Weight Training Calories burned?

strength training itself isn't a huge calorie burner.

wowza, it is what I do...
any suggestions?

MRS;

Since you asked, mine would be to not waste the time and effort.

MFP (and ALL calorie trackers) are rough "guesstimates" AT BEST. Recent studies have shown error rates of + or - 16% for the BEST of them (and others much higher) BOTH for TDEE calculations and caloric intake numbers. Exercise numbers can vary by 100% or more.

Simply put, for someone who decides on a daily cal intake of 2000 kcal that number "might" actually be 2320 or 1680 (16% + or -).

Folks are more likely to "forget" to log some cals in and even if they get every morsel the figures in many of the foods in MFP are manually entered by users and frequently wrong. Gym treadmills frequently overestimate cal burns (for marketing reasons).

Add up all the possible "mistakes" and it's not hard to be "off" by 500 cals (or more) - 25%. So that 2000 cals you "thought" you were aiming for might actually be 2500 or 1500. Now decide you're going to "eat back" the 500 exercise cals and it's 3000.

Point being the ONLY (IMO) even "semi" accurate way to track is to focus on cals in - try to get that as accurate as you can. Forget about the exercise cals and monitor AVERAGE progress OVER TIME (track daily but evaluate long term).

As long as your progress is close to your goal (1/2 or 1# / wk, e.g.) keep doing what you are doing. If not (after at least a few weeks), adjust the daily cal intake goal up or down as needed.

Continue to track exercise cals if you want (for motivation or whatever) just don't add another "variable" and not accurate number into the mix.

Marathon runners in training or body builders who spend their lives in the gym might need to compensate for 'exercise" calories "burned" but for the rest of us it's just not worth the effort and adds another variable that's likely wrong. (The tracking, not the exercise).

Pshhhhh whatevs. Log it, imo. Especially if you use a polar. How else to best estimates your deficit or surplus? You don't wanna over-eat or under-eat.

No not exact... but damn close enough to achieve goals.

My experience has been that I log my calories burned in weight training under cardio (it called "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)"). It's not a huge burn - usually around 180 calories for 45 minutes - but it's exercise, and I expended the calories. Long term, I have lost weight logging those calories and eating them back, as long as I kept my daily caloric deficit. Others have found theat MFP temds to overestimate exercise calories, so they log them and only eat back half of the exercise calories they earn. You'll have to find out what works for you.

Best of luck!