Strength training-- how do you determine exercise calories?

Saaski

I've seen a lot of posts about how strength teaching doesn't burn very much. I've also seen a lot of posts from people who do intensive bodyweight/lifting programs who are eating upwards of 2000+ calories a day to maintain. I'm still learning, and it can get confusing.

I've done a mix of strength/cardio for some time. I've gotten stronger (measured in how many pullups I can do, how long I can hold a plank, etc) and tried to eat to match it but the scale steadily crept up. So I'm back to eating at a defecit for a little while.

Right now I'm working to preserve lean muscle, looking to move to recomp (I think that's the term) soon. But the last thing I want to do is overestimate calories burned. As mentioned, I did that previously and gained inches, not muscle =/ where's the middle ground?

jjpptt2

There is no good way to estimate, so most people will pick a low number and use that for a few weeks, then evaluate progress (expected results vs actual results) and tweak things as necessary until they find their sweet spot.

I typically go with something like 3 cals burned per minute for weight training. So if my workout takes 50 minutes, that's 150 cals burned.

not_a_runner

People able to maintain at 2000+ is going to depend on a lot of things, not just lifting weights.
(Not to sound rude - but seeing as you think 2000 maintenance is high, I assume you're a smaller female? You can't compare your maintenance needs to someone who may be much taller/heavier/male/have a more active job/etc etc)


Anyway, if you're following a set program and your training is not random- I prefer to just track via TDEE/set amount of calories and adjust as necessary. I don't even think about how many calories a workout might burn and it works well for me.

rainbowbow

I agree that following your weight and adjusting as necessary to estimate TDEE is probably the best way. What i'd do to start out with (assuming you're lifting consistently every week) is up your "activity level" by one on MFP (this'll adjust an extra ~200 calories or so) to account for those burns.

cwolfman13

Saaski wrote: »

I've seen a lot of posts about how strength teaching doesn't burn very much. I've also seen a lot of posts from people who do intensive bodyweight/lifting programs who are eating upwards of 2000+ calories a day to maintain. I'm still learning, and it can get confusing.

I've done a mix of strength/cardio for some time. I've gotten stronger (measured in how many pullups I can do, how long I can hold a plank, etc) and tried to eat to match it but the scale steadily crept up. So I'm back to eating at a defecit for a little while.

Right now I'm working to preserve lean muscle, looking to move to recomp (I think that's the term) soon. But the last thing I want to do is overestimate calories burned. As mentioned, I did that previously and gained inches, not muscle =/ where's the middle ground?

People maintaining at 2000 calories +...exercise is only a small part of that equation. You burn calories 24/7, not just with exercise. You burn a crap ton of calories just being alive...way more than you would ever burn with exercise, at least on a regular basis. Also, a maintenance of 2,000 calories isn't particularly high...it's about average for a light to moderately active female.

In regards to calories for strength training, that's going to be highly variable and dependent on how you're lifting. Someone doing circuits or running a program with a lot of super setting is going to burn more calories per session than someone who is running a traditional strength program with low reps, heavy weight, and lots of rest between sets.

In general, it's hard to accurately determine whereas something like running is pretty straight forward as it's basically mass moved over distance.

My program is general fitness oriented and I do a lot of Olympic lifting, super setting on my accessory work, box jumps, hurdles, etc. I typically burn in the neighborhood of 300 calories in an hour as determined by my own data over time...about half of what I'd burn in an hour of cycling.

DX2JX2

I'm a 6'2" male at 170 lbs and I maintain at ~2400 calories at a sedentary setting. I don't bother tracking strength training calories.

One thing you might be confusing...people who periodically go on intense lifting programs will sometimes use those programs during a bulk cycle. Their priority during the cycle is to adequately fuel muscle growth and as such they'll pile on the calories. Fat/weight gain is normal and acceptable during these cycles since muscle development is job #1.

