Expert: Ken Alan - 4/28/2008

Question
Hello,

I'm 32yrs old, I've had my 2nd child 10 months ago, since then I've lost 55lbs (lost baby fat and additional).  My goal is 140lbs (5'5ft).  I workout 5 days a week twice daily.  In the morning, I run 20min (250cal) and a workout routine from Oxygen ( I change routines every 6weeks).  My co-worker and I work out in the gym in our building, this consist of another workout routine and cardio (250lbs).  What I want to know is, how do I figure out how many calories I'm burning when strength training.....If I do 3 sets of 12 biceps curl @15lbs, how many calories am I burning based on my weight? How many pounds of muscle do you have to gain inorder to loss a pound of fat?

Answer
Tonia,

Glad you're motivated to workout.  Unfortunately, it's not possible to determine how many calories are burned from doing isolated strength exercises. There is no data I'm aware of on how many calories are burned in 3 sets of biceps curls at x number of pounds.

Gaining muscle will rev up your metabolism a bit, because it consumes energy to keep muscle on your body, while it consumes no energy to keep fat on the body.  For every pound of additional muscle you gain, you use from 40- 70 calories more per day just existing.  That's not a whole lot, but over the course of a year, it starts to add up.  

You would have to gain a huge amount of muscle in order to "lose a pound of fat".  That's not what you should be aiming for.  The goal is to simple maintain or build your lean muscle weight while reducing your fat weight.  That's accomplished through what you're already doing - cardio, weight training, and(hopefully), the right nutrition.  Don't go crazy over the numbers of how many calories you burn doing this or that - it's only a broad estimate anyway.  Just stay consistent and you'll see changes over the months.

Hope this helps.