Question! Calories burned by lifting...

go52182
go52182 Posts: 133 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So we all know lifting weights doesn't burn a ton of calories while you're lifting but keeps you burning calories long after you're done in the gym. My question is, my Fitbit doesn't have a way to track these extra calories burned, does it?

For example: according to my Fitbit on a day I lift then do HIIT for 20 mins I usually burn around 2,100 cal/day. Wednesdays I don't set foot in the gym and burn about 1,600. So I'm thinking a day I lift and don't do any cardio I will probably burn 1,700, according to my Fitbit.

My Fitbit won't see the extra calories burned by lifting, right? I mean I know it's not a way to know 100% what I've burned in a day. Just wondering if it has the ability to see the extra calories burned by lifting weights.

Replies

  • go52182
    go52182 Posts: 133 Member
    edited December 2019
    Well that's disappointing ;) the news about EPOC, not the Fitbit. That's what I expected really.

    I shall keep on with my post-lifting cardio. I was wanting to get rid of cardio but I need the extra calories burned so I can eat more.
  • go52182
    go52182 Posts: 133 Member
    That's disappointing too. EPOC is basically something to not waste your time thinking about!

    Yes!! I want more food but gotta maintain that deficit. The more calories burned the better.
  • KDBisme
    KDBisme Posts: 49 Member
    Thanks for posting this! I try to keep up my lifting days too (just because I know it's important for me to not lose muscle mass) but I agree... it is disappointing to work so hard for an hour and not see a big calorie burn on the fitness tracker. (Apple Watch in my case.)
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    KDBisme wrote: »
    Thanks for posting this! I try to keep up my lifting days too (just because I know it's important for me to not lose muscle mass) but I agree... it is disappointing to work so hard for an hour and not see a big calorie burn on the fitness tracker. (Apple Watch in my case.)

    If you have good muscle mass and are happy with your body shape, who cares about calories or the scale? If you have too much body fat, you address that with diet.
  • go52182
    go52182 Posts: 133 Member
    mmapags wrote: »
    If you have good muscle mass and are happy with your body shape, who cares about calories or the scale? If you have too much body fat, you address that with diet.

    This is what I’m working on, and why I posted the question. I have fat to burn so I was asking about the extra calories burned because I need to stay in a 20% deficit.
  • go52182
    go52182 Posts: 133 Member
    KDBisme wrote: »
    Thanks for posting this! I try to keep up my lifting days too (just because I know it's important for me to not lose muscle mass) but I agree... it is disappointing to work so hard for an hour and not see a big calorie burn on the fitness tracker. (Apple Watch in my case.)

    I know! 😄 And if we’re needing to stay in a deficit it would be great to know if we did burn extra calories from all that work. :/
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    go52182 wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    If you have good muscle mass and are happy with your body shape, who cares about calories or the scale? If you have too much body fat, you address that with diet.

    This is what I’m working on, and why I posted the question. I have fat to burn so I was asking about the extra calories burned because I need to stay in a 20% deficit.

    Weight training is not a huge burn. For a lady, depending on intensity and duration, 150 to 250 calories. But it does some many other great things for ones body that calorie burn isn't the most important reason for doing it.

    Also, fitness tracker's algorithms are really meant to establish some relationship between heart rate and calorie burn. They are going to be most useful for steady state cardio and are pretty useless for measuring calorie burn during weight training. It's just not what they are designed to do.

    But I'm going to revisit my rationale in my other post. The thing that burn the most calories are just getting out of bed and going about your day. Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis Or N.E.A.T. Exercise, while beneficial and giving us a few more calories burned each day, plays a very minor role in fat burning for most of us.

    There are some exceptions. People who do long duration steady state cardio burn some pretty impressive amounts of calories. Eg, an 1.5 hour run or a 2 hour bike ride. But for most of us, not so much. For example, a 1 hour brisk walk will burn around 500 or so calories. Managing dietary calories has a much greater impact.

    In my observation, the people who end up with the best fat reduction and body composition results have some common elements to their methods. They manage their diet effectively without too large a calorie deficit. There are 2 reasons for this. 1) this approach is sustainable. 2) this approach, combined with weight training preserves valuable muscle mass. Which leads to another common characteristic, they do some amount of weight training to accomplish good body compostion/ recomposition. They do some form of steady state cardio to help with calorie burn and have a more sustainable eating plan. And the last commonality, they have patience and make the process enjoyable and sustainable for themselves.

