Weight Lifting...why so few calories?

Studies have demonstrated that after a weight training workout, the metabolism can be boosted for up to 36 hours post-workout, meaning rather than burning say 60 calories an hour while sitting and watching TV, you're burning 70. While you may think, 'Big deal - 10 extra calories', when you multiply this by 36 hours, you can see what a huge difference that makes in your daily calorie expenditure over that day and a half.

One issue you're more than likely thinking about is the different calorie burns during the actual workout - that's got to count for something, right?

That is correct. If you do a longer cardio session, you could burn somewhere in the neighbourhood of 500-800 calories, depending on the exact length and intensity level. That is a fairly decent number and will definitely help with your fat loss goals.

Since you must burn off 3500 calories in order to lose one pound of body fat, if you do enough of these cardio sessions, and make sure you're not eating these calories back, weight loss will take place.

But, keep in mind here again that you are going to have to keep doing those long cardio sessions. Time will likely become a big factor with this one, as well as boredom could start to play a role over time as well.

While the weight training session may not burn as many calories minute per minute during the actual workout (although that too can depend on how intense the weight lifting is), the overall calorie burning benefits you receive from it typically outweigh that of cardio.

lol at people thinking weightlifting burns a lot of calories.

If it makes you feel good to make fun of those that are just learning, then you have issues.

to those who actually helped answer my question and offered some advise and took the time to explain to me, i truly appreciate it...but to you sir, go blow a goat.

I wasn't even talking about those just learning, i'm loling at people who thing weightlifting burns a lot of calories [because of perceived effort].

But really, I don't care, I laugh at most people on this site for thinking weight loss is rocket science.

The weightlifting calorie burns in MFP are wrong. Pure and simple.

It's a difficult thing to actually measure without a HRM, and even then varies a lot depending on types of exercise done, rep ranges, etc.

This is why the TDEE method is useful

The weightlifting calorie burns in MFP are wrong. Pure and simple.

It's a difficult thing to actually measure without a HRM, and even then varies a lot depending on types of exercise done, rep ranges, etc.

This is why the TDEE method is useful

^THIS - HRM is the only way to know. Plus...as it probably has been said (at work no time to read all the crap) if your building muscle, your body will burn more calories in the run. FACT

The weightlifting calorie burns in MFP are wrong. Pure and simple.

It's a difficult thing to actually measure without a HRM, and even then varies a lot depending on types of exercise done, rep ranges, etc.

This is why the TDEE method is useful

^THIS - HRM is the only way to know.

This is not true. Calories burned are a direct correlation of your heart rate. So in your example of a scary movie raising your heart rate, you actually WOULD burn more calories then watching say a documentary that kept your heart rate lower. We are splitting hairs however as the difference between the two would be very minimal. Your calorie burn is related to oxygen intake and carbon dioxide exhaust. The faster your heart beats, the faster that process occurs therefore increasing your calorie burn.

Actually you are completely incorrect. Calories burned is a direct correlation to the amount of work (using the word in its scientific meaning) being performed by your muscles. *BY DEFINITION*

Heart rate monitors can approximate that amount for steady state cardio. However, even the manufacturers of HRMs will tell you that they are wildly inaccurate for interval activities like HIIT or weight lifting. Trying to use an HRM to estimate calories burned for anything OTHER than steady state cardio is a fool's game.

I don't really like to get into back and forth on here, but no.

Caloric expenditure occurs when you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

So to estimate how many calories you burn you have to know how much oxygen you go through. Oxygen intake is loosely (and that is the part I agree with you on with HRMs not being exact) correlate with heart rate, so if you can monitor your heart rate, you are essentially monitoring oxygen intake/usage. VO2Max is something most HRMs take into consideration which measures how many milliliters of oxygen per minutes your body is taking in and transferring into the blood. So by tracking your Heart Rate, it can loosely track your VO2Max which is why you can track calorie expenditure watching that horror film regardless if you are sitting around or doing squats. Clearly doing the squats will increase your oxygen intake, therefore raising your heart rate and burning more calories.

so if you're holding your breath you can't burn calories?

Assuming you were able to hold your breath forever? yes that would be true...but you would eventually release your breath...if you didn't, you would be dead and there would be no calorie burn as there would no longer be oxygen exchange.

Several replies have occurred while I was at lunch and again, I'm not here to debate. If you don't believe me, read up on it. I never said I'm smarter than scientists who hold doctorates. As a matter of fact, the places I learned this from were those scientists.

The bottom line is that higher heart rate will burn more calories. Don't believe me? take 2 people running at the same speed for the same distance. Both are the same sex, height and weight but one is extremely out of shape while the other is a marathon runner. Because the runner is conditioned and able to run at that output with less effort, he takes in less oxygen, produces less carbon dioxide and therefore has a lower heart rate burning less calories than the out of shape person who is sucking wind and has a very high heart rate.


In a way, some of the things we are saying are very similar, but the fact you mention no scientist is able to identify calorie burn while lifting is silly to me. Is it easier to track constant state cardio? absolutely....is it impossible to track weight lifting calorie burn? not at all

Good try-- but still no.

weight lifting doesn't burn all that many calories...it is really not the purpose of resistance training. You do resistance training so that you look awesome when you've shed the fat...it is a long term investment in your overall body composition (among other things).

This.

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the game that is MFP. Burning calories becomes like earning points in a video game. But you've got to take a step back and realize that the end goal is not to win the MFP game but to actual improve your health and you appearance. Weight lifting does that even if it doesn't contribute much to the game.