Adding calories burned from strength training to my diary?

Figure 100cals per 20-30 mins burned.

use a HRM to get the actual calorie burn and log it as whatever you want, you can name your exercise abs or strength training etc.

HRM's are inaccurate for strength training.

This is I'm sure a silly question that has been addressed elsewhere, but how do I add (and figure out) calories burned from my strength training (mainly abs and free weights) to my food diary? I am never sure how many extra calories I have that I can eat back and if I guess, my diary just looks like I ate over my calories which drives me nuts.

resistance training is an enigma where it's VERY hard to determine exactly what you've burned. Anywhere from 50 to 1000 calories for a solid hour of training you'll have your metabolism boosted by. The rune is, the more intense, heavy and muscle groups used, the more the caloirie burn will be. So using 10lbs dumbells doing curls and doing 3x12 reps will burn a fraction of loading the bar with 300lbs and doing squats at even 3x5 reps.

In addition, while calorie burn for the hour of exercise might not be much, a lot of that 1000 I quoted will be cost to repair tissue. Think burn victims. They have metabolisms in the tens of thousands of calories a day required, right? Same principle. The goal of strength training is to fray muscle tissue. your body then rebuilds it stronger over the next few days. The energy to repair this tissue does not come from thin air, but from the food you eat. So if you're not pushing to overload to really fray those fibres, you're getting a fraction of the calorie burn you could potentially be getting for the same time exercised. (pet peeve of mine, when people think their DVD weight routine is actually strength training, when it's actually more cardio)

TLDR: you can't calculated resistance training caloric expenditure even remotely accurately. have to guestimate it, but the more intense you push yourself the more you burn.

use a HRM to get the actual calorie burn and log it as whatever you want, you can name your exercise abs or strength training etc.

HRM's are inaccurate for strength training.

Says who? Do you have a peer-reviewed reference for that statement? :-)

yes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_systems

And yet.....I don't see anything in that link about HRMs and their accuracy/inaccuracy in measuring calories burns during strength training. There is an aerobic component to weight lifting, that is certainly measurable with a HRM. This value may not be as high as one would achieve with running for 60 minutes, but it is there. OP will perhaps then discover that eating back the calories measured on her HRM during her strength sessions may be equivalent to a post-workout protein shake.....which is probably not a bad thing for her to do.

As far as the effectivceness of her workouts and eating plan, well, that can only be determined with weekly weigh-ins and measuring tape. If she is staying on track, she should continue until something stops working. Then she will have data to determine a change in one variable whether it's dietary or exercise in order to re-correct her course towards her goal.

The HRM is one tool of many to collect the data we need to make educated course corrections towards our goals. I think that dismissing the use of the HRM just because a person is doing strength training (especially because the research you provided to back up your statement is irrelevant to the question) is rather unhelpful.

use a HRM to get the actual calorie burn and log it as whatever you want, you can name your exercise abs or strength training etc.

HRMs don't measure cals burned doing strength training. Their calculations assume steady state cardio.

use a HRM to get the actual calorie burn and log it as whatever you want, you can name your exercise abs or strength training etc.

HRM's are inaccurate for strength training.

Says who? Do you have a peer-reviewed reference for that statement? :-)

yes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_systems

And yet.....I don't see anything in that link about HRMs and their accuracy/inaccuracy in measuring calories burns during strength training. There is an aerobic component to weight lifting, that is certainly measurable with a HRM. This value may not be as high as one would achieve with running for 60 minutes, but it is there. OP will perhaps then discover that eating back the calories measured on her HRM during her strength sessions may be equivalent to a post-workout protein shake.....which is probably not a bad thing for her to do.

As far as the effectivceness of her workouts and eating plan, well, that can only be determined with weekly weigh-ins and measuring tape. If she is staying on track, she should continue until something stops working. Then she will have data to determine a change in one variable whether it's dietary or exercise in order to re-correct her course towards her goal.

The HRM is one tool of many to collect the data we need to make educated course corrections towards our goals. I think that dismissing the use of the HRM just because a person is doing strength training (especially because the research you provided to back up your statement is irrelevant to the question) is rather unhelpful.

how exactly does a device used to measure cardio energy useage based upon oxygen consumption supposed to measure energy systems that have completely different pathways?

HRM's measure cardiovacular energy system caloric consumption. Lifting weights use ATP-CP and Lactic acid energy systems, NOT cardio.

as for the areobic component, it's very small.

edit: this was posted in another thread. Aside from that, I don't know what more needs to be said. Different energy systems. Different pathways. HRM is only designed to measure one of them. It's biology, and science. Sorry you don't get it, but it's reality.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/hrms-cannot-count-calories-during-strength-training-17698

werd yo. Was just about to post the same thing.

If you aren't doing that intense of weight training, why not try logging it as "circuit training"? They have that in the list of exercises.

Wow, I didn't know it was so hard to calculate calories burned doing strength training. So I guess my follow up question is, since it's so hard to pin down, how do YOU guys track your calorie intake on days you strength train? Do you eat over your calories under the assumption that you must have burned SOME calories or is better not to eat these particular exercise calories back at all?

Jerzypeach mentioned I should drink a protein shake after I weight train. I've heard this before, but I admit I'm at a loss with all the protein shakes. I know there are like four types of protein powder and then numerous brands that sell each type, but I have no idea what to even start looking for in a powder.

First, I use 3 cals burned per 10 minutes of lifting as my estimate. But it is just that, an estimate.

Second, and this is my personal approach to this whole getting healthy thing... you shouldn't be lifting for the purpose of losing weight (you should be eating right to lose weight). If that's the case, then cals burned from lifting don't matter.

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