After the bulking cycle is over, they'll enter a cutting phase where they'll reduce their calorie load in order to drop the fat they put on during their bulking cycle.

djeffreys10

Personally, I cut on 2000-2200 calories a day. It's not just about how many calories the exercise burns, but also about the amount of muscle mass you have. I have known guys that only weight lift that cut on 3000 calories a day, but those were some big jokers.

I don't track calories from weight lifting. I included it into my activity level for me tdee calculation. And over time, learned how many calories I need by making adjustments. I am a creature of habit, and I could never keep up with burning more calories some days than others and needing a different amount of calories every day because of it. So I basically just eat the same thing every day, and the calories I eat is basically a daily average of what I need.

colors_fade

Saaski wrote: »

But the last thing I want to do is overestimate calories burned.

Then don't.

I don't count my exercise calories. At all.

I calculated my TDEE at sedentary. And that's what I stay under for calories. Exercise calories then just become a hidden deficit value of some small measure that add to my overall deficit. This way I'm always on the correct side of the deficit.

stanmann571

colors_fade wrote: »

Saaski wrote: »

But the last thing I want to do is overestimate calories burned.

Then don't.

I don't count my exercise calories. At all.

I calculated my TDEE at sedentary. And that's what I stay under for calories. Exercise calories then just become a hidden deficit value of some small measure that add to my overall deficit. This way I'm always on the correct side of the deficit.

How are your hair and fingernails doing? And your energy levels?

Also, How long have you been doing this?

AnvilHead

colors_fade wrote: »

Saaski wrote: »

But the last thing I want to do is overestimate calories burned.

Then don't.

I don't count my exercise calories. At all.

I calculated my TDEE at sedentary. And that's what I stay under for calories. Exercise calories then just become a hidden deficit value of some small measure that add to my overall deficit. This way I'm always on the correct side of the deficit.

No big deal if you're not training hard or often. For somebody who's training intensely/frequently and burning a lot of calories, it could certainly cause problems down the road.

sgt1372

I only use 120 cals/hr for weight lifting and body weight workouts. I include rest time between sets but not break time between lifts in the calculation.

This usually results in no more that 90-120 cals alloted to the activity, which is negligible.

I could just not bother accounting for these cals but I log my exercise the same way that I log my food and it's more important as a means of keeping track of my workouts than it is a method of tracking cals burned.

estherdragonbat

I log under cardio and eat back half. I generally shoot to eat back 50% of all exercise calories. What I'm finding is that my burns from walking are probably accurate enough that I could eat back 100% of those. But then there's the strength training (which probably IS an overestimation) and the glider (which is a machine without an HRM). I guess the underestimated walking burns help balance the potentially overestimated strength and glider burns, and I'm losing weight right about where I should be, so for now it seems to average out.

Saaski

not_a_runner wrote: »

People able to maintain at 2000+ is going to depend on a lot of things, not just lifting weights.
(Not to sound rude - but seeing as you think 2000 maintenance is high, I assume you're a smaller female? You can't compare your maintenance needs to someone who may be much taller/heavier/male/have a more active job/etc etc)


Anyway, if you're following a set program and your training is not random- I prefer to just track via TDEE/set amount of calories and adjust as necessary. I don't even think about how many calories a workout might burn and it works well for me.

I'm a bio female, 5'6", currently around 140. I was around 135 and liked the definition that revealed. Upped my calories as I upped my activity and got up to 145--and I know that wasn't muscle! So I'm cutting again, trying to get back down. Mfp has me on 1500 w/o exercise. Before, at 135 mfp had me maintaining at 1700, again w/o exercise. With my activity, 2000 calories seemed reasonable to me! But that's how I went up ten pounds.

jjpptt2

Saaski wrote: »

not_a_runner wrote: »

People able to maintain at 2000+ is going to depend on a lot of things, not just lifting weights.
(Not to sound rude - but seeing as you think 2000 maintenance is high, I assume you're a smaller female? You can't compare your maintenance needs to someone who may be much taller/heavier/male/have a more active job/etc etc)


Anyway, if you're following a set program and your training is not random- I prefer to just track via TDEE/set amount of calories and adjust as necessary. I don't even think about how many calories a workout might burn and it works well for me.

