Accounting for calorie burn from standing?

CoachJen71

I stand quite a bit teaching and coaching, and on my days off I have made it a habit to do my Web surfing or pleasure reading while standing at the kitchen counter.

Since I am supposedly in maintenance yet just saw a large weight drop on TrendWeight, should I start tracking how long I stand at the counter? Does Fitbit actually have a way to log that?

(Editing to add that my weight drop may also just be from being lower on carbs lately, and/or maybe a bit of dehydration from a cold, but if I bring my carbs back up and the weight stays down, I do still think I should look at standing as the missing variable.)

V_Keto_V

I believe it's automatically accounted for by the usual rise in heart rate. I easily go from 60->80+ bpm from sitting/laying to standing/pacing. I spend about 15 hours/day standing on work days...it balances out for the fewer amount of time spent doing cardio/treadmill on work days.

CoachJen71

I do have a ChargeHR, so that's great to know. My sitting heart rate is in the high 50s. I will have to check it sometime after standing quietly for a while.

NancyN795

I'm not sure if the slight heart rate change from standing will actually be taken into account. My assumption is that heart rate calculations don't kick in unless my heart rate rises into the exercise range, stays there for several minutes AND steps are detected. They don't want to award extra calories for a heart rate rise due to stress or something else that doesn't burn significant calories.

So, my guess is that you may need to compensate for your standing time, if it is a significant portion of your day and if you aren't taking detectable steps while you stand. However, wait until you recover from your cold and your diet is stable before you worry about it too much.

afatpersonwholikesfood

That's a habit that I have been working on as well. : ) I'm not in maintenance yet, but I read that standing burns 50 extra calories an hour. Over the course of a week, that adds up! Plus, I just like to do it because I no longer have lower back pain since losing weight, so it just feels good to stand knowing that I am comfortable doing so.

What NancyN795 said is right, I do believe. Fitbit stays in step mode for activities that don't make your HR go into exercise range.

RunRachelleRun

I was wondering the same thing. I have switched to a standing desk and noticed a slight increase but only about 10-15 extra calories burned per hour of standing, and not the 50 I also read about.

heybales

If your look at your daily graph of calorie burn per 5 min blocks - you'll usually find that on blocks of time with no steps seen - you received exactly the same calorie burn as during your sleep time - in other words BMR level calorie burn. Any minor shuffles would bump the value up slightly as seen.

After a couple weeks of tweeking to your estimated fitness level, Fitbit sees HR below a certain point isn't used to estimate calorie burn, just steps.
Which is actually more accurate - because the HR formula for calorie burn is only a good estimate for in the exercise zone for aerobic steady-state.
And standing is nowhere near that.

That's one of the ways Fitbit underestimates, BMR level burn given to all non-moving time, when really when awake you are burning at RMR level - slightly higher. Standing even more so.
Not accounting for calories burned digesting/processing food (about 10% of what is eaten) is other way.