Thoughts on calorie burns

grob49

Boy there is an awful lot here that makes a lot of sense. I have been doing different cycles with my weight training. Cycling from low reps with medium rest 2 to2.5min. To reps of 8/12 with 1/1.5 rest between sets. To 25 reps with 3/4 min between sets. I know by my breathing my heart rate must be up there. Now I do HIIT for my cardio. Now my heart rate can get up to 144. Now that is just for 30 sec then it will drop to 124 and my breathing returns to a little . more than normal. Now I can burn around 288 calories during a 30min HIIT workout. Now it seems like my weight workout should burn more based on my heart rate wouldn't you think?

bioklutz

Before switching to TDEE I would just log strength training as 100 calories/hour. It might not have been accurate but I did exactly what @sijomial was suggesting - make a best guess. I figured I could adjust the calories up or down if my weight was not doing what I wanted it to.

xmichaelyx

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

The general wisdom seems to be that cardio burns sufficent calories that it is worth tracking and eating back those calories while weight training burns fewer calories and is harder to accurately account for and is therefore not worth tracking and not worth eating back or just add a tiny bit more calories to account for it.

I find it fairly ridiculous to "eat back" any exercise calories. Everything we do here is an inexact approximation. Trying to figure out how many calories you've burned (and then eating them back) just adds 2 more layers of inexactitude.

Weigh your food. Figure out approximately how many calories you're eating. Follow a workout program.

Within a few months, you'll know whether to eat a little more or a little less or the same amount.

Everyone wants to complicate this far more than is necessary by adding in additional approximations. It's pointless.

edit: Obviously, if you up your caloric burn for given period (for a marathon, or whatever) you'll want to eat a little more. Or in my case, during week long backpacking trips, I just don't bother counting at all. But those are edge cases that don't apply to most people anyway. At least, not more than once every few months, making their effect negligible.

Azdak

grob49 wrote: »

Boy there is an awful lot here that makes a lot of sense. I have been doing different cycles with my weight training. Cycling from low reps with medium rest 2 to2.5min. To reps of 8/12 with 1/1.5 rest between sets. To 25 reps with 3/4 min between sets. I know by my breathing my heart rate must be up there. Now I do HIIT for my cardio. Now my heart rate can get up to 144. Now that is just for 30 sec then it will drop to 124 and my breathing returns to a little . more than normal. Now I can burn around 288 calories during a 30min HIIT workout. Now it seems like my weight workout should burn more based on my heart rate wouldn't you think?

No--heart rate during weight training has no correlation to calorie burn. The heart rate increase that occurs during lifting is driven by a different mechanism than the elevated HR during cardio. The number May look the same, but what is going on inside is different.

NorthCascades

xmichaelyx wrote: »

I find it fairly ridiculous to "eat back" any exercise calories. Everything we do here is an inexact approximation. Trying to figure out how many calories you've burned (and then eating them back) just adds 2 more layers of inexactitude.

Weigh your food.

Scales are an inexact approximation. Why would you want to complicate things with that kind of guess work?

stealthq

xmichaelyx wrote: »

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

The general wisdom seems to be that cardio burns sufficent calories that it is worth tracking and eating back those calories while weight training burns fewer calories and is harder to accurately account for and is therefore not worth tracking and not worth eating back or just add a tiny bit more calories to account for it.

I find it fairly ridiculous to "eat back" any exercise calories. Everything we do here is an inexact approximation. Trying to figure out how many calories you've burned (and then eating them back) just adds 2 more layers of inexactitude.

Weigh your food. Figure out approximately how many calories you're eating. Follow a workout program.

Within a few months, you'll know whether to eat a little more or a little less or the same amount.

Everyone wants to complicate this far more than is necessary by adding in additional approximations. It's pointless.

edit: Obviously, if you up your caloric burn for given period (for a marathon, or whatever) you'll want to eat a little more. Or in my case, during week long backpacking trips, I just don't bother counting at all. But those are edge cases that don't apply to most people anyway. At least, not more than once every few months, making their effect negligible.