I'm a bio female, 5'6", currently around 140. I was around 135 and liked the definition that revealed. Upped my calories as I upped my activity and got up to 145--and I know that wasn't muscle! So I'm cutting again, trying to get back down. Mfp has me on 1500 w/o exercise. Before, at 135 mfp had me maintaining at 1700, again w/o exercise. With my activity, 2000 calories seemed reasonable to me! But that's how I went up ten pounds.

So you have a number that, when followed, leads to weight gain (2000). That's good. That gives you ceiling to work under.

Did you actually maintain at 1700? What about 1500? If you've been consistent at those numbers, then you should know how your body responds to those calorie levels. Use your own experiences at those intakes to decide what you need to do going forward to reach your goals.

Saaski

@djeffreys10 how does one determine muscle mass? I've been told I'm fairly dense (can't float, which I should be able to do with my height and build) but that's not exactly scientific.

Saaski

@jjpptt2 I have been losing on 1500 for sure. 1700 I maintained fairly consistently while sedentary. As I upped activity I added in calories because I wanted to promote muscle growth (or at least preserve it). Ideally I'd like to continue getting stronger and eat to support that.

jjpptt2

If you maintained at 1700 while sedentary, but have increased activity since then, then I'd increase your cals slightly (maybe 10% depending on how significantly you've increased activity) and see how you do for 4-6 weeks. At that point, add or subtract cals based on your progress. It'll take some trial and error, but eventually you'll find your sweet spot.

On a side note, you can absolutely get stronger while eating at maintenance. That's the heart of recomping, which you mentioned in your original post.

keeler521

I picked up a Polar H10 chest strap and am more than satisfied with it, its very accurate. It has a calorie tracking config for strength training as well that I have used just a couple of times, but for cardio its on point.

sijomial

As 2000 cals is often given as maintenance for the mythical average adult female then you can see that "intensive lifting programs" don't really burn many calories. About the same as a brisk walk (unfortunately).

I've always used the strength training category (in the CV part of your diary). It's based on METS and your bodyweight and it gives a modest amount that I've always eaten 100% of. It's based on studies and assumes a regular style of strength training with pauses of c. 3 minutes between sets. Just log the duration of your entire workout.

Inaccuracy on such a low calorie burner isn't likely to be the cause of not quite finding your overall calorie balance. It would take a massive variance on a small number to have the same impact compared a tiny inaccuracy in your food logging.

sgt1372

Saaski wrote: »

@djeffreys10 how does one determine muscle mass? I've been told I'm fairly dense (can't float, which I should be able to do with my height and build) but that's not exactly scientific.

The only way to measure LBM & BF w/reasonable accuracy is to get a DXA sxsn or hydrostatic test done.

No method is perfect but these methods offer the greatest accuracy and reliabity of all of them.

If you can't find a place to get this done or can't afford it, skin fold calipers can give decent results but those results are only as good as the person taking the measurements.

You need at least 7 but preferably 12 data points and you can't do this yourself. It' s very easy to under and over estimate the BF measurement using calipers which will over or under state LBM.

Bioelectrical scales and tape measure calculators are inaccurate but can be reliable if used consistently over time.

I've had my BF/LBM measured by both DXA and hydro quarterly over the past 18 months. DXA provides more data but the BF results it gives are always 3-4% higher than for hydro.

In my last tests w/in the past month, my hydro result was 8.3% while my DXA, result was 12.4%. The truth is probably in the middle at 10% but, when asked, I always give the lower number.

So, if you want the lowest possible result, I'd recommend getting tested by hydro.

Azercord

I'm 5'9" @ 165ish and maintain on 2400-2600 calories. I lift 4 times a week (along with other things) and track with my Garmin, so basically it just continues to track my HR and labels it since I told it to. I lift for about an hour and it burns an average of 250 ish calories. Not a lot but not insignificant.

