For Bartenders: My Thoughts on "Is Bartending An Exercise?"

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  • Morninglory81
    Morninglory81 Posts: 1,190 Member
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    On a related note. I'm a software programmer. As you would suspect, my words per minute typing is pretty intense. Sometimes I get pretty sweaty from the pressure and how intense it is.

    Should I count this as an excercise? I plugged my Walmart purchased heart monitor and according to my calculations, I am roughly burning 15,000 calories an hour doing this activity. I am going to create a MFP excercise for it.
    Make sure you eat back those cals or you may end up in starvation mode and gain weight!
  • phjorg1
    phjorg1 Posts: 642 Member
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    I work one night a week bartending. My shift can go as long as 9 or more hours and I am so sore after my shift. I am on my feet running back and forth behind the bar, lifting cases of beer to stock to the fridge, moving kegs, and I probably only get to sit for 10 minutes during that whole time.

    If this website allows you to count "walking" as an exercise then why not count "running around slinging beers all night" as one too?

    :)
    it shows calorie burn for activity. (poorly too I might add as it horribly inflates true burn as they all include BMR) Not all activity is exercise.
  • amberlykay1014
    amberlykay1014 Posts: 608 Member
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    If bartending is something that you do regularly, I wouldn't count it. Just set your goals to moderately active or higher if you feel like you aren't getting enough calories.
  • darklady189
    darklady189 Posts: 1
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    Thank you! I'm counting it!
  • laurabini
    laurabini Posts: 257 Member
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    Bringing back this topic because I think it should be logged, at least on long weekend shifts.
    Surely it's more than a (lightly) active lifestyle if you spend 13/15 hours standing up, walking around the venue collecting glasses, running to the cellar to change kegs... :)
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
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    I work a sedentary job and log just about everything. This is pretty accurate. I really don't get the benefit of setting a higher activity level and not logging steps and physical activity. Getting hundreds more calories a day because "I think I burn roughly that" is almost guaranteed to be inaccurate.
  • angeleyes010974
    angeleyes010974 Posts: 16 Member
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    howardmd1 wrote: »
    Hey fellow bartenders!

    So I was going to ask if I should add the hours I spend bartending as a cardio exercise, but instead of asking I realized I could figure it out for myself using my BodyBugg. I also searched on here and it seemed a few other people had the same question, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

    Here's the short version:

    For 8 hours of bartending on a Friday night at a fairly busy bar, I burned 2142 calories, or roughly 4.5 calories a minute on average. On weekdays when it's slower, it's more like 4 cals/min.

    Further explanation:

    So should you count bartending as a physical activity? It's kind of up to you, but I do. The BodyBugg quantifies an "activity" as burning 3 times the calories you burn while resting. I average about 1.5 cals/min when I'm sleeping or just watching TV, so based on that, an "activity" for me would be anything at or over 4.5 cals/min (3 * 1.5 = 4.5).

    I just created a cardio exercise for bartending on here under "My Exercises" with a 4 cals/min burn for slow/moderate bartending, and one for 4.5 cals/min for busy bartending.

    For comparison's sake, when I play tennis, I burn around 7.5 cals/min according to my BodyBugg. I'm no pro or anything though, so it may be more for those of you who can actually play well.

    All in all, it really doesn't matter for me because I work at a place that has 31 delicious craft beers on tap and specializes in wood-fired pizza, so I pretty much eat/drink my calories back at the end of the shift anyway, haha. At least beer has antioxidants.

    Hope this helps any bartenders out there trying to lose weight!

    -Matt

    YES LOG IT! I work two jobs and fulltime and a parttime and BOTH I am on my feet constantly moving! so I decided to start logging it as a workout because well it is! And on top of that i still go to the gym... crazy I know I have been having to cut back to 4 days a week instead of everyday because I am just too pooped to move anymore LMAO!
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    OP posted this 7 years ago, so there's a fairly good chance he's not even bartending anymore. :neutral:

    To have a vaguely useful reason for posting - I believe if you have a very active job, you want to kind of split the difference between your active work days and your less active days off to pick your activity level. Otherwise choose a low activity level and use a fitness tracker linked to MFP.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    angeleyes010974 wrote: »
    howardmd1 wrote: »
    Hey fellow bartenders!

    So I was going to ask if I should add the hours I spend bartending as a cardio exercise, but instead of asking I realized I could figure it out for myself using my BodyBugg. I also searched on here and it seemed a few other people had the same question, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

    Here's the short version:

    For 8 hours of bartending on a Friday night at a fairly busy bar, I burned 2142 calories, or roughly 4.5 calories a minute on average. On weekdays when it's slower, it's more like 4 cals/min.

    Further explanation:

    So should you count bartending as a physical activity? It's kind of up to you, but I do. The BodyBugg quantifies an "activity" as burning 3 times the calories you burn while resting. I average about 1.5 cals/min when I'm sleeping or just watching TV, so based on that, an "activity" for me would be anything at or over 4.5 cals/min (3 * 1.5 = 4.5).

    I just created a cardio exercise for bartending on here under "My Exercises" with a 4 cals/min burn for slow/moderate bartending, and one for 4.5 cals/min for busy bartending.

    For comparison's sake, when I play tennis, I burn around 7.5 cals/min according to my BodyBugg. I'm no pro or anything though, so it may be more for those of you who can actually play well.

    All in all, it really doesn't matter for me because I work at a place that has 31 delicious craft beers on tap and specializes in wood-fired pizza, so I pretty much eat/drink my calories back at the end of the shift anyway, haha. At least beer has antioxidants.

    Hope this helps any bartenders out there trying to lose weight!

    -Matt

    YES LOG IT! I work two jobs and fulltime and a parttime and BOTH I am on my feet constantly moving! so I decided to start logging it as a workout because well it is! And on top of that i still go to the gym... crazy I know I have been having to cut back to 4 days a week instead of everyday because I am just too pooped to move anymore LMAO!

    If it's a job you do regularly though it should still be accounted for in your activity level

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