Im sure this has come up before... I work construction, and go pretty hard all day, lifting, walking, etc... obviously it burns a lot of calories. I do hit the weights most mornings, and plan to start up on my bike soon. But the amount of energy I expend at work must be a decent work out right? anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm looking to lose about another 10 pounds, down about 20 so far from my highest weight.

Im sure this has come up before... I work construction, and go pretty hard all day, lifting, walking, etc... obviously it burns a lot of calories. I do hit the weights most mornings, and plan to start up on my bike soon. But the amount of energy I expend at work must be a decent work out right? anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm looking to lose about another 10 pounds, down about 20 so far from my highest weight.

Yeah your work in construction burns a good deal of Calories. You also might want to avoid certain exercises in your workout if they are going to overlap with your work. My brother the powerlifter is not training deadlifts at all because one of his jobs is loading stuff in a warehouse and he says he would take his back out if he deadlifted seriously on top of that. So he squats in the workout, but no deads. And deadlift is his best lift.

Im sure this has come up before... I work construction, and go pretty hard all day, lifting, walking, etc... obviously it burns a lot of calories. I do hit the weights most mornings, and plan to start up on my bike soon. But the amount of energy I expend at work must be a decent work out right? anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm looking to lose about another 10 pounds, down about 20 so far from my highest weight.

I would look at the rate at which you lost your previous 20 pounds. If you were dropping at a nice and healthy rate, I wouldn't change much.

I used to work a trail construction job and ended up hiking between 5 and 10 miles a day, on top of a full day of labor. I also wanted to drop a few pounds. Instead of eating a lot of healthy foods, I mainly kept my calories around 2000. This was a huge mistake. I ended up hitting a plateau, and not matter how much I lifted and ran outside of work, I couldn't get below 11-12% body fat.

The moral of the story is to start with your calories high. I probably could have eaten 3000+ calories a day and still lost weight. With labor intensive jobs, I feel there is an opportunity to get lean and build some quality muscle, you just have to eat accordingly. Don't make the mistake of slashing calories and keep your food choices as healthy as possible.

In this type of industry, it is also stocked with people who generally eat fast food on a regular basis. It's easy to get into the mindset that a value meal or frozen burritos a few times a week is ok.

You'll probably see body changes from progressive lifting and clean foods. Weight loss will probably come no matter what you do. Just eat!

I would look at the rate at which you lost your previous 20 pounds. If you were dropping at a nice and healthy rate, I wouldn't change much.

I used to work a trail construction job and ended up hiking between 5 and 10 miles a day, on top of a full day of labor. I also wanted to drop a few pounds. Instead of eating a lot of healthy foods, I mainly kept my calories around 2000. This was a huge mistake. I ended up hitting a plateau, and not matter how much I lifted and ran outside of work, I couldn't get below 11-12% body fat.

The moral of the story is to start with your calories high. I probably could have eaten 3000+ calories a day and still lost weight. With labor intensive jobs, I feel there is an opportunity to get lean and build some quality muscle, you just have to eat accordingly. Don't make the mistake of slashing calories and keep your food choices as healthy as possible.

In this type of industry, it is also stocked with people who generally eat fast food on a regular basis. It's easy to get into the mindset that a value meal or frozen burritos a few times a week is ok.

You'll probably see body changes from progressive lifting and clean foods. Weight loss will probably come no matter what you do. Just eat!

QFT...

I had my calories down to 1600 or 1700 and NOTHING was happening except I wasn't feeling well and I was losing strength but not mass. slowly added 1000 calories and I'm just to the point where I'm adding weight. Around 2300 calories I found that I seemed to be losing fat and gaining strength.

BTW, I'm a structural fabricator/weldor. Steelworker's 414 for the win! I think pushing a cart with 4,000 lbs of steel 300 yards would give 20 rep Squats a run for their money.

I think pushing a cart with 4,000 lbs of steel 300 yards would give 20 rep Squats a run for their money.

You could be right. It depends on how much you can squat and whether the 300 yards is over flat ground. If it's any amount of hill, pushing the cart would be tougher than squatting anything. But that is why I suspect that the 300 yards is pretty level. You can always strap on a heart monitor and then do these things and actually see which is harder.

