How do I track standing?

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  • MisdemeanorM
    MisdemeanorM Posts: 3,493 Member
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    I might log it as walking downhill for about 10 or 15 minutes as an equivalent. It might have a minuscule affect on your daily calories but I doubt it's more than about 50 or 100 extra calories burned for the day. I don't think standing in general would burn much more than say if you were at your desk and had to keep reaching to the printer that's on the shelf nearby. I might log it just for reference (as what i put earlier in my comment, but with a comment in the notes section to clarify what that is about), but not because I think I'm actually making a different in my calories for the day. On the other hand, you are right about logging you walking to the store and to campus etc because that is something that does really get your heart rate going (even if just a little higher.) The standing and strolling I would just write off to a day of helping your circulation. Anyway, that's what I do. Log as walking downhill. Ie this weekend I walked (strolled) around a gun show for 3 hours carrying 15 lbs. I haven't logged it yet, but when I do I'll probably just log 1/2 hour of walking since I know it was doing something, but it wasn't doing a lot.
  • KMSForLife
    KMSForLife Posts: 605
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    Try this link: http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

    Standing burns about 107 calories and hour, give or take, depending on your weight.
    inaccurate. That site overestimates exercise calories and underestimates BMR.

    As I and couple others have said, standing burns 1cal/min over sitting. this has been measured in a metabolic chamber, which is 100% accurate. Unlike heartrate monitors or guestimates based on MET surveys. There will be some varience based on bodysize. But the rule is you can expect ~30% increase to your metabolism when you stand up over sit.

    Wow! This thread really seems to put people on one side of the fence or the other (fence jumping-45 cal).

    I think both of these numbers are the same. 107 cal/hour.....minus BMR....probably puts us around the 60 or so people seem to be agreeing on. Of course that's nowhere near the 350 from that "nonbroscience study" the one gentleman posted.

    So lets use the 60. For 3 hours that's 180, which is one handful of peanuts. This crazy long thread is over a handful of peanuts. THAT'S why we're saying don't log it. The variance is too small. Easily within the margin of error of all the other things you are tracking. Was your banana exactly 8 inches and did eat that last bruised bite at the bottom? Did they fill your coffee all the way to the brim or did they leave more space than usual for cream and sugar? Did you eat those fries at the bottom of the bag?

    Trying to get credit for 150-180 calories is asking for trouble, especially if you're a female with a 1300-1550 daily range. That's a 15% bump for someone with a very tiny window. Just because we think this is a bad idea doesn't make us jerks. There's plenty of reasons that I'm a jerk but not logging standing isn't one of them.


    Wow! Really? So when I purposely walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes and I "only" burn 180 calories or so, then I shouldn't log it? What's the magic calorie burn number that we should begin logging?

    What makes the jerks in this thread jerks is the sarcastic, purposeful hate. The ones that aren't trying to be helpful - just nasty and yes, there were many here.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    Dear America, this is why you're fat.
    Mystery solved, America!!!!! Now we know whey we're fat. Because, you know, all of America is fat. :huh:

    No, you're right, not all. Jut a very unhealthy percentage of the population. OPs way of thinking is just the same as mine was when I was one of the millions of obese Americans. Then I realized that pacing isn't exercise, and things got better for me.

    EDIT- In light of realizing that OP is Canadian, I'm sorry that our epidemic is finding it's way north.

    In looking at the OP's profile pic, I'd say she's doing a lot more right than most Americans. She sure doesn't look obese. Maybe because she logs so carefully. :tongue:
  • MizSaz
    MizSaz Posts: 445 Member
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    Dear America, this is why you're fat.
    Mystery solved, America!!!!! Now we know whey we're fat. Because, you know, all of America is fat. :huh:

    No, you're right, not all. Jut a very unhealthy percentage of the population. OPs way of thinking is just the same as mine was when I was one of the millions of obese Americans. Then I realized that pacing isn't exercise, and things got better for me.

    EDIT- In light of realizing that OP is Canadian, I'm sorry that our epidemic is finding it's way north.

