Lifting. How to log? Should I eat more calories?

mookybargirl

Hi. Need a little help.......

Doing SL5x5 and have been about a month now. I log strength in excerises but they have 0 calories attached. Is there a different way I should be logging them? Think I read I should eat more calories on lifting days but I don’t know how to log the lifting properly or how many extra calories I should be eating on those days, so I could use a few pointers.

It’s been ok so far as at 1900 calories a day, I’m not struggling but as I keep losing, that will go down too..... thanks in advance

TavistockToad

Search for strength training under cardio

mookybargirl

Thanks. It’s a bit vague though as it doesn’t account for how much time you’re actually lifting or the weight that you’re lifting. Just log 60 mins??? That’s approx my session time in the gym.....

LindzTime

As far as logging strength, the most accurate way would be to wear a heart rate monitor that tracks your calories burnt for that exercise. You can then create the exercise under cardio, name it and add calories burnt. Mfp says that searching strength under cardio exercises isn't super accurate for everyone since many factors affect calories burnt.

malibu927

LindzTime wrote: »

As far as logging strength, the most accurate way would be to wear a heart rate monitor that tracks your calories burnt for that exercise. You can then create the exercise under cardio, name it and add calories burnt. Mfp says that searching strength under cardio exercises isn't super accurate for everyone since many factors affect calories burnt.

Wrong. Heart rate is a completely inaccurate way to judge calories burned for strength training. Using the database entry is better, but nothing is going to be 100% accurate (I always deducted half of what it said regardless of the exercise).

mookybargirl

Perhaps one to add to my ‘to buy’ list. It seems to grow every day. Lol.
Thanks for the advice

mookybargirl

So 60 mins for me is 317 calories. So you think eat back say 150 on lift days?

sijomial

The strength training category assumes 2 - 4 min recovery periods between sets, log the entire duration of your workout.

@LindzTime
Heart rate monitor is absolutely useless for strength training calorie estimates (hint - it's not cardio).

mookybargirl

Thanks for the help......

deputy_randolph

I've used the lifting option under cardio for years and have successfully cut and bulked a few times. For about 90+ minutes, I usually log around 300 calories (keep in mind, I'm around 135lbs and compete in powerlifting; lifting is pretty intense, but 5 minute rest between sets).

I would start with this method and adjust calories as needed.

chispaza

I'm also doing SL 5x5. I log it as strength training under cardio and eat back about half of the calories it gives me for that. I log the entire amount of time I'm lifting, including rests.

MFP gives me about 120 calories for an hour of lifting so I eat back 60 calories.
I'm eating at a slight deficit in order to try to lose about 10-15 lbs and this has worked well for me.

chispaza

mookybargirl wrote: »

So 60 mins for me is 317 calories. So you think eat back say 150 on lift days?

Yes, I'd start with that and adjust if needed.

nowine4me

OP - here’s my take. Log your reps/sets/weight in the strength training tab to record progress (unless you do it another way) and don’t add calories back. 5x5 simply doesn’t burn that much.

If you earn calories from cardio, do eat a portion of those.

Assuming your goal is to lose, stay at what MFP gives you. With premium, you could stagger your calorie goal so they are a bit higher on lifting days — but I wouldn’t bother at this point.

middlehaitch

I am a long term maintainer and initially I took the advice of not eating back exercise cals for lifting. Both my weight and energy levels dropped.l, energy dramatically.

I used the MFP setting and got 204 cals a session, including slightly longer rest periods.
This, over time, was comparable to my real life results so I just added 200 cals when lifting.

(I actually just upped my cals by 200 a day after a few months and still maintained YMMV).

Eat back the cals, or a percentage of, that MFP gives you and adjust according to results.

Cheers, h.

malibu927

mookybargirl wrote: »

So 60 mins for me is 317 calories. So you think eat back say 150 on lift days?

That’s a good place to start

mookybargirl

I do cardio every other day and don’t eat any of the cals back (most days).
I guess as I’m not struggling for calories to eat overall,, I’ll not stress over it too much. I’ll kerp logging as strength for the exercise breakdown and then in cardio too to register something in calories. Thanks again everyone who replied. Appreciate it