My husband and I both have a polar FT4 heart rate monitor. We were doing the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 video together and we were both pushing as hard as we could. I'm 5'11" 283lbs and my husband is 6'3" 203lbs. How is it possible that I only burned 340 calories while he burned 550? What's the deal?! I know men usually burn more but I weigh a lot more! And I was pushing just as hard as he was. Could something be wrong with my polar? There are many times that I feel like it's inaccurate. When I go to put my workouts in MFP, it always says I should have burned way more than what my monitor says. Any insight?

First of all, these are calculators, not actual monitors that actually monitor your body precisely what they say they are burning.

They plug in sex, height, weight, fitness level, heart rate, age, etc. Put it in a formula and VOILA this is "supposedly" what you are burning per minute, etc.

So, first there is that - it's a formula. you might have burned 340 calories, 440 or 300. Who knows for sure.

But yes, typically, men burn calories much faster than women as a general population. That can vary person to person, but you can learn about your own body. You will gradually learn that you either tend to lose as they predict, faster or slower and go from there.

So please, be aware, that if you are both looking to get fit and lose weight (though he probably doesn't have much to lose if any depending on his build) he WILL outpace you and it could be by a lot.

But, I think it's great you are working out together - it's a great way to stick to it!

I wouldn't trust these things to be accurate, but at the same time lets face it, men lose weight much faster than women do. And it's because they have a lot more muscle in their body structure than women do. And as we know muscle burns fat.

So when your husband gets on the scale and informs you he lost 20 pounds and you lost 2, just kick him in the butt. Just kidding of course, but this is one of the reasons I refuse to watch the biggest loser, as 99.9 percent of the time a man will win. It's the equivalent of putting men against women in an arm wrestling contest, then watching for 6 weeks to see who's going to win? Lol of course the men are going to win.