    In looking at the OP's profile pic, I'd say she's doing a lot more right than most Americans. She sure doesn't look obese. Maybe because she logs so carefully. :tongue:

    I agree with you- OP looks like she's taking great care of herself! And I'm not trying to make this personal, or about her, specifically. But like I said, let's be realistic.
  • thelovelyLIZ
    thelovelyLIZ Posts: 1,227 Member
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    This is really something that should be incorporated in your daily activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc) in your settings, not an exercise to track. Even if this was out of the norm for you, tracking it can lead to overestimating your calories burned, which can then cause problems when you wonder why you're not losing weight.
  • MizSaz
    MizSaz Posts: 445 Member
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    I....I'm still Canadian......you may have heard of it? It's sometimes called "America's hat"....?

    edit: and still amused that people don't read the threads before posting their 2cents. :-)

    I would like to apologize, and publicly so, for my poorly worded outburst. I stand by what I said, but I was wrong to say it in such a way.
  • macpatti
    macpatti Posts: 4,280 Member
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    Trying to get credit for 150-180 calories is asking for trouble
    Get over yourself! Do you know how many people on here will log a walk that burns 150-180 calories?
  • mellabyte
    mellabyte Posts: 193 Member
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    I'm pretty amused by this now.

    I'm also highly amused that people get so VICIOUS about this.

    I asked a simple question, how many calories above the sitting/sedentary lifestyle I usually live does 3 hours of standing/strolling burn. I didn't even mention that the exam room is a giant theatre so I climbed about 2 flights worth of stairs maybe 15-20 times too!

    And somewhere amidst the info this has clearly become a conversation about what constitutes "exercise" (I'd like to again harken to my original post where I both avoided the word exercise AND placed the word activity in quotation marks to draw attention to my loose use of it).

    Exercise is of course a touchy subject as we are generally from a society that has issues with fitness and exercise. Just look at the rants around the forums by people who HATE lazy work-out people at gyms, who HATE girls who "stroll" and call it walking. Just look at this thread and realize that people have go-to items to complain about and say are NOT exercise (cooking, sleeping, watching Maury, the list goes on...) and think that tracking small stuff is laughable, that only power-walking or running marathons "counts."

    What's the real issue here? I realize now that it's not actually that I asked how to track calories for standing, that was merely the catalyst for a conversation about what it means to exercise, to be a person exercising, and how we exclude people from that group.

    Fascinating how a group of people, obese and overweight as most of us are, work SO QUICKLY to mock, ridicule, and exclude people based on small things they do or fail to do. And notice how some of the posts appeal to the other posters to agree with them. The "I bet she counts cooking too" post stands out to me as particularly noteworthy.

    Mocking. Abusing. Belittling. And above all excluding.

    I guess we learned something to do SOMETHING from the attitudes of certain segment of the skinny population after all! Some of you have found your way to finally be part of the "in" group!

    Simple questions will garner simple answers.

    And because this is MFP and people are here to log their calories _and_ "exercise" in a quest to a healthier (or maybe just a lighter) self... It seems logical that the average MFP user will equate an "activity" logging question as a question related to the act of logging exercise.

    You stated that you would like to track this _activity_ (or in the context of this site, exercise).

    If you had asked that you were curious what the difference would be in caloric expenditure between standing and walking, maybe that would've sparked less of a debate.

    Regardless. The interwebs will always shower you with both poop and fairies. ^_^ How you choose to transform the opinions you asked for is up to you.
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
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    Dear America, this is why you're fat.
    Mystery solved, America!!!!! Now we know whey we're fat. Because, you know, all of America is fat. :huh:

    No, you're right, not all. Jut a very unhealthy percentage of the population. OPs way of thinking is just the same as mine was when I was one of the millions of obese Americans. Then I realized that pacing isn't exercise, and things got better for me.

    EDIT- In light of realizing that OP is Canadian, I'm sorry that our epidemic is finding it's way north.

    Are you blind? She's not even close to overweight, let alone obese...
  • Sarahbara76
    Sarahbara76 Posts: 601 Member
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    charming as those who fight this maybe..let me tell you when I worked the register at VS and stood all day, I still burned more calories then I do sitting down all day like now, how do I know? I gained weight RIGHT away not changing anything about the way I ate, sitting all day the most I burn is 480 calories, which is less than what most people consume at dinner! So get up walk around and stand when you can!!

    Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/73916-calories-burned-standing-vs.-sitting/#ixzz1ypn5XVWj
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    Dear America, this is why you're fat.
    Mystery solved, America!!!!! Now we know whey we're fat. Because, you know, all of America is fat. :huh:

    No, you're right, not all. Jut a very unhealthy percentage of the population. OPs way of thinking is just the same as mine was when I was one of the millions of obese Americans. Then I realized that pacing isn't exercise, and things got better for me.