    The simple version is diet for fat loss and exercise for fitness. Increase N.E.A.T. and have patience. After all, we didn't gain too much fat overnight and it's not going to come off overnight. Here is a great thread by AnnPT77 on the role of N.E.A.T. https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

    On of the best things anyone has ever told me is, "you can't out-exercise a bad diet." Effective calorie control is going to be the best single strategy for losing fat.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,223 Member
    go52182 wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    If you have good muscle mass and are happy with your body shape, who cares about calories or the scale? If you have too much body fat, you address that with diet.

    This is what I’m working on, and why I posted the question. I have fat to burn so I was asking about the extra calories burned because I need to stay in a 20% deficit.

    Realistically, you're not going to stay in a 20% deficit, in reality. IMO, it's good to both recognize and accept that. There is a lot of error involved, essentially estimating error, even when we're measuring, and being pretty meticulous about it.

    So, in actual practice, you may (making up numbers) be in an actual 15% deficit one day, and a 25% deficit another day; and it'll maybe average out up/down over the course of a week to a narrower range like 17%-23% from week to week, assuming you don't have a systematic source of error (same error or error type reoccurring). These aren't quite "large numbers" in the technical sense, but the "law of large numbers" in statistics kind of approximately applies here.

    I've read various studies about EPOC (the thing people refer to as afterburn, sometimes). I'm unaware of any that say it's large, relative to overall daily calorie needs. sijomial's estimates (20% of calories burned during the exercise) were consistent with the highest I've seen.

    Sadly, your ultra-meticulous food tracking will be inaccurate (home food scales are probably only precise to a gram or two at best, one apple is sweeter than the next, etc.). Your exercise tracking of even activities that are the most accurately able to be metered (like cycling) are going to be off probably up to 5% (efficiency wiggle room), and most exercise calorie expenditures can't be measured even nearly that accurately outside a metabolic chamber.

    Daily life activity (NEAT) estimation is so broad-brush as to be almost a cr*pshoot (research suggests very twitchy people may burn up to 100-200 calories more daily than very placid ones; underlying data for NEAT estimations is a statistical distribution, admittedly with a fairly small standard distribution but there is a bell curve of some sort there**, and the calorie "calculators" - including the ones implicitly built into fitness trackers - are basically assuming you're at the mean value.)

    But it doesn't matter, in any meaninful practical sense. If you track your eating with reasonable care and estimate your exercise thoughfully, then monitor scale weight for 4-6 weeks, you'll have enough personal data to make an intake adjustment based on your average weekly scale-weight results. (Premenstrual women need to be comparing the same point in two or more different menstrual cycles.)

    Unless you're a very extreme outlier in calorie requirements, and as long as you're a generally healthy person going into it, you're unlikely to do yourself any material damage in that 4-6 weeks, especially if you're keeping your exercise reasonable (some strength challenge in there, not so much total load compared to current fitness that your body is seriously overstressed), and your intake is nutritious (enough protein, enough healthy fats, lots of nice varied, colorful veggies/fruits).

    This is especially true if you happen to be one of those very rare statistical outliers (they exist) who burn significantly more calories than the "calculators" estimate. Within the 4-6 weeks, if you're one of those, you will notice very fast loss plus a decline in workout performance and daily life energy. If that happens, increase your intake goal a little.

    Absent the fast loss, reduced exercise performance/daily energy are probably more likely to be too much exercise stress or suboptimal nutrition (or something unrelated to weight loss, like sleep problems or life stress). Absent the underperformance/energy depletion, fast loss (in the first couple of weeks, at least) is likely to be a water weight drop (mostly glycogen depletion and possibly timing vis a vis menstrual cycle low point) and reduced average digestive system contents.

    On the other side of the bell curve, if you're the very rare statistical outlier with lower than population-mean calorie needs, you'll lose more slowly than expected, but on an estimated (and well-tracked) 20% deficit, it's very unlikely that you'll fail to lose at all; you'll just lose a little more slowly than expected.

    Either way, the worst that can happen in the 4-6 weeks, if you're logging carefully, eating nutritiously, paying attention, and not unmasking some underlying health condition just isn't anything all that bad. After the trial period, you adjust intake to keep weight loss at a sensible but rewarding level. It's practical, and straightforward.