I have an office job but I have a transition desk (stand up/sit down option) and while I'm not super active I don't sit around all day. I agree that 2000+ calorie range for maintenance may seem like a lot (and it sure did when I started out on my journey 5 years ago) but now that I'm here it really isn't a big deal eating this much and if I don't I do start to lose weight.

katiebug3268

I'm not going to lie...I just trusted MFP and since the calorie burn was always so low I always thought it was correct. But about a week ago, my Aunt gave me her old FitBit surge and we reset the settings to customize my current weight, height, etc so it could accurately track my calories burned when lifting weights depending on my heart rate.

I was surprised of the calories I burned today just by lifting weights. I think it was around 350 calories for my 60 minute Marc Megna AMP leg day which my average heart rate was around 140s.

I guess ultimately it depends on your heart rate, weight, height, and intensity of your workout. I never eat back my calories right now because I am trying to cut.

Good luck and I hope this helped.

MegaMooseEsq

I've been using my Apple Watch to track body weight exercises for several months, and, starting this month, weight lifting, and am losing as expected based on my net numbers. I just looked at the lifting sessions and the watch is giving me about 4 calories a minute, a bit higher than @jjpptt2 and @sg1372 are using, but I believe they are both male and in better shape than I am. I'm also rolling a 5 minute cardio warm-up and 5 minute stretching cool-down in there, so who knows. Calorie counting is really just trying to guess as accurately and consistently as possible - there's no practical way to be precise about any aspect of it. Pick a method that sounds reasonable and healthy, do it consistently for a couple of months, and see what happens.

not_a_runner

katiebug3268 wrote: »

I'm not going to lie...I just trusted MFP and since the calorie burn was always so low I always thought it was correct. But about a week ago, my Aunt gave me her old FitBit surge and we reset the settings to customize my current weight, height, etc so it could accurately track my calories burned when lifting weights depending on my heart rate.

I was surprised of the calories I burned today just by lifting weights. I think it was around 350 calories for my 60 minute Marc Megna AMP leg day which my average heart rate was around 140s.

I guess ultimately it depends on your heart rate, weight, height, and intensity of your workout. I never eat back my calories right now because I am trying to cut.

Good luck and I hope this helped.

Fitbits/heart rate monitors are generally not going to be very accurate for lifting cals either, unfortunately.
(Or TDEE in general, mine has never been anywhere near accurate)

sijomial

katiebug3268 wrote: »

I'm not going to lie...I just trusted MFP and since the calorie burn was always so low I always thought it was correct. But about a week ago, my Aunt gave me her old FitBit surge and we reset the settings to customize my current weight, height, etc so it could accurately track my calories burned when lifting weights depending on my heart rate.

I was surprised of the calories I burned today just by lifting weights. I think it was around 350 calories for my 60 minute Marc Megna AMP leg day which my average heart rate was around 140s.

I guess ultimately it depends on your heart rate, weight, height, and intensity of your workout. I never eat back my calories right now because I am trying to cut.

Good luck and I hope this helped.

@katiebug3268

Ref the bold - your HR isn't a good guide to lifting calories at all though, going to be vastly inflated. It's not an aerobic exercise for a start.
What the burns really relate to is physics not biology, mass moved over distance, the more weight you move the bigger the burn.

colors_fade

stanmann571 wrote: »

How are your hair and fingernails doing? And your energy levels?

Also, How long have you been doing this?

I'm perfectly healthy, thank you.

I don't train for marathons and I don't do insane 3-hour workouts.

I lift 5-6 times per week, a push/pull split. I'm in the gym for about an hour a day. I've been lifting for almost 6 years. When the weather is nice I walk for 30-60 minutes outside in addition to the lifting.

I've been cutting since July. I've had my most successful weight loss this year, since July (-20 lbs.). I stalled out in December because... I like to eat and discipline for an extended period of time is something I struggle with. But that's another story for another thread.

