Should I track my weight lifting exercise?

LolaKarwowski
LolaKarwowski Posts: 217 Member
edited November 18 in Fitness and Exercise
I won't make this too long. If this is a dumb question, sorry.

Should I track my weight lifting exercise? I'm not exactly trying to lose a whole lot of weight (maybe 10-15 pounds). I just feel like it's hard to rely on the calories MFP says i'm using in certain exercises. Buying a fancy gadget is not an option at the moment so MFP is the only thing I can rely on. What do you guys think?

Replies

  • joe3052
    joe3052 Posts: 28 Member
    Generally when you weight lift your going to burn between 150 to 200 calories. Only way to truly tell is to buy a heart rate monitor. You can also look at estimates online based on your body wieght, age, and gender.
  • barryplumber
    barryplumber Posts: 401 Member
    I don't just leave it as surplus calories not eaten it will be depleted on any miscalculations you make on entering food values
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    joe3052 wrote: »
    Generally when you weight lift your going to burn between 150 to 200 calories. Only way to truly tell is to buy a heart rate monitor. You can also look at estimates online based on your body wieght, age, and gender.

    Huh? How do you throw out numbers without needed data like how long is the workout.

  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
    I track it separately. I don't track the calories, only the weight I lifted. If you're lifting regularly and you think you're losing too much weight then just up your calories a bit to compensate.
  • vorgas
    vorgas Posts: 741 Member
    joe3052 wrote: »
    Only way to truly tell is to buy a heart rate monitor. You can also look at estimates online based on your body wieght, age, and gender.
    HRMs have nothing to do with calories burned during weight lifting.
    Weight lifting is pressure load from intermittent anaerobic exercise.
    HRMs measure volume load from steady state aerobic exercise.

  • joe3052
    joe3052 Posts: 28 Member
    yopeeps025 wrote: »
    joe3052 wrote: »
    Generally when you weight lift your going to burn between 150 to 200 calories. Only way to truly tell is to buy a heart rate monitor. You can also look at estimates online based on your body wieght, age, and gender.

    Huh? How do you throw out numbers without needed data like how long is the workout.

    45 minutes is all you need for wieght lifting. An hour max. Anything over your causing too much stress on your joints. Arthritis is very easy to get when you get older if your not careful. The numbers I threw out are general.
  • joe3052
    joe3052 Posts: 28 Member
    vorgas wrote: »
    joe3052 wrote: »
    Only way to truly tell is to buy a heart rate monitor. You can also look at estimates online based on your body wieght, age, and gender.
    HRMs have nothing to do with calories burned during weight lifting.
    Weight lifting is pressure load from intermittent anaerobic exercise.
    HRMs measure volume load from steady state aerobic exercise.

    You can get pretty close with a mixture of body compostions, HRM, TDEE, factor in the rest time. But I've read it's a lot of work so I just take a professionals word.
  • colors_fade
    colors_fade Posts: 464 Member
    I put my lifting sessions under the Cardiovascular section. There's an option for "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)". I use that and input the total time at the gym lifting.

    You won't burn a ton of calories lifting, and I try not to eat these calories back, but I still feel it's important to log the activity. For me, I like knowing everything is logged in MFP. My FitBit, my weight lifting, and my food. It's a complete picture.

    And if my doctor asks, I can just point him to my URL.
  • tyismc
    tyismc Posts: 75 Member
    LolaKarwowski wrote: »
    I won't make this too long. If this is a dumb question, sorry.

    Should I track my weight lifting exercise? I'm not exactly trying to lose a whole lot of weight (maybe 10-15 pounds). I just feel like it's hard to rely on the calories MFP says i'm using in certain exercises. Buying a fancy gadget is not an option at the moment so MFP is the only thing I can rely on. What do you guys think?
    I do. It took me some time to find it on the phone app. When you hit strength training on the phone app it doesn't show a calorie burn for me. I know those are not always accurate. But if you go into Cardio and search strength training its in there.

  • tyismc
    tyismc Posts: 75 Member
    LolaKarwowski wrote: »
    I won't make this too long. If this is a dumb question, sorry.

    Should I track my weight lifting exercise? I'm not exactly trying to lose a whole lot of weight (maybe 10-15 pounds). I just feel like it's hard to rely on the calories MFP says i'm using in certain exercises. Buying a fancy gadget is not an option at the moment so MFP is the only thing I can rely on. What do you guys think?
    and there is no such thing as dumb question. :)

  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    joe3052 wrote: »
    yopeeps025 wrote: »
    joe3052 wrote: »
    Generally when you weight lift your going to burn between 150 to 200 calories. Only way to truly tell is to buy a heart rate monitor. You can also look at estimates online based on your body wieght, age, and gender.

    Huh? How do you throw out numbers without needed data like how long is the workout.

    45 minutes is all you need for wieght lifting. An hour max. Anything over your causing too much stress on your joints. Arthritis is very easy to get when you get older if your not careful. The numbers I threw out are general.

    If I tried to fit my lifting in 45 minutes I would have to go every single day. One big lift and 2 accessory lifts= 45 minutes in the gym. I also have really short resting periods.

