MFP calorie burns from strength training way too low?

Come on MFP!!!!! Stop making it so difficult!

I don't get why people think it is so difficult.

Eat less that you need: you lose weight; Eat more than you need: you gain weight.

The style of training you do and the macronutrient composition of your diet helps determine what proportion of that weight is muscle and what proportion is fat (along with age, gender, training experience and genetics).

That's pretty much it.

(Oh, add in time, patience and consistency of course. But those things go without saying...)

Haha how easy! I don't call tracking everything I eat and trying to get a 10% deficit on a cut or a 10% excess on a bulk while using inaccurate numbers easy. I've worked really hard getting it right and have dropped 10% body fat over two years while being an athlete and not injuring myself, yet reaching awesome fitness and strength. I've had to change so many things on this site to make it work. Using it as it was designed would have ended in a lot of failure for me.

I know 99% of my burns now and track like a mutha. I've also triple checked my food calorie counts to weed out the inaccuracies there.

The last mystery is this strength training one. It seems for a lot of us too. MFP exercise numbers are wrong, and lead a lot of new members down the wrong path. I can't count the times I've read people screwing up their numbers, even experienced ones.

How frustrating to think you're on a bulk only to find you've been at maintenance for a month! That's because the numbers are wrong here, and we can't find them on our HRM.

That's why I love this thread. So we can compare our estimated strength training burns, and find a solution.

MFP should finish their job and get a sophisticated counting system that isn't full of rubbish food counts that randomly have been added and exercise burns that are inaccurate, overestimated and generic. Surely considering the reputation of the site and the caliber of fitness fanatic here justifies it. It kind of defies the point of the whole site if we all have to play with the numbers so much.

Oh it works for me now, but other people here aren't so smart or lucky. I'd run this website very differently if it was me. It's a little neglected to say the least.

Come on MFP!!!!! Stop making it so difficult!

I don't get why people think it is so difficult.

Eat less that you need: you lose weight; Eat more than you need: you gain weight.

The style of training you do and the macronutrient composition of your diet helps determine what proportion of that weight is muscle and what proportion is fat (along with age, gender, training experience and genetics).

That's pretty much it.

(Oh, add in time, patience and consistency of course. But those things go without saying...)

Haha how easy! I don't call tracking everything I eat and trying to get a 10% deficit on a cut or a 10% excess on a bulk while using inaccurate numbers easy. I've worked really hard getting it right and have dropped 10% body fat over two years while being an athlete and not injuring myself, yet reaching awesome fitness and strength. I've had to change so many things on this site to make it work. Using it as it was designed would have ended in a lot of failure for me.

[.....]

How frustrating to think you're on a bulk only to find you've been at maintenance for a month! That's because the numbers are wrong here, and we can't find them on our HRM.

That's why I love this thread. So we can compare our estimated strength training burns, and find a solution.

Well, easy is perhaps the wrong word. Simple. Straight-forward might be a better way to put it. It's not a difficult intellectual exercise, it just requires commitment (time, energy, patience). Einsteinian levels of "figuring it out" are not required.

Just take your best guess for bulking (say an estimated TDEE + 10%) and run with that number for a fortnight. Don't worry about "burns" or anything else. If you're on a consistent routine (and you should be), by the end of the second week, you'll have enough data to rejig and then just keep going with that number (and occasionally rejig as your NEAT ramps up and down, depending, as the weeks go by).

In the context of a long-term training program and long term training goals, spending 1 month and figuring out that you were eating at maintenance is nothing. In fact, you've just nailed maintenance, which is a pretty big thing. Now you know what you need to eat to successfully start your bulk/cut (you'll still need to make adjustments as you go). You should actually spend some time at maintenance after a cut before you plunge into a bulk anyway.

In the context of a long term bulking or cutting phase, the way MFP is set up (i.e. eating back your exercise cals) is not the right way to go about things. Stick with the TDEE method. If you're a casual kinda, sorta whenever exerciser, then MFP's system makes perfect sense. For the aims stated in this thread, it does not.

Come on MFP!!!!! Stop making it so difficult!

I don't get why people think it is so difficult.

Eat less that you need: you lose weight; Eat more than you need: you gain weight.

The style of training you do and the macronutrient composition of your diet helps determine what proportion of that weight is muscle and what proportion is fat (along with age, gender, training experience and genetics).

That's pretty much it.

(Oh, add in time, patience and consistency of course. But those things go without saying...)

Haha how easy! I don't call tracking everything I eat and trying to get a 10% deficit on a cut or a 10% excess on a bulk while using inaccurate numbers easy. I've worked really hard getting it right and have dropped 10% body fat over two years while being an athlete and not injuring myself, yet reaching awesome fitness and strength. I've had to change so many things on this site to make it work. Using it as it was designed would have ended in a lot of failure for me.

[.....]

How frustrating to think you're on a bulk only to find you've been at maintenance for a month! That's because the numbers are wrong here, and we can't find them on our HRM.

That's why I love this thread. So we can compare our estimated strength training burns, and find a solution.

Well, easy is perhaps the wrong word. Simple. Straight-forward might be a better way to put it. It's not a difficult intellectual exercise, it just requires commitment (time, energy, patience). Einsteinian levels of "figuring it out" are not required.

