Do you subtract calories from weight lifting?

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leecha2014
leecha2014 Posts: 385 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey everyone! How do you track weight lifting? I spend 30 min 3-4 x per week, I'm not sure how many calories I'm burning and if I should subract it from my daily total? Thx
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  • outlander47
    outlander47 Posts: 1
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    I was going to ask the same question. I'm not quite sure what to do either.
  • leecha2014
    leecha2014 Posts: 385 Member
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    I'm hoping the answer is yes!
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
    edited February 2015
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    If you're talking traditional weightlifting (i.e., do a set for a minute or so, recover for three minutes or so, repeat), just log it under cardio as weightlifting (and you can track your sets and reps under strength training). If it's something more continuous (light weights, high reps, minimal recovery time in between), then it'd would be logged as circuit training.

    FWIW, traditional weightlifting doesn't net out as a lot of calories...not much being burned during the recovery time.
  • Paul_Collyer
    Paul_Collyer Posts: 160 Member
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    You'd have to wear a HRM to get a picture of calorie burn.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    awarreningermany wrote: »
    I am not sure about this either. I do supersets with little rest and lots of full body moves and I usually do it 3 times a week for well over an hour but am often told I should not log it at all or my hiit training. This means for me that I cant log or get credit for any calories cause there is no way to know how many i burnt to begin with. It is kind of depressing to train as hard as I do (I also do hiit, liss, and trx work etc on the non gym days) and not get to have credit at all for those workouts but if I guess and I guess wrong and eat some, I could throw off my weight loss. Totally not fair!

    Just use the MFP estimates - they are as good as anything else.

    "but if I guess and I guess wrong and eat some, I could throw off my weight loss"

    No not really - you would have to get it massively and consistently wrong for it to have a significant impact. If your weight loss results over time don't match expectations you simply adjust. If you estimate you have a chance of being close enough - not recording at all guarantees you are wrong!
  • robynkidd84
    robynkidd84 Posts: 1 Member
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    The issue is the calorie burning at that time isn't that high for weight training (and any calories burned would be picked up by a HRM) but the real calorie burn comes after weight training due to the metabolism being lifted and staying elevated for a longer period than after straight cardio. Also, as you lose fat and gain muscle, while your weight may remain the same, the increased muscle means that your basal meta rate will increase also.
    All of these things are very difficult to calculate at any general level eg you weigh 60kg and did 3 sets of 40 kg squats, 10 reps per set. Depending on the proportion of muscle to fat that makes up the 60kg you weigh, you cannot attach a generic calorie burn to a)the activity itself or b) the 'afterburn' from the raised metabolism.
    Best guess re including calorie burn is to use that which comes under cardio and know you have a few extra burned calories hanging around in the background! Trust me though, it's been annoying me too!
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    The 8 or 9 extra calories from afterburn really aren't going to make much of a difference. EPOC is insignificant; 6-8% for anaerobic and 4-5% for aerobic activities.

    Anyway, to return to the original point, there seem to be two questions;

    Should one eat back calories expended? The answer is yes, that's how MFP is designed. Notwithstanding that the scope for errors is quite high around both intake and expenditure, so some people advocate not eating them back, or only eating a proportion back.

    The second question becomes, what's the most appropriate way to estimate calories expended for these types of workouts. The answer is, every method of estimating calories has the potential for quite significant errors, either up or down. with that in mind, just pick the lowest cost - As upthread, for traditional resistance training, log it as weight training under CV, and for higher paced, then circuit training.

    The key point is to use a consistent method, and adjust your intake according to your actual results. If you're losing faster than planned then eat more, if slower than planned then eat less.
  • dlvuyovich
    dlvuyovich Posts: 102 Member
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    I actually don't. I found my caloric needs for a non workout day and a workout day, with the breakdown of macros, through a few sites to cross-reference. I stick with the max/min based on workout day or rest day.

    I found that by searching and finding how many calories I was burning regardless of the type of exercise, was giving me license to eat badly. So after a major workout, when I am still hungry, I try to eat well and log it.

