calories burned standing

Nope, don't count it. Your daily activity level is set in your profile, which calculates the amount of calories you burn on an average day. If you are on your feet every day at work, that is calculated already. Don't count it unless it feels like exercise, good rule of thumb.

I would work that into your activity level rather than add it as exercise.

Put yourself into the slightly active or active catagory.

Set your activity level to sedentary (if you work less than 5 days a week), and count your time spent working as exercise. Input it at the same rate as the slowest pace of walking. You'll be underestimating your calories burned but it should work out decently.

I work on my feet all the time too, walking and stuff, and I don't count it, I try not to count anything I was already doing before I actively started trying to get in shape. I figure I was doing all those things before I started and they didn't make a difference so why would they now? I only count actual exercise, not regular daily activities.

If you're burning 3.5 calories per minute while working for 6 hours, you need to factor that into your daily calorie budget. It's not just about calories in (from food) in and calories out from "exercise," it's about ALL calories in, ALL calories out. If you set your activity level to sedentary, it's not taking into account that you will be exerting yourself for 6 hours in a given day by standing and running around making sandwiches etc. 3.5 calories might not be the actual number of calories that you are burning, but once you figure that out, you absolutely should include it as exercise.

Ask yourself this; while working, in a given 30 minute segment, how hard to you feel you are exerting yourself? A good way to figure that out is with your heart rate. Next time you work, a half hour in, pause for 30 seconds to take your heartrate, write it down, and continue. Do this 12 times and record the time next to the heartrate. Then, lookup what your maximum heartrate is estimated to be, and for all of the halfhour periods where your heartrate is 60% of your maximum or higher, you are definitely burning calories like exercising.

How does that sound as a plan?

I say if it is something I did before I tried to lose weight, doesn't count, didn't help me then, won't help me now. I walk all day at work, but I always have.

Good point!

Best point ever its added in all ready we need to do things different not the same.

You shouldn't count it. It is included in your lifestyle. The other thing is, with exercise, the premise is that you will increase endurance, stamina and/or intensity. You will not be doing that while working. While your body may take time to adjust to it, it won't be that long and then you would be overeating.

Take it as it may help you drop an extra pound you might not have been expecting. If you feel hungrier on the days you work, dont' sweat it if you go over a little on those days.

Her problem is that she works part time, if I understand correctly, so that her daily activity level would over-state her exertion because she only works, say, 3 days a week. If she sets her activity level at sedentary, therefore, she needs to account for the calories expended from 6 hours of active work.

Also, for those of you who say "if I did it before, don't count it," and "don't include lifestyle" activities, that's just wrong. I bike to school and back every day, which is about 16 minutes total of biking, but I include those calories EVERY time. Why?

My body uses about 140-200 calories every day to bike to and from school, so I need to add that to my nutritional budget to know if I'm satisfying my body's needs. It doesn't matter that I did this before I started using MFP or trying to improve my fitness and weight, and it doesn't matter that this is a regular, daily part of my lifestyle. It's a discrete event that I can identify, that burns a quantifiable amount of calories, so since I'm using a calorie tracker (MFP), I should track it!

The only reason to use the activity level to encompass an activity is when that activity is more easily estimable by altering your "activity level" then by entering it in as exercise.

I work on my feet all the time too, walking and stuff, and I don't count it, I try not to count anything I was already doing before I actively started trying to get in shape. I figure I was doing all those things before I started and they didn't make a difference so why would they now? I only count actual exercise, not regular daily activities.

This would be my advice, too. So, if it's not a new job, your body already knew how to deal with it.

I don't know why many of you are operating under this misconception, but your logic is absolutely flawed. "I was doing all those things before I started and they didn't make a difference so why would they now?" The answer is simple; because NOW you are also reducing your caloric intake and increasing your exercise.

Regardless of whether you were doing something before, it still burns calories when you do it NOW. That your body is "used to" an activity or "knows how to deal with it," whatever you mean by that, does not bear at all on the issue of whether the activity burns calories.

If you've been walking 2 miles from home to work every day for twenty years, your body STILL burns calories every time you walk those two miles. If you have your activity level set to sedentary, why would you not count those 2 miles of walking as exercise?

Walking is exercise, plain and simple, regardless of how long you've been walking. Regardless of whether you're walking in a sweat-suit on a treadmill at the gym and call it exercise, or you're walking in a business suit between office buildings and call it work; it burns calories and is exercise. Period.

Does this sound logical, or am I missing something here?

Now, if the issue is that you're uncomfortable calling something "exercise" when it's something that you do as a part of your daily lifestyle, I can understand that sentiment, but it's still irrelevant.

The question here is how to calculate the calories that your body uses on a given day most accurately and efficiently. If you set your activity level to sedentary, it does not include things like working on your feet for 6 hours at a time. You must, therefore, include that in your "calories expended" side of the ledger to determine how many calories you need to eat daily and be within your goal range. Because the only way to add calories that your body used is by calling it "exercise," just get over the lingual hangup and focus on the real goal and intent; to count calories.