Calories Burnt

geethapradeep
geethapradeep Posts: 1 Member
edited November 24 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello
I am quite obese and want to lose weight. Not looking for anything drastic. I am a writer and spend long hours typing and searching information. My mind's always working, almost up to 16 hours a day. I type for almost 5-6 hours a day. So does this count for calories burned? If so, how do I calculate this?
Thanks a lot

Replies

  • JMcGee2018
    JMcGee2018 Posts: 275 Member
    No, it doesn't (sadly). If you're spending most of your day at a desk, even if you're typing at that desk, your lifestyle is most likely sedentary and you wouldn't count any of those typing calories, as they are already accounted for as part of your lifestyle.
  • TxTiffani
    TxTiffani Posts: 799 Member
    When you set up your stats and it asks your activity level, choose sedentary, then tell it how many lbs per week you want to lose and eat the amount of calories it gives you. If you exercise then track that as well and you will earn extra calories to eat:) It's great incentive to do some planned exercise when you see you get to eat more because of it:)
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    geethapradeep wrote: »
    Hello
    I am quite obese and want to lose weight. Not looking for anything drastic. I am a writer and spend long hours typing and searching information. My mind's always working, almost up to 16 hours a day. I type for almost 5-6 hours a day. So does this count for calories burned? If so, how do I calculate this?
    Thanks a lot

    Well, yes and no...you burn calories simply existing on this planet...you burn more calories going about your day to day...but in this case, you'd put your activity level to sedentary which will account for the calories you burn existing and the calories you burn sitting and typing and thinking.
  • stacimarie1015
    stacimarie1015 Posts: 30 Member
    edited January 2018
    MFP estimates your calorie burn when you set your activity level as sedentary, lightly active, etc. Sitting for most of the day would fall into sedentary. That still accounts for some calories burned for moving thru your day. So your typing, etc. are accounted for when you put your stats into MFP.

    Calorie burn can be put into 3 categories in my opinion:

    BMR - these are the calories your body uses to keep you alive. Consider if you were in bed, all day never getting up/moving. But your brain, lungs, heart, etc. all do their normal functions. Your body digests food, keeps your body temperature regulated, etc. This takes energy - and there are established formulas to estimate this based on gender, height, weight, age.

    Normal daily activity - this is where MFP considers your activity level. Your daily routine, job, hobbies, lifestyle. It takes energy to move your body thru your day. The more you move, the more your activity 'burn'. MFP uses a % of your BMR to estimate this. I don't know the exact % but it is something like 20% of your BMR for sedentary and 30% for lightly active.

    Cardio - this is intentional exercise where you are moving multiple major muscle groups for an extended period of time. Your body is moving at a higher rate than normal daily activity. Its easy to overestimate and hard to figure out EXACTLY.

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