Calories for Weight Lifting

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Ryan_Case
Ryan_Case Posts: 29 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I am a little over six months in and about 70lbs down. I am switching up my routine and going to start lifting the big three plus pull ups all heavy. Up until now I had used the calories that MFP logged for my cardio and used it as a serious motivational tool. I never ate them back, but it was driving to see the numbers in the log.

I completely understand why MFP can't estimate calories burned for weight lifting. But I want to know, how do people account for the calories burned? I am afraid that I am going to miss that mental motivation of seeing the calories burned show up in my log.

Thoughts.

Replies

  • TheArchyBunker
    TheArchyBunker Posts: 1,967 Member
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    Heart Rate Monitors + a heart rate calculator
  • sbarella
    sbarella Posts: 713 Member
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    First of all, great choice!
    There is an entry for "strength training" among the cardio exercise entries. Counterintuitive, I know. It's a rough estimate but it worked for me so far.
    You can also switch to the TDEE method (read the Sexypants guide in the stickies) but it will probably tell you to eat wayyy more than you're doing ATM, which IMHO is very low for an active male.

    ETA: HRM are useless for weight training. Don't waste your money.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    Heart Rate Monitors + a heart rate calculator

    no not even close.

    As sbarella said TDEE is what a lot use when lifting, you will have to follow your progress for 2-4 weeks and figure out your TDEE.

    3 week prior to starting lifting I bought a food scale and started logging accurately kept track of calories in (including MFP estimates for current exercise) and pounds lost...that gave me my TDEE. (Total calories consumed + (lbs lost x 3500)/# days.

    No I don't miss seeing the burns because when I log the exercise I see it I just change it to 1.

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