Lifting and calories

fatboyliz

I am trying to work out how many calories I burn when I go to my lifting class. I cannot lift more than 25kg just yet (but this is an improvement from 7kg!). I usually do 3 reps of 10 (squats, deadlifts, bench press, and upright row usually). I am enjoying it so don't mind if this isn't burning calories...however...after class I am SO HUNGRY. I tend to have a protein shake directly after class, but all day I am absolutely starving, soooo am trying to work out how much I can eat without turning myself into a killer whale.

JeffseekingV

Traditional weight lifting doesn't really burn many calories. Use the strength training burn in the cardio section here

cwolfman13

It burns calories, it's just really hard to determine calorie burn from anaerobic activities. There's just a very huge number of variables involved...weight, reps, rest, intensity, etc...it's not like running where you can just plug in X miles per hour for Y amount of time with Z stats unfortunately.

Many people who do quite a bit of anaerobic training ultimately gravitate to the TDEE method which just includes an estimate in your overall activity level to account for that exercise rather than trying to nail down some specific calorie burn.

jade_222

I'm in a similar situation. I found a couple of old posts that used different TDEE calculators. Based on both of these it seems that on days when I lift I should eat 1800 calories. Currently I'm at 1200 and I eat my exercise calories back which puts me around 1500 calories. I haven't tried this new calculation yet (I just figured it out on Friday). Hopefully starting today I can put it to the test to see if it works better.

fatboyliz

Oohh TDEE is a fab idea, thank you!

hill8570

I assume you mean 3 sets of 10? I've got to be misunderstanding your post -- you've got to be doing more than 3x10 of those four in the typical 60 minute class. Could you go into more detail, including the recovery time between sets (basically, I'm trying to figure out if this more like traditional lifting, where it's 60 seconds of lifting followed by 3 or more minutes of recovery, or something more like circuit training / body pump where it's high rep with minimal recovery).

fatboyliz

Yes 3 sets of 10. It is a 60 minute supervised session but there are 3-4 of us to a platform so takes a while - especially as we are all beginners so a lot of faffing about! Obv in the 60 mins that also has to include 'dynamic' warm up and abs and stretching. But yea...we are super slow! It is not body pump.

hill8570

fatboyliz wrote: »

Yes 3 sets of 10. It is a 60 minute supervised session but there are 3-4 of us to a platform so takes a while - especially as we are all beginners so a lot of faffing about! Obv in the 60 mins that also has to include 'dynamic' warm up and abs and stretching. But yea...we are super slow! It is not body pump.

OK, I usually log my 60 minute lifting sessions at about 150 calories net (250 gross -- my RMR is about 100 calories an hour). So it's not the calorie burn that making you famished. Are you getting enough protein (in addition to the shake)? I'm a "listen to your body" sort of guy, but I'm trying to figure out what exactly your body is crying out for. When you're hungry after these lifts, are you craving anything in particular?

fatboyliz

...poached egg on toast. I usually get around 40g protein a day and the TDEE thing says I should have 80g...oops.

hill8570

40g sounds awfully low. Even 80g sounds low for lifting. 0.82 g / lb is normally a good number to shoot for if your body is trying to build muscle (which it sounds like yours is). After my lifting, I generally eat something like 16oz of nonfat greek yogurt (a bit over 40g of protein), but I'm also targeting 160g per day. Overkill for someone as little as you, of course. Feel free to look at my diary if you want to get ideas for foods with high protein-per-calorie ratios (my eating habits are a bit strange, but they work for me).