Calories

ikleditsyme
ikleditsyme Posts: 6 Member
edited November 20 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, when burning calories at the gym (weight lifting) do I need to eat extra calories? For example: I'm eating 1450 calories, I burn 600 calories , do I have to eat the extra 600?
Thank you

Replies

  • Muscleflex79
    Muscleflex79 Posts: 1,917 Member
    what makes you think you are burning 600 calories weight lifting????
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I don't think you're burning 600 calories weight lifting. In a good hour of lifting I typically burn 250-300ish...
  • ikleditsyme
    ikleditsyme Posts: 6 Member
    It was just a random number that popped in my head as an example ..
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    Yes, MFP gives you a calorie goal that already includes your deficit, and expects you to eat back your exercise calories. Some gym machines or MFP entries will overestimate calorie burns, so you don't have to eat back all of them (and many people don't).
  • Rammer123
    Rammer123 Posts: 679 Member
    Yes you eat them back. Depending on what type of weightlifting you're doing, the intensity, your age, gender, and your size, you'll generally burn somewhere between 200-750 in an hour. You want to eat those calories back because your calorie goal is assuming you do no exercise outside of your daily activities which you have set anywhere from sedentary to very active.
  • Gump279
    Gump279 Posts: 4 Member
    If you're trying to lose weight you can eat them back however it will slow your weight loss. The return is you will have more energy and feel less cruddy on your workout days. It's also hard to gauge exercise calories accurately when you are cutting I found.

    If you're actively trying to bulk then you should absolutely eat them back.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    MFP uses the NEAT method which means your calorie targets are derived from your activities, excluding exercise...as such, exercise is unaccounted for activity...suffice it to say, all activity should ultimately be accounted for. Your calorie target is your deficit...making that deficit larger by doing a bunch of exercise and not fueling it might sound great, but it's usually sub optimal at best and often downright dangerous.

    Crashing your diet and then doing a bunch of exercise on top of that is a recipe for bad *kitten*.

    The difficulty with MFP's methodology is accurately determining energy expenditure from exercise activities...resistance training is tricky because it will depend greatly on the intensity of your lifts...the weight...rest periods...etc. Steady state cardio is the easiest because there are long established algorithms for these thing that are somewhat accurate if you're using a HRM (though still an estimate)

    But yes, MFP is designed for you to account for exercise after the fact and get additional calories. Other calculators include it upfront in you calorie targets.
  • jennybearlv
    jennybearlv Posts: 1,519 Member
    It's hard to calculate weight lifting calories. I just use a generic entry from Garmin for mine. There is one in the MFP database under strength training. It's one of those log it, eat it, and see what your weight does situations. If you are doing everything else right and not losing what you should the calculation could be overestimating, so you adjust and see what happens next.
  • ikleditsyme
    ikleditsyme Posts: 6 Member
    Thank you. I was worried about eating the extra because I don't know how to work out how many calories I would be burning :/ it's not easy with working with weights .
    But at same time i don't want to make myself ill not eating enough .
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    ikleditsyme wrote: »
    It was just a random number that popped in my head as an example ..

    MFP as designed gave you a calorie deficit before exercise. So eating back the "right" number of calories back gets you back to the deficit you signed up for. But calorie burns are guesstimates. The trick is finding a decent estimate.....strength training may feel like 600 (but it's not).

    Many people will log exercise in MFP and start by eating back 50%. Then after several weeks adjust that % up or down based on actual results.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    ikleditsyme wrote: »
    Thank you. I was worried about eating the extra because I don't know how to work out how many calories I would be burning :/ it's not easy with working with weights .
    But at same time i don't want to make myself ill not eating enough .

    When I was using the MFP method and logging exercise, I generally considered my weight training a bonus...I pretty much only used my cardio burn to "eat back" as it was more reliable. Basically my weight training meant I could eat have a banana and a protein shake afterwards.
  • JaiChameleon
    JaiChameleon Posts: 3 Member
    I'm pretty new at this so people can correct me--but it depends how you are tracking. If you are doing the simple calorie count then yes, you should eat at least some of the calories back (but make sure you aren't overestimating your calories burned! It's likely that the number is smaller than you might think).

    A more accurate way is to use the TDEE method, which already accounts for your activity level, then just stick to that number every day. For weight loss, you should aim for reducing the TDEE by 20% (so if your TDEE is, for instance, 2000 you should aim to eat 2000-400=1600 Cal/day).
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    JaiChameleon wrote: »
    I'm pretty new at this so people can correct me--but it depends how you are tracking. If you are doing the simple calorie count then yes, you should eat at least some of the calories back (but make sure you aren't overestimating your calories burned! It's likely that the number is smaller than you might think).

    A more accurate way is to use the TDEE method, which already accounts for your activity level, then just stick to that number every day. For weight loss, you should aim for reducing the TDEE by 20% (so if your TDEE is, for instance, 2000 you should aim to eat 2000-400=1600 Cal/day).

    Yes, there are two different methods. MFP uses NEAT and you log your exercise, or you can use a TDEE calculator which already includes it.

    Neither is more accurate. If you have a pretty consistent activity level every day, TDEE will work well for you. But if some days you are very active and other days you sit on the couch all day, the TDEE method can leave you hungry on some days and eating more than you need to on others.

    In a perfect world, both methods will give you the same calorie goal. And once you have been logging consistently for awhile, your own data will be more accurate than either :)
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    JaiChameleon wrote: »
    I'm pretty new at this so people can correct me--but it depends how you are tracking. If you are doing the simple calorie count then yes, you should eat at least some of the calories back (but make sure you aren't overestimating your calories burned! It's likely that the number is smaller than you might think).

    A more accurate way is to use the TDEE method, which already accounts for your activity level, then just stick to that number every day. For weight loss, you should aim for reducing the TDEE by 20% (so if your TDEE is, for instance, 2000 you should aim to eat 2000-400=1600 Cal/day).

    TDEE less a cut is a good option for people who are consistent with exercise. The 20% cut could be more or less depending upon how much weight one has to lose. A higher % for very overweight, and a lower % for closer to goal.
  • ikleditsyme
    ikleditsyme Posts: 6 Member
    Thank you every one ! I spend between 1-2 hours doing weights. But I've just started feeling dizzy so figured I wasn't eat enough calories . As I don't log my exercise I didn't realise about eating the extra calories, so I'm hoping that's all it is.
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