Calories burnt with weight lifting

Hey everyone!

So today I plan on taking my calories up from 1200 to like maybe 1700 without exercise cals added in, and I'm wondering if that is around how many I should be eating with adding in weight training. I wasn't getting anywhere with 1200 cals and I was wanting to starting lifting as well.

I'm 5'7"
CW-160
GW-140

I plan on lifting three days a week for about an hour with 20 mins of cardio. And two days of straight cardio for an hour each.

I don't know how much lifting actually burns as far as calories, so I want to be sure I am eating the correct amount!

Your help would be appreciated!

Replies

  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Lifting doesn't burn a ton of calories, it is more for the benefit of retaining muscle and getting stronger while losing weight. What I can suggest is that you change your activity level to light active instead, that should be good enough to account for the actual burn. If you are already set to light active or higher, I would just take it that those cals are already included in your current intake.
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
    Your TDEE is in the ballpark of 2412-2684
    To lose weight, eat 1930-2147 cals/day (don't add back in exercise calories); or eat in the above range to maintain.
    Do this 4-6 weeks then make a small adjustment if necessary (losing weight too rapidly or too slowly; or exercise performance is suffering)
  • raingirl21
    raingirl21 Posts: 167 Member
    MFP says you burn 50 calories for 30 minutes of lifting. If you do circuit lifting and keep your heart rate up you could burn a lot more but they don't have info on that. You'd have to see if that amount of calories works for what you are doing. And it will depend what type of cardio you are doing too, I personally burn a lot more on the elliptical compared to walking on the treadmill for example.

    Hope it works for you.
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    There's no good way to measure calorie burn for lifting. HRMs don't work for this application. Just use the default setting under Cardio>Strength Training for the time you spend. It's a good enough estimate.


    ETA: Taso gave me this advice when I was brand new here. :happy:
  • krazykate483
    krazykate483 Posts: 41 Member
    Your TDEE is in the ballpark of 2412-2684
    To lose weight, eat 1930-2147 cals/day (don't add back in exercise calories); or eat in the above range to maintain.
    Do this 4-6 weeks then make a small adjustment if necessary (losing weight too rapidly or too slowly; or exercise performance is suffering)

    If i'm not burning as many calories as I would be doing cardio, how did you figure my TDEE would be around 2414-2684? Because I was figuring it was around there when I was doing straight cardio 5 days a week.
  • krazykate483
    krazykate483 Posts: 41 Member
    There's no good way to measure calorie burn for lifting. HRMs don't work for this application. Just use the default setting under Cardio>Strength Training for the time you spend. It's a good enough estimate.


    ETA: Taso gave me this advice when I was brand new here. :happy:

    Thanks! Do you lift? And are you around my height or weight? I'm just trying to get an idea where I should be calorie wise? I don't know what I should net. I was so stuck on 1200 cals but everyone says its wayyyy too low for me.
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    There's no good way to measure calorie burn for lifting. HRMs don't work for this application. Just use the default setting under Cardio>Strength Training for the time you spend. It's a good enough estimate.


    ETA: Taso gave me this advice when I was brand new here. :happy:

    Thanks! Do you lift? And are you around my height or weight? I'm just trying to get an idea where I should be calorie wise? I don't know what I should net. I was so stuck on 1200 cals but everyone says its wayyyy too low for me.

    I do lift. I'm shorter than you and a muscular 145lbs. Right now I'm in maintenance, but when I was losing the lowest I went was 1650 and then I tapered up at the end to 2000-2100 PLUS exercise, with a minimum of ~125 grams of protein For me, MFP gives me 200 cals/hr of lifting, and I've always eaten them back without any problem. I also run and eat those cals back, too.