Lifters who don't do TDEE- help!

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Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    I can see how you might feel that way, and with TDEE, it's important to be consistent. Personally, I use a Bodymedia tracker so that I can directly see how my activity affects the amount I'm able to eat. It will motivate me to take a walk at night just to get a check mark on my Bodymedia app showing I hit my goal. It will have me jogging so I can have a 90 calorie Twix mini ice cream bar before bed. The impact of my actions is direct, immediate, and visible, and I find that very motivating. Have you thought about investing in a tracker of some sort?

    I have heard HRMs will largely underestimate your calorie burn from lifting.

    Actually, wrong direction - it inflates it.

    The lifting is nothing to do with aerobic - which is the only thing the HRM formula for tying HR to calorie burn is based on, steady-state aerobic.

    This is why they inflate burn on HIIT too, hard anaerobic push. Other interval styles aren't as badly inflated, like SIT or normal ones.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    I try to do HIIT, but usually I hit a wall where I can't maintain a good diet, lifting, and HIIT.

    I probably just need to eat less.

    HIIT is what you do to get as close to a lifting workout and response and improvement but you only want to do cardio.

    Max anaerobic push, rest, repeat. Sound familiar?

    If you lift - skip the HIIT. Just do more of the real thing that causes the desired effects.

    Recovery is already impaired in a diet.
    If you really want to kill the recovery - put an intense load on the muscles day after day and then wonder why little to no progress is being made with either workout.

    Completely *kitten*-backwards time to eat less is attempting to do more.

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/weight-training-for-fat-loss-part-1.html
  • SnuggleSmacks
    SnuggleSmacks Posts: 3,731 Member
    I can see how you might feel that way, and with TDEE, it's important to be consistent. Personally, I use a Bodymedia tracker so that I can directly see how my activity affects the amount I'm able to eat. It will motivate me to take a walk at night just to get a check mark on my Bodymedia app showing I hit my goal. It will have me jogging so I can have a 90 calorie Twix mini ice cream bar before bed. The impact of my actions is direct, immediate, and visible, and I find that very motivating. Have you thought about investing in a tracker of some sort?

    I have heard HRMs will largely underestimate your calorie burn from lifting.

    That's right, they actually overestimate, but I'm not talking about a HRM. I'm talking about a fitness tracker that you wear all day which counts your steps. Bodymedia also measures other things, making it a bit more accurate than most of the others, but the point of it is that it calculates with at least some degree of accuracy how many calories you burn each day. Then you subtract a modest deficit from that and know how much you can eat.
  • lisalsd1
    lisalsd1 Posts: 1,519 Member
    I just log "strength training" under cardio in MFP. I feel like the estimation is probably a little low for calories burned, BUT it is better to underestimate than overestimate if you are still trying to reduce body fat.

    I've lost body fat and continued to gain strength while doing this. It's just a slow process. From all of the other posts that I have read on MFP, it isn't an exact science. You have to do some trial and error to figure out what works best for your body.

    For me, I have found that eating at a very low calorie deficit/maintenance level calories and progressively lifting heavier (and continuing cardio, but reducing the amount of time to increase lifting time) has yielded the results I wanted. It's just taken a year+.

    I'm not over-analyzing my calories in/calories out either. I've put more emphasis on increase my numbers when lifting.
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    I try to do HIIT, but usually I hit a wall where I can't maintain a good diet, lifting, and HIIT.

    I probably just need to eat less.

    HIIT is what you do to get as close to a lifting workout and response and improvement but you only want to do cardio.

    Max anaerobic push, rest, repeat. Sound familiar?

    If you lift - skip the HIIT. Just do more of the real thing that causes the desired effects.

    Recovery is already impaired in a diet.
    If you really want to kill the recovery - put an intense load on the muscles day after day and then wonder why little to no progress is being made with either workout.

    Completely *kitten*-backwards time to eat less is attempting to do more.

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/weight-training-for-fat-loss-part-1.html

    The article you quote says:

    "But in this case, at least within the context of the primary goal of a diet (lose fat/maintain muscle), none of that matters. Put simply, if someone had to choose ONE type of weight training to perform on a diet, it would be heavy tension oriented training while letting the diet/cardio type work handle the fat loss. I’ll cover loading parameters in Part 2.

    In fact, that’s exactly what I recommended in The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook: 2-3 short heavy weight workouts per week (to maintain muscle mass) while allowing the big caloric deficit of the diet generate fat loss. And it works."