You could be right. It depends on how much you can squat and whether the 300 yards is over flat ground. If it's any amount of hill, pushing the cart would be tougher than squatting anything. But that is why I suspect that the 300 yards is pretty level. You can always strap on a heart monitor and then do these things and actually see which is harder.

overall it's pretty level... however, you KNOW when it isn't hehe. there are several inclines throughout the track and it's pretty bad. the average load on the cart is 4,000 but when we max it out it's 10,000 and I've seen 3 guys not be able to budge it depending on if you're starting on the incline or not.

overall it's pretty level... however, you KNOW when it isn't hehe.

Yeah that sounds like, um, coffee break. A billion years ago I was a machinist and when we took delivery of barstock (typically a truckload of one to two inch diameter 12' bars of stainless steel) it was a good day to be on vacation. Back then we didn't have any kind of lift stuff, it was just two guys grabbing each bar and and walking it to wherever it went. Plus, back then, I weighed about 120#.

As an experiment today, I put on the heart rate monitor during a task which I expected was going to burn up a lot of Calories, but it actually didn't. It was still a huge pain in the butt though, just not for as long as I expected.

This was taking the loader bucket off my tractor and putting the snowplow blade back on. The whole thing is set up to be easy as pie, with a skid-steer type quick disconnect. And that stuff works like a dream. The only nasty part is reconnecting the quick-disconnect hydraulic hoses. For some weird reason, putting the hydraulic control levers in the "dump" or "float" position does not allow pressure equalization in the hoses. So unless you get a perfect connection on both hoses, there is instantly pressure holding one of the quick disconnect poppet valves stuck, which means you cannot connect the hose. Now to make this a little more fun, the connectors are obstructed by the loader bracket, so you have to reach both arms around it and try and force the hose in blind. It's like a really hard isometric pec flye or plate squeeze. Not an exercise you want to do that many reps of, and sometimes in the past it has taken a lot of attempts to get the hose in. Most of the heart rate trace is this sort of futility. There was also a point where I though why not just pull the damn loader bucket off by hand as opposed to using the hydraulics to lift it off, and I did actually lift one side off the skid steer plate, but the other side felt a little too heavy so I decided to play it safe. In any case that is the description of the "work" style heart rate graph.

Notice that the blue line under the heart rate graph covers the part that I counted for Calories. The rest of the graph is me driving the tractor and plowing my driveway, and then putting the tractor in the shed and walking back to the house, I didn't count those Calories for my journal. You can see that jerking around with the stupid hoses took as long as plowing the driveway. So for that part:

239 Calories in 25 minutes
MHR 176, AHR 115

Then there is a heart rate graph of the cardio-style lifting workout I did tonight.

Military press: 12x40kg
Hang snatch: 6x40kg
Hang snatch to 6 overhead squats with 40kg bar
Hang snatch: 6x40kg
Standing barbell curl: 10x40kg
Hang snatch: 6x40kg
Military press: 12x40kg
Bent over barbell row: 20x40kg
Hang snatch: 6x40kg
Bent over barbell row: 20x40kg
Hang snatch: 6x40kg
Military press: 12x40kg
Hang snatch: 6x40kg
Bent over barbell row: 20x40kg
Military press: 12x40kg
Hang snatch: 8x40kg
Bent over barbell row: 20x40kg
Military press: 15x40kg
Clean and press: 8x40kg
RDL: 24x40kg
Thrusters: 6x40kg
Bulgarians: (6L / 6R)x40kg
Back squats: 10x40kg (these gave a little stiffness in the patellofemoral so no more legs tonight...)
Military press: 12x40kg
Bent over barbell row: 20x40kg
Military press: 15x40kg
Bent over barbell row: 20x40kg

826 Calories in 53:27
MHR 178, AHR 145

You can see that it is a much more controlled session of many more intense efforts. I think this is a reasonable comparison between some manual labor and a weight lifting workout. So yeah, work burns Calories, but it is usually not as controllable or safe as lifting weights.

You can see that it is a much more controlled session of many more intense efforts. I think this is a reasonable comparison between some manual labor and a weight lifting workout. So yeah, work burns Calories, but it is usually not as controllable or safe as lifting weights.

Probably the best summary one could posit, imho.

Probably the best summary one could posit, imho.

Yes the pictures really make this sort of comparison much more useful.