How Many Calories Do I Burn At Work?

TinyChestnut

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

lisahightower2

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.

luppic8

Wear a heart rate monitor. It will calculate how many calories you are burning

corgifan

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!

tawisdom

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!


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