    I also decided against getting a fitbit monitor, or any of its other cousins, to keep me from the false sense of inflating the actual numbers game.

    For me, this method has worked since I lost a few pounds and my muscle tone has improved.
  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
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    Paul_Collyer wrote: »
    You'd have to wear a HRM to get a picture of calorie burn.
    No. HRM are for steady states of cardio which weight lifting isn't one, perhaps circuit training but that is debatable.

    I have found by how much my weight fluctuates that I burn between 3-4 cals a minute. Some people might burn more, some may burn less. If your logging is accurate and you are using a food scale, then you should be able to use this method accurately.

    One pound of fat burned is 3500 calories. So if you lose a half of pound more than you planned then you burned 1750 cals extra. Divide 1750 by minutes for all workouts in that period and it should get you close.

    Or you could just figure on 5 cals a minute and adjust accordingly. Its not that big of a deal, just adjust your cals intake on the site to your liking so it stays close to what you want to lose.
  • jazzy550
    jazzy550 Posts: 264 Member
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    If I run or bike long distance or follow a fat burn DVD routine I count the calories but if I am at the gym for 30 mins doing a few sets I'd skip on counting that. It takes at least 20 mins to get the heart rate in the fat burning mode and since weight lifting is static there isn't much burning but rather building.
  • lisalsd1
    lisalsd1 Posts: 1,520 Member
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    I log it into MFP using the database. I think I use "weightlifting, moderate intensity." In about 60mins, it's something like 100 cals burned. It isn't a huge amount, but I like to track my workout minutes for the week. I've lost fat over the last year, so it seems to be working for me.
  • wvtracyann
    wvtracyann Posts: 106 Member
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    I do! I have a Heart Rate Monitor though so when I go to the gym and start my workout cardio/weight lifting I start it and then when I am done I stop and log what it reads. Weight lifting burns a lot more than I thought it would.
  • db34fit69
    db34fit69 Posts: 189 Member
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    wvtracyann wrote: »
    I do! I have a Heart Rate Monitor though so when I go to the gym and start my workout cardio/weight lifting I start it and then when I am done I stop and log what it reads. Weight lifting burns a lot more than I thought it would.

    Incorrect, see previous discussion in this thread about why it doesn't burn as much as it says.
  • AllanMisner
    AllanMisner Posts: 4,140 Member
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    When I log, I put 250 calories per hour. But I only do that to make sure I add more protein in my macros.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    wvtracyann wrote: »
    Weight lifting burns a lot more than I thought it would.

    That would be because you're using the HRM in a way that it's not designed to support, so it's overestimating.
  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
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    jazzy550 wrote: »
    If I run or bike long distance or follow a fat burn DVD routine I count the calories but if I am at the gym for 30 mins doing a few sets I'd skip on counting that. It takes at least 20 mins to get the heart rate in the fat burning mode and since weight lifting is static there isn't much burning but rather building.

    There is no "fat burning mode" there is calorie burning which indeed happens in any activity including weight lifting you participate in. Fat is lost through diet while eating in a deficit not by exercising. I assure you if you walk for twenty minutes you are burning calories regardless how high you heart rate is, though it is nearly half the calories if you were to run.
  • HugeBum
    HugeBum Posts: 47 Member
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    I didn't used to log my lifting calories, but ive decided to start logging 100, just because that's how much a protein shake is and to deny myself the extra protein when I've been working so hard seems crazy. I have a feeling I burn a tad more. However, my HRM says 500ish for my weights sessions which seems highly unlikely
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
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    I have never eaten back my weight training calories, but in the beginning I would allow myself to eat ALL of my cardio calories that MFP gave me. It evened out and I lost at the proper rate.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    When I did the MFP method, I used some formula that I found once upon a time...it gave me about 250ish calories for 60 minutes of lifting...which always seemed fairly reasonable.
  • leecha2014
    leecha2014 Posts: 385 Member
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    I'm really glad I'm not the only one confused. There are soooo many people using mfp what has everyone been doing? I would just feel better staying within my goal, which is low as it is. Psychologically it is depressing when you see red, I'm just trying to be really accurate however at the end of the day it's working:)

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