Energy Levels are always going to be lower than normal on a deficit. That's just a fact of math. My energy levels are not so low as to be debilitating. It's the same energy level you'd expect from someone in a moderate caloric deficit.

Studies show that people overestimate their workout calorie burns (and underestimate their calories consumed). I'd rather error on the side of an unknown deficit than overestimate my burn and end up not being in a deficit at all.

I mean, c'mon - how many times have you logged into this message board to read people saying things like, "I'm counting my calories and everything and not losing!" And when you finally get all the details from them and do the math, they are either underestimating consumed calories, overestimating workout calorie burns, or both.

There are outliers and caveats to everything. If you're the type of person doing a lot of HIIT, or cardio, or training for a sport, or some kind of intense exercise frequently, sure, it makes sense to try and calculate those calories because you may end up in a large deficit.

But people here are trying to lose fat/weight when they're asking these sorts of questions. High intensity training and huge workout calorie burns are not their problem... not being in a deficit usually is.

deputy_randolph

I'm 5'3, 140, 38...and maintain around 2100-2200. I powerlift (lift 5 days a week + low intensity cardio) and am a sp. ed. teacher (fairly active job; I'm on my feet for the majority of work day).

I estimate that for 2 hours of intense lifting (not lifting the WHOLE 2 hrs 3-5 minute rest btwn heavy compound sets) about a 300 calorie "burn."

I used the strength training option in MFP to successfully bulk and cut a few times. Use MFP settings and then adjust as needed.

cwolfman13

colors_fade wrote: »

stanmann571 wrote: »

How are your hair and fingernails doing? And your energy levels?

Also, How long have you been doing this?

I'm perfectly healthy, thank you.

I don't train for marathons and I don't do insane 3-hour workouts.

I lift 5-6 times per week, a push/pull split. I'm in the gym for about an hour a day. I've been lifting for almost 6 years. When the weather is nice I walk for 30-60 minutes outside in addition to the lifting.

I've been cutting since July. I've had my most successful weight loss this year, since July (-20 lbs.). I stalled out in December because... I like to eat and discipline for an extended period of time is something I struggle with. But that's another story for another thread.

Energy Levels are always going to be lower than normal on a deficit. That's just a fact of math. My energy levels are not so low as to be debilitating. It's the same energy level you'd expect from someone in a moderate caloric deficit.

Studies show that people overestimate their workout calorie burns (and underestimate their calories consumed). I'd rather error on the side of an unknown deficit than overestimate my burn and end up not being in a deficit at all.

I mean, c'mon - how many times have you logged into this message board to read people saying things like, "I'm counting my calories and everything and not losing!" And when you finally get all the details from them and do the math, they are either underestimating consumed calories, overestimating workout calorie burns, or both.

There are outliers and caveats to everything. If you're the type of person doing a lot of HIIT, or cardio, or training for a sport, or some kind of intense exercise frequently, sure, it makes sense to try and calculate those calories because you may end up in a large deficit.

But people here are trying to lose fat/weight when they're asking these sorts of questions. High intensity training and huge workout calorie burns are not their problem... not being in a deficit usually is.

Yeah..but there are a lot of people...women in particular who crash their calories to 1200 and then go and do an hour or two of cardio and end up netting very low calories. There are a plethora of threads here with women losing their hair, brittle nails, loss of menstrual cycle, etc

In general, I wouldn't overly concern myself with calories from lifting or eating those back because they're roughly equivalent to going for a walk. I didn't really worry about my lifting calories when I was losing my 40 Lbs, but I did eat back my other exercise calories because I got into endurance cycling and doing 1/2 centuries and whatnot. I also took the time to research what a reasonable energy expenditure would be for that activity and used a multitude of sources.

Part of the big problem people have is that they simply take whatever is in the database as gospel instead of questioning it and doing some research...and because they're out of shape, they're also overestimating the intensity of their workout How someone can actually think an hour of swimming laps burns 1,000 calories is beyond me...maybe if you're Michael Phelps