I'm new and have a question about exercise?

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bbranche04
bbranche04 Posts: 4 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello, I've been journaling my food for 7 days now. It is much easier than I anticipated. When I add cardio exercise it adds the calories I burn. However, when I add any strength exercises, it does not add any calories burned? Why is this? Do strength not count towards helping loose weight? Thank you

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  • CatHunterFit
    CatHunterFit Posts: 194 Member
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    You do still burn calories doing strength exercises, but nowhere near as much as during cardio.

    Strength work absolutely does help you to lose weight. It will enable you to build muscle which will mean your body will burn calories more efficiently, and it will give you the "toned" look that so many people are after.

    Many people lose weight without any cardio and just weight training.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    Strength training will help you KEEP the lean muscle you have...build muscle at a deficit is not very likely. Regardless of burn....strength training is very important for health and fitness.

    If you log strength in the cardiovascular section, MFP will give you a (very rough) estimate of calories burned.
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
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    Add "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" to Cardiovascular to get estimated Calories Burned added to your Diary. Please note that the Calories burned for Cardiovascular exercises provided by MFP are based on published metabolic equivalents of tasks (METs), which are estimates for a general population and may differ for you as an individual. If desired, add individual strength training exercises, such as "Biceps Curl," to Strength Training to have a log of sets, reps, and weights as individual exercises.

    Please see these articles in the list of articles on this topic in the MFP Help pages...
    myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/11170-why-don-t-you-calculate-calories-burned-for-strength-training-
    myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/topics/455842-exercise-diary-and-exercise-database/articles

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  • bbranche04
    bbranche04 Posts: 4 Member
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    Thank you so much for these replies. What a friendly website. I understand the reasoning now.
  • Capt_Apollo
    Capt_Apollo Posts: 9,026 Member
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    bbranche04 wrote: »
    Thank you so much for these replies. What a friendly website. I understand the reasoning now.

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  • beertrollruss
    beertrollruss Posts: 276 Member
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    I used a heart rate monitor to get an idea of how many calories I burn lifting weights. It was fairly close to MFP estimates, so I go with that.
  • ncfitbit
    ncfitbit Posts: 1,058 Member
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    Furrycatpig wrote: »
    You do still burn calories doing strength exercises, but nowhere near as much as during cardio.

    Strength work absolutely does help you to lose weight. It will enable you to build muscle which will mean your body will burn calories more efficiently, and it will give you the "toned" look that so many people are after.

    Many people lose weight without any cardio and just weight training.

    Good advice above.

    I wondered the same thing as you when I started and because I liked the sound of "bigger burns" I gravitated toward cardio more than strength, but six months into my weight loss with mostly cardio, I have lost weight, but I don't feel like my body looks all that different. Smaller, yes, but not that different. Reading over and over here on MFP, I'm finally convinced I need to incorporate more strength training into my program regardless of what calories MFP says I burn for it. It's an investment, I guess.

    A big upside to strength training, I'm told, is that you will end up with more lean body mass relative to fat mass and this will increase the calories you burn at rest. And that is what you want because it will make it much easier for you to maintain you weight loss even eating a higher number of calories. Does that make sense?

  • bbranche04
    bbranche04 Posts: 4 Member
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    Thank you!!

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