    ** For fun, https://examine.com/nutrition/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/ - not a research study, but a summary for general readers from a site generally regarded as unbiased and science-based
  • gradchica27
    gradchica27 Posts: 777 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    KDBisme wrote: »
    Thanks for posting this! I try to keep up my lifting days too (just because I know it's important for me to not lose muscle mass) but I agree... it is disappointing to work so hard for an hour and not see a big calorie burn on the fitness tracker. (Apple Watch in my case.)

    Though one could find some minor gratification in realizing that one's fitness tracker likely is well-designed enough not to use heart rate to inappropriately over-estimate exercise calories from lifting. ;)

    This made me laugh. For a solid year I wore my Garmin Vivoactive night and day, through all my lifting sessions (primary intentional exercise for me) and was so frustrated I wasn’t losing, despite being within the calories it gave me. It died and since it was my 4th fitness tracker to randomly die, I gave up and started logging my workouts in MFP and logging my 60 min lifting sessions as 0-10 calories (10 for leg day!) and letting MFP determine my cardio (what there was of it). Lo and behold, I started losing right away.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,223 Member
    edited December 2019
    gradchica27 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    KDBisme wrote: »
    Thanks for posting this! I try to keep up my lifting days too (just because I know it's important for me to not lose muscle mass) but I agree... it is disappointing to work so hard for an hour and not see a big calorie burn on the fitness tracker. (Apple Watch in my case.)

    Though one could find some minor gratification in realizing that one's fitness tracker likely is well-designed enough not to use heart rate to inappropriately over-estimate exercise calories from lifting. ;)

    This made me laugh. For a solid year I wore my Garmin Vivoactive night and day, through all my lifting sessions (primary intentional exercise for me) and was so frustrated I wasn’t losing, despite being within the calories it gave me. It died and since it was my 4th fitness tracker to randomly die, I gave up and started logging my workouts in MFP and logging my 60 min lifting sessions as 0-10 calories (10 for leg day!) and letting MFP determine my cardio (what there was of it). Lo and behold, I started losing right away.

    By contrast, I wore my Garmin Vivoactive night and day for the past year and a bit, and it routinely underestimates my daily calorie burn by several hundred calories (as compared with 4+ years of logging & scale data) . . . but I don't even lift (at least not much). If I ate what it says, I'd be losing weight steadily, at quite a rate - probably at least a pound a week, likely more.

    Heh: Estimates, and statistics! ;)

    P.S. My VA3 gives me strength training estimates - for classic reps/sets activity, not circuits or something - fairly close to MFP's estimates. I don't know whether that's because the algorithms have gotten smart enough in recent updates to deprecate heart rate when a strength training activity is designated, or I don't strength train strainfully enough (very possible), or my longtime short-endurance-conditioned heart is sitting there in my chest thinking "are you even working?" ;) (last recorded strength workout peaked at 102bpm out of a tested 180ish HRmax, not even into Z2) . )

    ETA: @gradchica27, the "disagree" was not me. I 100% believe you, because this accords with what I understand about trackers and humans. I clicked "like".
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    gradchica27 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    KDBisme wrote: »
    Thanks for posting this! I try to keep up my lifting days too (just because I know it's important for me to not lose muscle mass) but I agree... it is disappointing to work so hard for an hour and not see a big calorie burn on the fitness tracker. (Apple Watch in my case.)

    Though one could find some minor gratification in realizing that one's fitness tracker likely is well-designed enough not to use heart rate to inappropriately over-estimate exercise calories from lifting. ;)

    This made me laugh. For a solid year I wore my Garmin Vivoactive night and day, through all my lifting sessions (primary intentional exercise for me) and was so frustrated I wasn’t losing, despite being within the calories it gave me. It died and since it was my 4th fitness tracker to randomly die, I gave up and started logging my workouts in MFP and logging my 60 min lifting sessions as 0-10 calories (10 for leg day!) and letting MFP determine my cardio (what there was of it). Lo and behold, I started losing right away.

    By contrast, I wore my Garmin Vivoactive night and day for the past year and a bit, and it routinely underestimates my daily calorie burn by several hundred calories (as compared with 4+ years of logging & scale data) . . . but I don't even lift (at least not much). If I ate what it says, I'd be losing weight steadily, at quite a rate - probably at least a pound a week, likely more.

