Why does my workout burn so little cals?

bujintuulai

Hey, new here- just logged in arms day and it's come up with 56 cals burned. My fitness watch estimates 300ish burned, which one should I believe?

Lietchi

You haven't given us much info to go on (personal stats, duration of your workout). But probably closer to 50 than 300 I'm guessing, since:

• most fitness trackers show total calorie burn (they include BMR calories) - actual active calories will be less
• arms are a small muscle group
• And strength training doesn't burn a whole lot of calories in general

nossmf

By "logged in arms day" do you mean added to your diary an exercise entry using the "Cardio: Strength Training" with a duration equal to your workout? If you try using the MFP "Strength" workout rather than the cardio version, the calorie counts are way different.

AnnPT77

Strength training doesn't burn very many calories. You don't say how long your "arms day" workout was, so it's hard to evaluate that. For me, MFP estimates about 163 calories per hour for "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)". I'm not large, though, and that can matter.

Trackers may estimate more. If they use heart rate, it can be a substantial over-estimate, because heart rate increases during strength training that has little to do with oxygen consumption, and it's oxygen consumption that relatively directly correlates with calorie expenditure. Heart rate is just an easier-to-measure proxy, but it can mislead.

On top of that, it matters how the calorie burn from your tracker is defined. In most cases, the calorie burn from an exercise session will include basal metabolic rate (BMR) or resting metabolic rate (RMR), the calories we burn just being alive. On top of that, it will duplicate calories MFP already expects us to burn just moving around in daily life for X amount of time. What we really want to record, ideally, is the extra calories just from adding that exercise on top of daily life movement, which is harder to get from a tracker's data.

Strength training is worth doing for a huge variety of reasons, especially during weight loss, but the calorie burn from the workouts is unspectacular. People will tout the EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, a.k.a. "afterburn"). But that's interpreted as a percentage of the calories burned during the exercise. The EPOC percent is higher for strength training than for most cardio, but it's generally a bigger percent of smaller calories, so also a lackluster contributor to calorie expenditure. Other people will mention that muscle burns more calories than fat, which is true . . . but at rest that's only about 4 extra calories per day per pound of muscle vs. fat, and it takes weeks at best to add a pound of muscle, especially in a calorie deficit.

Cardio burns more calories per minute, typically; and intense cardio burns more calories per minute than cardio in the so-called (and over-rated) "fat burning heart rate zone". But doing too much intense cardio invokes "energy compensation", i.e., it's more fatiguing minute for minute, so can make us rest more and burn fewer calories for the rest of the day.

It's a balancing act, honestly. Most people think any/all exercise burns more calories than it does in reality, I believe. I can work out hard for an hour doing pretty intense cardio - which I've been doing for years now - and barely burn enough calories to cover a regular-size - not giant - Snickers candy bar. 🤷‍♀️ That's just how it is. Exercise is worthwhile for other reasons, and I find mine fun as a bonus.

For best health, reach a healthy weight choosing mostly foods you enjoy that add up to good overall nutrition. Healthy weight is mostly about the eating side of the equation, IMO. Do some fun cardio in order to eat a little more and become fitter while losing at the same sensible rate. Do some strength training to become fitter and preserve existing muscle mass. That's a good process, with a good outcome.

Best wishes!

springlering62

Coming from another angle, when I was obese, I had no clue about calories, what it took to burn them, how long they took to burn etc.

There’s a lot of folks out there just like I was

In my giddy, innocent state of know-nothingness, I honestly thought a three mile walk would burn off a whole package of cookies. We’re talking easily 1,000+ calories.

Learning to utilize my fitness tracker helped me to learn the (very sad) correlation between work, burn, and the “cost” of calories consumed.

Think of it as a learning opportunity, because if you sit down and calculate how much work you have to do to burn a single calorie, it can be overwhelming. I often ponder stuff like this as I swim laps (6 calories per lap; 12 for a there and back again; and 24 for 100 yards.) But, in my mathematical fugginess, I can burn a bunch without even realizing it while running the numbers in my head.

it adds up 🤷🏻‍♀️ and as Ann says, it’s awfully good for you- for me, as a senior, both the exercise and the deep math brain challenges lol

tomcustombuilder

weightlifting burns surprisingly few calories unless you're doing compound exercise exercises with intensity and even then its not significant. For the normal person you're just not gonna burn that much. weights are more for maintaining muscle mass and possibly growing a little bit more but your weekly calorie consumption is what you really want to look as far as weight management

TheRoseRoss

The advice that I like most is “you burn lot less calories than you think. You consume a lot more calories than you realize.” It sucks and it takes years. “Weight training” doesn’t burn calories. Weight training “builds (more) muscle.” The newly added muscle requires additional calories. Think of your muscles as your children. The more children (muscle) you have, the more food (calories) that is required to feed them. Kids eat you out of house and home.

Pretend that your body needs 2000 calories per day simply to perform its basic functions. You have 100g or muscle. To simply stay alive that 100g of muscle burns 100 calories per day. Through weight training you’ve increased your muscle mass to 200g. That 200g of muscle requires 200 calories per day. Assume that you’re still consuming 2000 calories per day. Because of the added muscle your body now requires 2100 calories per day. You will burn additional calories via the exercises that you use to build muscle and that is where “weight loss” happens.

(1) figure out how many calories your body burns per day (don’t let knowing the exact t amount consume you).

(2) eat less than that

(3) give your body reasons to use your “caloric reserves.”

If you need 2000 calories but you only feed your body 1500 calories, your body will get the missing 500 from somewhere. It has to. That’s when it says “oh well. I guess I need to tap into my fat and/or glycogen stores because I’m not getting it from my food.”