Calories burned at work

Options
mghanie
mghanie Posts: 105 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So i my activity level is set to sedentary since i only walk for about 5 min at school but i have a part time job as a sales clerk at a theme park so i only work like 1-2 days a week for 6hrs at a time mostly just standing. My question is how do i figure out how much calories i burn standing at my job and if i should count those calories as calories burned and therefore consume more calories to make up for the ones i lost on the days that i work? I do not want to change my activity level since i only work a couple of days a week. Any advice? Thanks!

Replies

  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
    Options
    That would be part of every day life so I wouldn't count it as exercise.

    But that's just my opinion... :drinker:
  • iquiltoo
    iquiltoo Posts: 246 Member
    Options
    That would be part of every day life so I wouldn't count it as exercise.

    But that's just my opinion... :drinker:

    Yes, this.
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
    Options
    Yeah, don't count that. Count stuff you go out of your way to do, like walking 2 miles, or a workout dvd. I wouldn't consider a part-time job, no matter how scarcely scheduled, an activity to be logged.
  • notdieting
    notdieting Posts: 116 Member
    Options
    This is a low form of exercise that your body is accustomed to and therefore won't raise a heartbeat for....I personally do not count any calories of this nature, only those that get me sweating!
  • mghanie
    mghanie Posts: 105 Member
    Options
    So lets say i went over my TDEE one day and the next day i was at work do i burn off any of those extra calories?
  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
    Options
    Probably not. Sounds like you are grasping at straws... Anything you do throughout the day, no matter if it's not what you normally do every day, is going to be considered normal daily activity. This is how a lot of people mess up while logging. They try to count everything as exercise and then end up eating back calories they didn't burn in the first place. My favorite is "vigorous cleaning". Then they get on here wondering why they're not losing weight and people tell them "It's just a plateau, eat more and you'll start losing again" or " get your thyroid checked" or one of the other convenient excuses. The bottom line is unless you are doing something that gets your heart rate up and keeps it up for an extended period of time don't count it as exercise. Hope this helps and good luck.
  • JADEPH0EN1X
    JADEPH0EN1X Posts: 162 Member
    Options
    Can I follow on from this , I'm pretty sedentary at the moment following surgery . Just walking the dog & walking if I have to go locally which I have been logging . I am planning to return to work in a couple of weeks . Now I work in a preschool where we have to unpack the equipment in the morning & pack away in the afternoon as well as being constantly on the go with the children . I was intending to log that as exercise but am not sure now ??
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    Options
    Can I follow on from this , I'm pretty sedentary at the moment following surgery . Just walking the dog & walking if I have to go locally which I have been logging . I am planning to return to work in a couple of weeks . Now I work in a preschool where we have to unpack the equipment in the morning & pack away in the afternoon as well as being constantly on the go with the children . I was intending to log that as exercise but am not sure now ??

    Is your heart rate significantly raised for 20 minutes or more while you do this? Probably not and it's part of your everyday routine. If you have to start looking around for things you normally do so you can log them for exercise then you need to re evaluate your weight loss plan. If you feel that your job is more active than someone doing a desk job then bump your activity level up to lightly active for a few extra calories per day.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,741 Member
    Options
    I am also set to sedentary, but in your case I'd log it like I do stuff like shopping. If I shop for 4 hours in and out of stores, lots of walking and some standing (in line) etc, I'll log 20 min leisurely pace walking. So for a 6 hr shift I may put 40 min walking. JMHO.

    At my job I'm mostly seated (office job) but some days I do a lot more running around the office and showing vendors where to pick up things etc...that might involve 5-6 periods of ten minutes walking around the building (outdoors) so I log 15 min walking for the whole work day.
  • JADEPH0EN1X
    JADEPH0EN1X Posts: 162 Member
    Options
    Thanks to the advice .
  • Ducati58
    Ducati58 Posts: 20 Member
    Options
    I would guess then that logging calories on a Fitbit would be a bit of a stretch too and it logs every step you take even while sleeping - am I correct ??
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    Options
    I would guess then that logging calories on a Fitbit would be a bit of a stretch too and it logs every step you take even while sleeping - am I correct ??