    This is exactly what I said I'm doing. I'm sticking to my lifting program, but not trying to raise my ORM- just maintain. I lift 3-4 times a week- ok so a little more than he said. I'm adding in cardio (HIIT) to burn fat, and I'm trying to find the right caloric balance to lose weight. I know 1200 plus exercise calories works in terms of losing for me because I lost 50 lbs that way. I just need to know how many calories I should eat for the lifting routine.

    If I don't give myself any calories for lifting, I'm afraid I am just going to starve my hard earned gains- and yes I have gains! Been lifting for three years now!
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    So that article you shared is great- I have read it before and was actually the reason I do my assistance work as metabolic training. I suppose I did miss the point that I should cut back the frequency of my heavy training- I guess I should consider cutting my heavy training days down to twice a week instead of four times a week, and maybe do my other two lifting days as purely metabolic and cardio.

    I still don't know how much to eat tho. Ever since I started lifting it's been the same problem.
  • IllustratedxGirl
    IllustratedxGirl Posts: 240 Member
    I use the same method of having a low baseline and eating back calories. I'm still in a cutting phase.. But after another 15-18 lbs or so, I plan to try my first bulking phase. I'm also a vegan, so I understand how difficult it is to get an adequate amount of protein while keeping my calories low.. I did hit 115 grams of protein one day this week :)

    Anyways, I wear a heart rate monitor when I do strength training, and I burn about 300 calories an hour. I try to take minimal breaks.i am working on increasing my weights, but I'm not where at your level yet! I recently made the switch from machines to free weights and compound exercises about a month ago, and I'm straying with strong lifts 5x5.

    To give you an idea of my current body type, I'm 5'9 and 148.5 lbs. also, I keep my net calories at 1350 and workout quite a bit (sometimes as much as strength training plus 3+ classes a day)

    I'm going to send you a friend request as we seem to have similar goals! I need the same kind of reward system while working out
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    So that article you shared is great- I have read it before and was actually the reason I do my assistance work as metabolic training. I suppose I did miss the point that I should cut back the frequency of my heavy training- I guess I should consider cutting my heavy training days down to twice a week instead of four times a week, and maybe do my other two lifting days as purely metabolic and cardio.

    I still don't know how much to eat tho. Ever since I started lifting it's been the same problem.

    METS - multiplier of resting metabolism. Since unmeasured, use BMR estimate, unless you have BF%, then use Cunningham RMR formula.

    So BMR / 1440 is calorie burn per minute x minutes of workout x METS = calories burned.

    Subtract 1 from the METS to get calorie burn over and above resting calorie burn.

    So if study found METS is 8 x resting burn for something, use 7 in formula above and those results you eat back in total.

    https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/compendia

    Circuit training moderate effort - 4.3 METS
    Circuit training minimal rest vigorous - 8 METS
    Lifting like squats slow or explosive - 5 METS
    Lifting 8-15 reps - 3.5 METS
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    So that article you shared is great- I have read it before and was actually the reason I do my assistance work as metabolic training. I suppose I did miss the point that I should cut back the frequency of my heavy training- I guess I should consider cutting my heavy training days down to twice a week instead of four times a week, and maybe do my other two lifting days as purely metabolic and cardio.

    I still don't know how much to eat tho. Ever since I started lifting it's been the same problem.

    METS - multiplier of resting metabolism. Since unmeasured, use BMR estimate, unless you have BF%, then use Cunningham RMR formula.

    So BMR / 1440 is calorie burn per minute x minutes of workout x METS = calories burned.

    Subtract 1 from the METS to get calorie burn over and above resting calorie burn.

    So if study found METS is 8 x resting burn for something, use 7 in formula above and those results you eat back in total.

    https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/compendia

    Circuit training moderate effort - 4.3 METS
    Circuit training minimal rest vigorous - 8 METS
    Lifting like squats slow or explosive - 5 METS
    Lifting 8-15 reps - 3.5 METS

    FINALLY AN ANSWER!!!! thanks!
  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
    For reference, I don't do tdee, weigh 128lb and log 175 cals per hour for a workout.i suspect it's more like 300. I'm 15-18% bf. Sometimes my lifting sessions are incredibly sweaty and challenging.

