How Many Calories Do I Burn At Work?

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TinyChestnut
TinyChestnut Posts: 26
in Fitness and Exercise
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

Replies

  • lisahightower2
    lisahightower2 Posts: 35
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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.
  • luppic8
    luppic8 Posts: 580 Member
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    Wear a heart rate monitor. It will calculate how many calories you are burning
  • corgifan
    corgifan Posts: 155 Member
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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!
  • tawisdom
    tawisdom Posts: 7
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    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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