How many calories does lifting weights burn?

About 150 to 300 calories more than sitting, for a 45-minute session at 180 pounds, depending on how hard you go. That’s about a walk at the easy end and about 60% of a run at the hard end. Lifting earns its place another way: it’s how you keep your muscle while you eat less.

A hard lifting day feels like a huge burn. In calories it’s modest, and the number your watch shows for it is a guess: across 56 studies, Apple Watch calorie estimates were off by about 28% on average.

The simple version

In calories, a lifting session is small change. What you’re really paying for is the muscle you keep.

The numbers

From the 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities, where a MET is about 1 calorie per kilogram of body weight per hour, for 45 minutes at 180 pounds:

Why lift anyway

When you eat less, some of the weight that comes off can be muscle. In a 2014 review of lean, trained lifters on a diet, 9 of 13 study groups lost lean mass. In a 2011 trial of elite athletes who lifted four times a week while dieting, the group losing 0.7% of their weight a week gained about 2% lean mass, and the faster group gained none.

What to do

• Lift two or three times a week while you diet.
• Don’t eat back the session’s calories. Your activity level and your four-week weigh-ins already cover it. See should you eat back your exercise calories?
• Keep protein in the typical range, 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight a day. The protein calculator gives yours.