    I have a Fitbit Zip and it's pretty good on my daily calorie burn. It's not one your wear to bed but even those only record how many times you wake during the night based on your movement, it's not logging the same as steps. I think a lot of people would be surprised how few calories they actually burn in a day with all the "extra" movements they think they do. I have a desk job but thought I moved around quite a bit. Once I got the Fitbit I discovered that without making an effort to do some extra walking I would rarely log even 4,000 steps in a day. Wore it to go shopping with my daughter at a huge outlet mall. We were there for over 4 hours shopping and my steps for the total day were slightly over 6,000. Shopping is more stopping/starting/standing than it is exercise.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
    Options
    Admittedly, this stuff confounds me, so I'm not sure if this will be helpful or not. For what it's worth, this is what I do.

    I'm a local petsitter and that means I do daily dog walks as well as vacation pet sitting, so my schedule and activity level, can sometimes be quite variable.

    I wear a fitbit and it automatically adds and subtracts calories allotted according to my activity level (it interfaces with MFP). This means on days that I'm doing several 30 minute dog walks, the calculations are already done for me, so exceptionally active days, I don't worry about it.

    I also do weight training at the gym 3 x weekly & though I wear my fitbit, it's only to get the additional steps in while my DH is doing his set (I'll pace or walk around).

    Most days I get 10k steps rather easily doing this and this way, I end up netting 1500 cal per day vs. netting 800. Fit bit is just an activity tracker & I really just use it as a fancy schmancy pedometer. Though I have a HR monitor with a chest strap, I rarely use it as I don't do much in the way of cardio.

    Also, I don't count my calories burned when weight training, just the steps.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
    Options
    I would guess then that logging calories on a Fitbit would be a bit of a stretch too and it logs every step you take even while sleeping - am I correct ??

    No. I wear my fitbit zip 24 hours a day, it goes from my tshirt to my pj's and back again, and only sees a resting place when I shower.

    It doesn't count massive amounts of steps, or enough to throw a wrench into the monkeyworks when I sleep, however, it will continue to estimate what my caloric burn is while sleeping based on the total daily percentage.

    I wake up & it starts my day with something like 400ish calories burned while I slept....this reflects the act of simply living/breathing/sleeping as you burn calories even at rest. The lion's share of my daily calories burned comes from daily movement, not necessarily sweat worthy movement, but *any* prolonged activity.
  • GrannyGwen1
    GrannyGwen1 Posts: 213 Member
    Options
    :flowerforyou:
  • Frelling_Tralk
    Frelling_Tralk Posts: 56 Member
    Options
    This is how a lot of people mess up while logging. They try to count everything as exercise and then end up eating back calories they didn't burn in the first place. My favorite is "vigorous cleaning". Then they get on here wondering why they're not losing weight

    That's exactly what I found lol. I walk about 11,000-13,00 steps at work and it's tempting to look at calories burned and decide to eat them back,but you will gain weight if you're logging just regular walking around. Going for a purposefully brisk walk and really getting your heart rate up is one thing, but your body has most likely already adjusted to the regular walking around you do in a day and unfortunately you're not going to burn many extra calories from that
  • QuilterInVA
    QuilterInVA Posts: 672 Member
    Options
    Work is not exercise, especially if you are just standing in one place. That's daily activity. Exercise raises your heart rate for a prolonged period. You MOVE. If you really want an accurate count of your burn thoughout a 24-hour period, get a Body Media. It's more accurate than a FitBit because the FitBit only estimates the burn but the BodyMedia caputres the real burn.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    Options
    I would guess then that logging calories on a Fitbit would be a bit of a stretch too and it logs every step you take even while sleeping - am I correct ??

    No. I wear my fitbit zip 24 hours a day, it goes from my tshirt to my pj's and back again, and only sees a resting place when I shower.

    It doesn't count massive amounts of steps, or enough to throw a wrench into the monkeyworks when I sleep, however, it will continue to estimate what my caloric burn is while sleeping based on the total daily percentage.

    I wake up & it starts my day with something like 400ish calories burned while I slept....this reflects the act of simply living/breathing/sleeping as you burn calories even at rest. The lion's share of my daily calories burned comes from daily movement, not necessarily sweat worthy movement, but *any* prolonged activity.

    Your Zip will count those calories whether it's in your PJ's or laying on a table. It automatically tracks your base calories per hour no matter where it is.

Categories