Timex. They over estimate for women. I'm a bit smaller than you and those burns sound about right with your HRM.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
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    Usually the only difference between a mens and womens monitor is the color and size.

    That's what I was thinking.
  • Vansy
    Vansy Posts: 419 Member
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    Those burns sound right to me too. My HRM said I burned anywhere from 300-400 calories during any of the insanity/asylum videos.
  • MamaMaryC
    MamaMaryC Posts: 142 Member
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    Thank y'all so much. You have no idea how much better I feel hearing that my burns are normal. :) I was starting to worry I wasn't putting as much effort as I felt I was into my workouts. I thought that I was safe with setting it to female and my stats, but the low #s were stressing me out. And I don't to spend extra $ to get a women's HRM. Whew!
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
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    The equations for females and males should in fact be different. If you are estimating calorie burns based on mens equations, yep, they're wrong, I'm not sure by how much. See this thread for more info:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/773451-is-my-hrm-giving-me-incorrect-calorie-burn

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