How does strength training count against calories?

sabaraba

I don't really count my strength training. I'm guess you burn about 50 to 100 calories an hour. But you also will burn more calories when your body is repairing itself throughout the week. And when you have more muscle, you burn more calories when you use them and do cardio.

You burn 1 calorie a minute when doing NOTHING, how do you want to burn 50 calories a hour?! Even 100 is absolutely underestimated!

cwolfman13

of course it burns calories...everything burns calories...just being alive burns an *kitten* load of them.

That said, it is very difficult to determine calorie burn from anaerobic activities like weight lifting...there are just too many variables. This is one of the big reasons I switched from the MFP method to the TDEE method. By the time I really got into lifting, my routines was pretty consistent...MFP's method was very helpful for me when I was first getting back into fitness...but once my routine became habit and I became consistent, the TDEE method just made more sense and I didn't have to worry about logging and eating back calories...everything just netted out over the course of the week.

tsimblist

I often refer to this calculator for a second opinion on calorie burns:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calories.htm

RHachicho

To be honest I only really count general activity and cardio calories for logging exercise but then again I eat a set amount and don't aim to eat back exercise calories. Tbh the only real way to get a handle on your ACTUAL calorie expenditure is to work it out from your weight fluctuations over a long period of time. Everything else, hrm's included is simply an estimation. It's why I actually disagree quite strongly with the "eat back your exercise calories" approach. As it lends itself to uncertainty.