Counting SL on MFP exercise calories?

hilaryhill

How exactly do you count the calories burned for exercise with SL? I havent been counting them at all, should I? When I wear my HRM my heart rate doesnt go into that "burn" area of 125-165, at least not for long, so it isnt any help and just beeps at me the whole time, lol. Does weightlifting burn a lot of calories, or no?

inkysmurf

oooo interested in this as well! good question

I have just been adding my exercises in as "strength" but I don't think you get any extra calories etc for this as its the wee boxes below the cardio ones I fill in?

I have my self set as sedentary , with my fitbit linked in, and I eat back my extra exercise calories to get myself back to a decent "net" (I walk between 5-8 miles a day)

bumblebums

This kind of lifting does not burn a huge amount of calories compared to, say, the equivalent amount of steady state running, but the effects it has on your metabolism are different because it's intermittent anaerobic exercise. This is discussed in NROL4W at some length.

I don't log exercise calories anymore, aiming to eat at what I calculated to be maintenance. But when I did log exercise calories, I counted 1 hour of lifting as 200 calories. It seemed to work correctly.

Duck_Puddle

I have a bodymedia armband recording my calorie burns 24/7. According to that, I burn about 2.5 cal/minute doing SL. For comparison, I burn about 1.5/minute just sitting in a chair. I don't officially log any exercise calories (because the armband automatically makes the entry), but I do log the minutes. I don't think the calorie burns from the act of lifting are significant enough to worry about logging them. For me, it'd be 30-40 per session.

bumblebums

I do want to address the two separate issues here. First, logging the calories you use while doing the exercise--should you do it or let your HRM do it? Up to you; the estimates may be inaccurate, but no matter how you cut it, it won't be a huge burn (200 cal or under, most likely). Second, is the calorie expenditure incurred during the session itself the only extra calories you should consume? Definitely not. Your muscles will continue recovering and rebuilding themselves throughout the day, in a way different from the recovery after steady state cardio. You need to fuel that process. The NROL4W people recommend eating at maintenance while lifting, or at least close to it, and promise fat loss as long as you work hard during your lifting session.

inkysmurf

Cheers for the info - i've just bought NROLFW just so i can properly read the nutrition part (although i'm doing SL).

bumblebums

Cheers for the info - i've just bought NROLFW just so i can properly read the nutrition part (although i'm doing SL).

I am not that fond of the book or the nutrition section in particular (they recommend some stuff that has been thoroughly debunked, like eating multiple small meals a day). But the discussion of how much one should eat while lifting is pretty good, I thought.

inkysmurf

cheers for the heads up. :-)