    I try to slightly undereat a few days a week then be a bit more relaxed a couple of days. I wouldn't want to be any bigger. I don't underestimate any of my cardio though. I've maintained this for a while.
  • nellyett
    nellyett Posts: 436 Member
    bump for later....
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    For reference, I don't do tdee, weigh 128lb and log 175 cals per hour for a workout.i suspect it's more like 300. I'm 15-18% bf. Sometimes my lifting sessions are incredibly sweaty and challenging.

    I try to slightly undereat a few days a week then be a bit more relaxed a couple of days. I wouldn't want to be any bigger. I don't underestimate any of my cardio though. I've maintained this for a while.

    Awesome. Would you mind sharing what your calorie goal is per day? Is it 1200 plus exercise calories, or more?

    EDIT:

    I saw it's 1750! Is that your BMR?

    I am trying to lose 5-10 lbs and then I want to try to maintain within that range doing bulks/cuts... sounds like what you do will be the best thing to stay in that range.

    Thanks for your help!!!
  • Sarasota_Guy
    Sarasota_Guy Posts: 82 Member
    Yeah I just use the base numbers MFP gives you. I know they're only an approximation, but I'm sure they're close enough :)
  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
    For reference, I don't do tdee, weigh 128lb and log 175 cals per hour for a workout.i suspect it's more like 300. I'm 15-18% bf. Sometimes my lifting sessions are incredibly sweaty and challenging.

    I try to slightly undereat a few days a week then be a bit more relaxed a couple of days. I wouldn't want to be any bigger. I don't underestimate any of my cardio though. I've maintained this for a while.

    Awesome. Would you mind sharing what your calorie goal is per day? Is it 1200 plus exercise calories, or more?

    EDIT:

    I saw it's 1750! Is that your BMR?

    I am trying to lose 5-10 lbs and then I want to try to maintain within that range doing bulks/cuts... sounds like what you do will be the best thing to stay in that range.

    Thanks for your help!!!

    Hi!

    That's my tdee MINUS exercise cals. The higher the better! Especially as I'm getting long in the tooth and LOVE food.

    It's actually halfway between sedentary and lightly active on the scooby calc. I put this down to several things. I think recovering from weight training adds a bit extra 3 x week, I don't have a tv or sofa so I never veg. I walk everywhere, and have a nine year old son. There's a small chance I am slightly underestimating my cardio calories, and I train for triathlon so that could ramp up quite quickly.

    Whatever, I also forget to log the odd thing too, but I'm maintaining, and it works!

    Ps you really want to lose? You have a gorgeous body!
  • georgiagreeneyes
    georgiagreeneyes Posts: 69 Member
    Oh wow. MFP will only give me 200 calories for an hour of lifting. Could that be right?? That doesn't make me want to keep lifting! Lol! I can burn that much running for 20 minutes!

    When it comes to weight lifting you have to remember It's not all about calorie expenditure. if you're weight training you are increasing your body's muscle mass and thereby increasing your basal metabolic rate (aka how many calories you burn at rest). Running may burn more calories but it's not going to have the same effect on your BMR.

    I have many friends that do Olympic Lifting at Crossfit and they easily burn 800 calories in a session. If you're interested in burning more calories in a weight lifting session consider a high intensity interval workout or supersets. For instance, a set of squats followed by a set of mountain climbers (http://www.acefitness.org/acefit/fitness_programs_exercise_library_details.aspx?exerciseid=258) then rest. Workouts like this will combine both strength and endurance training so you'll torch calories as opposed to a traditional lift session.
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  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    As a result of this thread, I have made some major changes to how I train.

    I only do the warm up and work sets of my 5/3/1 routine and I only do it twice a week (two main lifts each day) and use the same weights/reps as my last "bulk" cycle ...and on bench day I'll do pendlays just cuz. Then twice a week I do all of my strong curves type stuff, and do metabolic lifting like bear complexes, circuit training, etc. I am giving myself liberty to enjoy these work outs and explore different ways of working muscles. And I am logging no more than 10 calories for it.

    I also have added more cardio into my routine. At least 10 minutes on lift days, but typically I do 20. I also am focusing on cardio on non-lifting days- which I have always been trying to do. I do HIIT some days and sometimes I just do steady state. I log cardio calories and eat them back.

    I'm at 1200 + cardio calories.

    This feels good. I'm no longer bored by my routine- having fun in the gym again. And I have already lost a little weight- 2 lbs since I switched to this new routine.

    I'll probably stick to this for a while. I'm still trying to lose 8 more lbs.

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