    Also almost everything can become a problem when done in excess.
  • JustinAnimal
    JustinAnimal Posts: 1,335 Member
    I feel like this is a hotly-debated topic. I'm sure this thread will get interesting.

    According to NROL, a workout that includes five compound exercises (e.g. squats, push-ups, rows, prone jacknives and step-ups), an approximately 35-45 minute workout, earns you 250 calories to eat back. Your call on if you choose to eat them back or not, but I think you'd want to eat a little bit more on intense exercise days.
  • Geekymonkey99
    Geekymonkey99 Posts: 63 Member
    JustinAnimal wrote: »
    I feel like this is a hotly-debated topic. I'm sure this thread will get interesting.

    According to NROL, a workout that includes five compound exercises (e.g. squats, push-ups, rows, prone jacknives and step-ups), an approximately 35-45 minute workout, earns you 250 calories to eat back. Your call on if you choose to eat them back or not, but I think you'd want to eat a little bit more on intense exercise days.

    Doesn't how much you weigh need to be taken into account?
  • shancymarie
    shancymarie Posts: 1 Member
    colors_fade wrote: »
    I put my lifting sessions under the Cardiovascular section. There's an option for "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)". I use that and input the total time at the gym lifting.

    You won't burn a ton of calories lifting, and I try not to eat these calories back, but I still feel it's important to log the activity. For me, I like knowing everything is logged in MFP. My FitBit, my weight lifting, and my food. It's a complete picture.

    And if my doctor asks, I can just point him to my URL.

    I am so glad you said this...I was very frustrated about logging weights under strength because it seemed so silly logging each exercise. Thank you!
  • REiiGN15
    REiiGN15 Posts: 12 Member
    Everyone loves to forget that when you weightlift you continue to burn more calories than normal throughout the whole day. I wear a monitor that tracks cal/heartrate and on a Strong Lift day, if you do everything correctly...you can burn 300-400 calories.
  • joe3052
    joe3052 Posts: 28 Member
    JustinAnimal wrote: »
    I feel like this is a hotly-debated topic. I'm sure this thread will get interesting.

    According to NROL, a workout that includes five compound exercises (e.g. squats, push-ups, rows, prone jacknives and step-ups), an approximately 35-45 minute workout, earns you 250 calories to eat back. Your call on if you choose to eat them back or not, but I think you'd want to eat a little bit more on intense exercise days.

    Agree. It's all personal preference. Trail by error.
  • joe3052
    joe3052 Posts: 28 Member
    REiiGN15 wrote: »
    Everyone loves to forget that when you weightlift you continue to burn more calories than normal throughout the whole day. I wear a monitor that tracks cal/heartrate and on a Strong Lift day, if you do everything correctly...you can burn 300-400 calories.

    How long do you lift? And how many months or years have you been practicing that?
  • lizzocat
    lizzocat Posts: 356 Member
    I like to track it for reporting, so I'll put it in as 1 calorie, since I don't have a good idea of how much I burn.
  • LolaKarwowski
    LolaKarwowski Posts: 217 Member
    Wow! Lots of advice (and new words for me) in here. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on the matter but I'm glad I asked. I think I'm going to track my weight lifting sessions under the Cardiovascular sessions and see how that goes. I don't know if I'll eat back the calories or not.. I've had some say that you are more hungry when you lift.
  • joe3052
    joe3052 Posts: 28 Member
    Just try different things. See what works for you. Diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease runs in my family so I tend to be more careful then other people. Most important is to ease into it, safety first.
  • Meganthedogmom
    Meganthedogmom Posts: 1,639 Member
    I don't track any strength training on MFP, as I don't believe it burns much calories and I just do cardio to burn calories.

    I do, however track it in the notes on my phone, just so I can keep track of how much I'm doing and try to improve all the time. It's cool to be able to look back a few months ago and see what I could do versus what I do now.
  • vixtris
    vixtris Posts: 688 Member
    When I lift, I spend about an hour. I do some stretches and floor exercises for about 5 mins, then 2 sets of 8 exercises. I am never sure how much I burn, but when I log it, I log it under cardio as lifting for 45 mins because I do take some seconds/mins in between my exercises that adds up. So it usually gives me about 180 calories burned, but I try not to eat those back.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    Track your lifting - lifts, sets, reps, weight - so you can see your progress over time.

    Tracking for calorie burn is kind of pointless. No way to get an accurate burn available to the general public. Don't rely on an HRM - not appropriate for weight lifting. A decent strategy is to guesstimate a number of calories per weight lifting session (maybe 100 to start) and eat those. See what happens to your rate of loss and your appetite over the next couple of weeks. Adjust value as needed.
  • JustinAnimal
    JustinAnimal Posts: 1,335 Member
    I think it should be said, especially for people who eat crazy low calories per day (1200-1500), that lifting does take energy and continues to give a burn throughout the day, so eating something back is probably smart. Also agree with joe that you have to feel these things out. My goal is so low that I have to eat something back when I exercise, regardless of the in-the-moment calorie burn.
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