Calories lost at work

tweiss9910 · June 2012

Hello! I am trying to find out how to input my daily calories lost from a normal day at work. I just started with my fitness pal yesterday and I am trying to record everything on my iPhone app. I am a fast food manager. I work Four 10 hour shifts every week doing everything from cooking, cleaning, taking orders, ect. I am on my feet the entire day and just didn't know what to put in as the cardio exercise (or if I should even count work at all). I tried putting food prep for 600 minutes(10 hours) an it says I burned 3000 calories, which I thought was high. Is this accurate or do I need to use something else. I have my activity level set to lightly active. Please help!!!

thanks!

caraiselite · June 2012

your activity level would take your job into account.
if you'd like, raise your activity level higher, and see if that makes more sense to you.

supplemama · June 2012

Hi there, I teach school and am on my feet all day so I know what you mean! During the school year I used to track my working day as exercise (back when I was using the Lose It! app) but now I feel that is just a part of my normal day so I don't count it as exercise. If you got fat/are fat while still working or doing other normal day-to-day activities, you really aren't working out while working. You need to exercise on top of your job, too.

LaurenAOK · June 2012

When you set up your goals, you selected your activity level. You should have taken your job into account then, so you don't have to log it as exercise

If you didn't take your job into account, just change your goals! When you set it up MFP gives you examples of jobs for each activity level. Then it takes those daily calories burned into account.

AllTehBeers · June 2012

Hi there, I teach school and am on my feet all day so I know what you mean! During the school year I used to track my working day as exercise (back when I was using the Lose It! app) but now I feel that is just a part of my normal day so I don't count it as exercise. If you got fat/are fat while still working or doing other normal day-to-day activities, you really aren't working out while working. You need to exercise on top of your job, too.

This. I am on my feet all day as well, lifting cases of products, walking and even break a sweat but since its something I do all the time, I don't even think of it as exercise. In fact, I feel like I can't even count exercise on my off days when I don't do much of anything else.

tweiss9910 · June 2012

Ok so basically if I put my activity at, say "active" instead of "lightly active", the app already factors in what I am doing throughout the day? But if I do that my net calorie goal is even higher... I guess that's where I am confused... Should I be trying to get as close to that number as possible or have a lot of calories remaining? I have it set to 2 lbs lost per week.

palmerig88 · June 2012

I am a retail store manager and lightly active worked for me. If you are sweating the whole time I guess pick active. But its not exercise.

marsoe · June 2012

Ok so basically if I put my activity at, say "active" instead of "lightly active", the app already factors in what I am doing throughout the day? But if I do that my net calorie goal is even higher... I guess that's where I am confused... Should I be trying to get as close to that number as possible or have a lot of calories remaining? I have it set to 2 lbs lost per week.

The number MFP outputs is the target.

So, your daily requirement might be 3000cal (say 2000 to run your body, and 1000 for being at work).
You want to have a deficit of about 7,000cal per week/1000 per day to lose 1kg, so it sets up a daily target of 2000.

Or obviously, whatever numbers it outputs based on your activity level, sex, age etc.
Probably "active" would work better than "lightly active", but try one for a couple of weeks, and see what happens, and then change.

tweiss9910 · June 2012

Thanks everyone!!! Makes a lot more sense now!

Calories lost at work

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