For me, it's necessary. My overall workout routine isn't regular enough where I can adjust off of a calculated TDEE. My lifting routine is regular, but my running is not.

I've gone from running ~40mi per wk, to not at all, to 10 to 15 to 20mi per wk in the last three months. I'll be doing half-marathon training to get my endurance back as soon as temps dip below 80F at night, and from there to marathon training. I'll be steadily adding miles and calories for months.

From previous experience, I do NOT want to lift and follow running regimen of steadily increasing mileage and be at all low on calorie intake - which is where I would be if I followed your advice. That's a recipe for crashing and burning.

kshama2001

xmichaelyx wrote: »

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

The general wisdom seems to be that cardio burns sufficent calories that it is worth tracking and eating back those calories while weight training burns fewer calories and is harder to accurately account for and is therefore not worth tracking and not worth eating back or just add a tiny bit more calories to account for it.

I find it fairly ridiculous to "eat back" any exercise calories. Everything we do here is an inexact approximation. Trying to figure out how many calories you've burned (and then eating them back) just adds 2 more layers of inexactitude.

Weigh your food. Figure out approximately how many calories you're eating. Follow a workout program.

Within a few months, you'll know whether to eat a little more or a little less or the same amount.

Everyone wants to complicate this far more than is necessary by adding in additional approximations. It's pointless.

edit: Obviously, if you up your caloric burn for given period (for a marathon, or whatever) you'll want to eat a little more. Or in my case, during week long backpacking trips, I just don't bother counting at all. But those are edge cases that don't apply to most people anyway. At least, not more than once every few months, making their effect negligible.

MFP uses the NEAT method, and as such the system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back.

When I eat the calories given to me by MFP, weigh and log my food, exercise, and eat back some (but not all) of my exercise calories, my average weight loss over time matches the weekly weight loss goal I set.

If I didn't eat back exercise calories, I would lose faster than my weekly weight loss goal, and would be hungry and miserable. I don't need to do the few months experiment. I can just use MFP as it was designed to be used.

janejellyroll

stealthq wrote: »

xmichaelyx wrote: »

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

The general wisdom seems to be that cardio burns sufficent calories that it is worth tracking and eating back those calories while weight training burns fewer calories and is harder to accurately account for and is therefore not worth tracking and not worth eating back or just add a tiny bit more calories to account for it.

I find it fairly ridiculous to "eat back" any exercise calories. Everything we do here is an inexact approximation. Trying to figure out how many calories you've burned (and then eating them back) just adds 2 more layers of inexactitude.

Weigh your food. Figure out approximately how many calories you're eating. Follow a workout program.

Within a few months, you'll know whether to eat a little more or a little less or the same amount.

Everyone wants to complicate this far more than is necessary by adding in additional approximations. It's pointless.

edit: Obviously, if you up your caloric burn for given period (for a marathon, or whatever) you'll want to eat a little more. Or in my case, during week long backpacking trips, I just don't bother counting at all. But those are edge cases that don't apply to most people anyway. At least, not more than once every few months, making their effect negligible.

For me, it's necessary. My overall workout routine isn't regular enough where I can adjust off of a calculated TDEE. My lifting routine is regular, but my running is not.

I've gone from running ~40mi per wk, to not at all, to 10 to 15 to 20mi per wk in the last three months. I'll be doing half-marathon training to get my endurance back as soon as temps dip below 80F at night, and from there to marathon training. I'll be steadily adding miles and calories for months.

From previous experience, I do NOT want to lift and follow running regimen of steadily increasing mileage and be at all low on calorie intake - which is where I would be if I followed your advice. That's a recipe for crashing and burning.

I'm marathon training right now (two weeks to go!) and if I hadn't already figured out how to eat to fuel my activity I don't know if I could have made it as far as I have.

Yeah, all calorie counting is an approximation. But I know, from months of experience, how to make my calorie burn approximations as accurate as I can. Why not use that information?