Just take your best guess for bulking (say an estimated TDEE + 10%) and run with that number for a fortnight. Don't worry about "burns" or anything else. If you're on a consistent routine (and you should be), by the end of the second week, you'll have enough data to rejig and then just keep going with that number (and occasionally rejig as your NEAT ramps up and down, depending, as the weeks go by).

In the context of a long-term training program and long term training goals, spending 1 month and figuring out that you were eating at maintenance is nothing. In fact, you've just nailed maintenance, which is a pretty big thing. Now you know what you need to eat to successfully start your bulk/cut (you'll still need to make adjustments as you go). You should actually spend some time at maintenance after a cut before you plunge into a bulk anyway.

In the context of a long term bulking or cutting phase, the way MFP is set up (i.e. eating back your exercise cals) is not the right way to go about things. Stick with the TDEE method. If you're a casual kinda, sorta whenever exerciser, then MFP's system makes perfect sense. For the aims stated in this thread, it does not.

You're assuming people follow a consistent routine in training. A lot of people don't. For example, triathletes follow a system called periodization where the peak weeks can end end up being double the amount of hours of rest and recovery weeks. I'm trying to cut ever so carefully through this. Luckily my HRM is pretty close.

You would think bulking would be more consistent. Not so, not if you're on a progressive programme and your sessions are getting more and more intense like in the OPs case.

I've done the graphing and counting and measuring, so have a lot of people. It's a moving target, and very difficult. Then there are all the unknown and unreasearched factors to add in too. I'd say it's extremely difficult to get right.

I look at it from a practical standpoint, and ask myself, what would I do if MFP were to shut down or I lost my HRM? If you're not gaining add calories, if your not losing, subtract calories. You're body is the only accurate journal you'll have, ever.

In the context of a long term bulking or cutting phase, the way MFP is set up (i.e. eating back your exercise cals) is not the right way to go about things. Stick with the TDEE method. If you're a casual kinda, sorta whenever exerciser, then MFP's system makes perfect sense. For the aims stated in this thread, it does not.

Yes it is.

I've run through my data both with the TDEE method and the MFP method. MFP's method give a small but real increase in predictive power.

You have to be good at counting up your exercise cals, but that isn't too hard. MFP's exercise databases is in fact quite accurate, IF you are using common sense and using reasonable burns. Walking/running #'s are very accurate. Strength training is too if you use the calisthenics entries instead of the strength training entry.

A fitbit wouldn't really help with strength training either, as the accelerometer only tends to register steps for walking or running. It doesn't give anything extra for the calories you burn actually straining to lift.

In the context of a long term bulking or cutting phase, the way MFP is set up (i.e. eating back your exercise cals) is not the right way to go about things. Stick with the TDEE method. If you're a casual kinda, sorta whenever exerciser, then MFP's system makes perfect sense. For the aims stated in this thread, it does not.

Yes it is.

I've run through my data both with the TDEE method and the MFP method. MFP's method give a small but real increase in predictive power.

You have to be good at counting up your exercise cals, but that isn't too hard. MFP's exercise databases is in fact quite accurate, IF you are using common sense and using reasonable burns. Walking/running #'s are very accurate. Strength training is too if you use the calisthenics entries instead of the strength training entry.

Well, you've selectively quoted me there. I am talking about in the context of a regular training schedule. In which case, estimating burns and stuff like that is an extra step that just makes things more complicated as opposed to just picking a number (correctly or incorrectly) once and adjusting it in 2 weeks.

But, whatever. There's a million different ways to do things. Some people like things to be more complicated, some people like a more faff-free approach. I'm guessing we're both happy with the way we're doing things. The problem comes when you get people who are divorced from the real world feedback they are getting from their weigh-ins/measurement days and aren't simply adjusting up or down (or re-evaluating their intake/inputted burns) every couple of weeks as necessary. That's the point.

OP

do what i did. instead of guessing what your TDEE or BMR is go get it done professionally. I did at UPMC here in pittsburgh for $80

having said that i only log my eating calories through MFP. The rest i use my fitbit for as accurate a reading as possible, then adjust accordingly through a spreadsheet i keep with my cals burned/cals eaten to see where i stand

Probably had an RMR test, which is neither BMR (though you can backtrack to it from RMR), nor is it TDEE.

Great way to start with best estimate though to get to TDEE, and tracking to monitor it.

I know this isn't really anything to do with your original question, and I apologise for that, but I am curious - how does Stronglifts take an hour? I can do my sets in about 15 mins - am I doing it wrong? :laugh:

If you're completing the whole workout in 15 mins then you can't be taking the recommended rest time (the minimum being 90 seconds per set).

Say, for example, each set takes 30 seconds to complete, so 5 sets of 30 = 150 seconds actual lifting, plus four rest periods of 90 second (360 seconds) = 8 minutes 30 seconds per exercise. With three exercises (at least for workout A) that would be a minimum of 25 min 30 for the whole workout, not accounting for warm up sets and time taken to set up the weights between exercises.

You must be lifting super fast and without rest or warm ups.

I'm a female, and can burn around 2000 kcal in a day, with moderate lifts. I don't want to build muscles, just nicely defined in a feminine way. Well, needless to say that I've been eating back my exer.kcals on top of my daily allowance as well, to maintain my fitness level. Totaling a daily intake of between, 2200-3000 kcal. I am glad to say that, I'm beginning to see results in the most un expected way. The scales won't budge, but the tapemeasure does. I'm looking forward to the summer months!