    Heh: Estimates, and statistics! ;)

    P.S. My VA3 gives me strength training estimates - for classic reps/sets activity, not circuits or something - fairly close to MFP's estimates. I don't know whether that's because the algorithms have gotten smart enough in recent updates to deprecate heart rate when a strength training activity is designated, or I don't strength train strainfully enough (very possible), or my longtime short-endurance-conditioned heart is sitting there in my chest thinking "are you even working?" ;) (last recorded strength workout peaked at 102bpm out of a tested 180ish HRmax, not even into Z2) . )

    ETA: @gradchica27, the "disagree" was not me. I 100% believe you, because this accords with what I understand about trackers and humans. I clicked "like".

    I think there is just a "disagree" stalker in this thread.
  • gradchica27
    gradchica27 Posts: 777 Member
    Haha, np, @AnnPT77 ! I didn’t “disagree” with you either :smile:

    This all went down a few years ago, so very possible the algorithm has improved. I think my tracker didn’t even auto-recognize my lifting as activity, so I manually entered it as an activity through the Garmin app I think? So I bet that was none too accurate, esp for entering total time, including 1-2 min rest breaks.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    There is no tracker, algorithm, etc, available that I know of that can track calories burned during strength training. Even metabolic carts have limitations, as they cannot accurately capture EPOC.

    The only thing you can do is look at studies that look at individual exercise and try to extrapolate. Or look at the few good studies that have been done that have examine the total calorie burn for a full workout. And those are only good if the workout you do is similar to the one they studied.

    Move to circuit workouts, HIIT, etc and the variables increase exponentially. I think the best thing to do is just pick a reasonable number and stick with it and adjust as needed based on results. Or, don’t track it all and just use it to make up for any inaccuracies in the rest of your program.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,223 Member
    gradchica27 wrote: »
    Haha, np, @AnnPT77 ! I didn’t “disagree” with you either :smile:

    This all went down a few years ago, so very possible the algorithm has improved. I think my tracker didn’t even auto-recognize my lifting as activity, so I manually entered it as an activity through the Garmin app I think? So I bet that was none too accurate, esp for entering total time, including 1-2 min rest breaks.

    They now try to auto-identify the lift (i.e., which specific exercise) based on movements, and also try to count reps ( :lol: ), so I usually start a strength training activity on the watch for (1) amusement value (accuracy is sub-fab IME), (2) a framework in Garmin Connect that I can fill in later (including right after the exercise on the watch, if I want to fiddle with that tiny thing) with the correct info, as my workout log.

    I'd like to think they'd revert to something like METS estimating instead of HR for strength training (when designated), but like I said, I can't really tell because my HR stays pretty low during the workout. If it thinks it sees reps for what they are, I assume it also thinks it sees rest periods, and could adjust accordingly.

    (Using the term "think" metaphorically of course; I was a software developer, and I'm not under any illusions about what these do. It always surprises me to see people saying others should get a tracker/HRM because they're the way to get an accurate calorie number for all of your activity. Calorie measurement? :lol::lol::lol: Try "personalized estimate", and sometimes that would be a generous interpretation. ;) ).

    I think I turned off auto-recognizing of activities when mine auto-"recognized" swimming, when in reality I was leaning over a rowing barge, bailing water out of it with a bucket. :lol: I can see how that would seem swim-like, but still: Not helpful, for me.

    They really are pretty remarkable, though, for a little device that sits on a person's wrist. But it's good, I think, to recognize their limitations, as you clearly do.
  • EmilyEnough
    EmilyEnough Posts: 67 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    For sake of argument lets say you burn 250cals in an hour of lifting and get an impressive sounding 20% EPOC - that's an additional 50 cals (whoopeeee!).

    For decent intensity steady state cardio you might burn 600cals in an hour and get a paltry sounding 7% EPOC - 42 cals.

    For a very hard 30 minute session of intense intervals you might get 300 cals if you work really hard and get 14% EPOC - that's again 42 cals.

    Honestly those EPOC numbers just get lost in the general inaccuracy of exercise estimates. Plus you need to take into account the fatigue and hunger responses from different types of exercise. High EPOC exercise can tend to wipe you out and reduce your general NEAT expenditure and/or affect your next day's workout.
    It's why moderate intensity but long duration cardio is very hard to beat in terms of big calorie burns.

    BTW - I'm firmly in the camp of exercising for progress towards your health, sporting, body composition and enjoyment goals but the bonus of being able to lose weight / maintain weight at a much higher calorie level appeals to me as someone who enjoys their food.

    Great deets and response.

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