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How Many Calories Do I Burn At Work?

TinyChestnut
Posts: 26
Hi there,
I work in an Emergency Room and I was wondering how I could calculate how many calories I am burning in a day. I work a 12.5 hour shift, and usually only sit around for about 2-3 hours of it, so I am on my feet for 9-10 hours a day. Would I do it as walking slow pace? Or is there a different way that I could try and find an equivilent description??
Thanks for the help!
Tina
I work in an Emergency Room and I was wondering how I could calculate how many calories I am burning in a day. I work a 12.5 hour shift, and usually only sit around for about 2-3 hours of it, so I am on my feet for 9-10 hours a day. Would I do it as walking slow pace? Or is there a different way that I could try and find an equivilent description??
Thanks for the help!
Tina
0
Replies
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When you set up your profile, it asked what kind of activity your daily life is (sedentary, light, etc.). If you have a job that you are on your feet a lot, I would set your activity level higher than sedentary. Then your calories burned for work are already figured into your total.0
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Wear a heart rate monitor. It will calculate how many calories you are burning0
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I'd recommend just setting your activity setting to lightly active (Settings > Diet/Fitness Profile > Lightly Active (ie nurse)). It's a good way to just baseline your calories off that usual activity rather than individually entering it. I've found MFP calorie burn estimates to be rather high, so I wouldn't recommend using that to track calorie burn because you might put yourself at risk of over-estimating your calorie burn.
If you're really interested in tracking what you burn at work, you could look into a pedometer for a rough estimate (and they're pretty cheap) and manually enter it or look into a bodybugg, which is much pricier, but also MUCH more accurate and could be used for other activities. I haven't used either to track calorie burn though because I stick to tracking running mileage, so it's just an idea.
Good luck!0 -
I work at the 5th busiest ED in the nation. Although I run all day, I burn an insane amount of calories. Working in our ER ICU area, one day I burned 5000 calories from running around. I do not like the choices for an "active" lifestyle because our ED nursing is much busier than say working as a nurse on a floor (and the drop down choices do no justice), and I only work 3 or 4 12 hour shifts a week.
But, buy a heart rate monitor! They work the best. I can wear mine to the gym and I know how many calories I am burning doing cardio (since the machines are never correct) and how may calories I burn lifting weights.
Hope this helps!
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Nutrition Facts For Foods0
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