Do I need to manually track lifting/cardio?

lydgate

Hello! I have Fitbit integrated and I know it tracks my steps, but I think it doesn't sync the exercises over whether weights or cardio? Or does cardio get captured by the steps and I just need to track weightlifting? Should I be tracking that on MFP as well, and if so how?

If it matters, I'm usually doing elliptical for cardio, and swuats/deadlifts/bench/overhead presss for weights. I was following Starting Strength but now I'm trying out Greyskull LP...

AllanMisner

Generally, you exercise for fitness and you eat for fat loss. There are two reasons I wouldn't bother with trying to log weight lifting calories:
1) Weight lifting doesn't really burn that many calories. Yes, you are burning more than sitting still, but not much more. And yes, muscle is more metabolically active, but you're not packing on pounds of muscle.
2) Calories in and calories out are estimates. Spending time trying to perfect an estimate is a waste. Set your eating plan, do your workouts, and after three weeks, evaluate the results. If you don't like the trend, adjust one or the other (I'd focus on the eating side of the equation).

Set some fitness goals and do your exercise to meet those goals. Eat real food. Watch the trend. Make it easy to do and then you can stick to it.

kami3006

Enter it under cardio, then weight lifting. The calorie burn isn't as much as cardio but you can get a decent estimate and adjust based on your results over time.