    EDIT- In light of realizing that OP is Canadian, I'm sorry that our epidemic is finding it's way north.

    In looking at the OP's profile pic, I'd say she's doing a lot more right than most Americans. She sure doesn't look obese. Maybe because she logs so carefully. :tongue:

    I agree with you- OP looks like she's taking great care of herself! And I'm not trying to make this personal, or about her, specifically. But like I said, let's be realistic.

    What's unrealistic about wanting to correctly log an activity that is above and beyond your activity level setting?
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
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    Dear America, this is why you're fat.
    Mystery solved, America!!!!! Now we know whey we're fat. Because, you know, all of America is fat. :huh:

    No, you're right, not all. Jut a very unhealthy percentage of the population. OPs way of thinking is just the same as mine was when I was one of the millions of obese Americans. Then I realized that pacing isn't exercise, and things got better for me.

    EDIT- In light of realizing that OP is Canadian, I'm sorry that our epidemic is finding it's way north.

    In looking at the OP's profile pic, I'd say she's doing a lot more right than most Americans. She sure doesn't look obese. Maybe because she logs so carefully. :tongue:

    I agree with you- OP looks like she's taking great care of herself! And I'm not trying to make this personal, or about her, specifically. But like I said, let's be realistic.

    Realistic about what exactly?
  • Jaccyber
    Jaccyber Posts: 620 Member
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    http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc
    ^^^^^ This website has a great Calories burned calculator. See if it is what you are looking for.

    Looks like (depending and weight and height) a person burns between 70 to 100 calories per hour while standing.
  • myfitnessnmhoy
    myfitnessnmhoy Posts: 2,105 Member
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    I just supervised a three hour exam, which meant strolling around and standing still for 3 hours.

    I'd like to track this "activity" but I typed in "standing" and nothing relevant came up.

    Ideas?

    I'd go with "walking, 2.0mph, slow pace" and cut the calories about in half or so. That should be a good rough number to use.
  • AprilBurns86
    AprilBurns86 Posts: 60
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    I personally would put "Cleaning, light/moderate effort". That's gotta be about the same, right? I hope that helps!! =)
  • lizziebeth1028
    lizziebeth1028 Posts: 3,602 Member
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    People can be vicious in the forums, I'm still learning that. I do believe you received some good advice too though. The title of your thread 'HOW DO I TRACK STANDING'...will invite criticism. Really what you are doing is lite walking at a leisurely pace which is a selection in the exercise section.
  • Saiklor
    Saiklor Posts: 183
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    I'm currently 5'5.5 and 152.5 pounds which means I'm in the BMI for "overweight" if anyone want to have all the facts.
  • MizSaz
    MizSaz Posts: 445 Member
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    Dear America, this is why you're fat.
    Mystery solved, America!!!!! Now we know whey we're fat. Because, you know, all of America is fat. :huh:

    No, you're right, not all. Jut a very unhealthy percentage of the population. OPs way of thinking is just the same as mine was when I was one of the millions of obese Americans. Then I realized that pacing isn't exercise, and things got better for me.

    EDIT- In light of realizing that OP is Canadian, I'm sorry that our epidemic is finding it's way north.

    In looking at the OP's profile pic, I'd say she's doing a lot more right than most Americans. She sure doesn't look obese. Maybe because she logs so carefully. :tongue:

    I agree with you- OP looks like she's taking great care of herself! And I'm not trying to make this personal, or about her, specifically. But like I said, let's be realistic.

    Realistic about what exactly?

    This isn't exercise. Plainly and simply. I stand up to wash the dishes, but I certainly don't consider it to be exercise. If OP were morbidly obese, yes, it would have been great and amazing that she paced for a couple hours, but this isn't the case. It's not exercise.
  • Linda_Darlene
    Linda_Darlene Posts: 453 Member
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    I apologize on behalf of all the people here who feel they must be snippy.

    If you have a sedentary lifestyle, then standing and wandering the classroom would be an event, but not one that I'd log in as exercise. While you do burn more calories standing than sitting, you did not do anything to elevate your heart rate to call it an exercise activity. That's just my 2 cents worth.
  • Saiklor
    Saiklor Posts: 183
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    I am loving this more and more.

    Now we've added a caveat that certain people can be in the "exercising person" group if they do certain activities and other people can't. So we have special allowances for the morbidly obese which do not apply to an overweight person (ie ME!).

    I wonder if a morbidly obese person with a photo that made it CLEAR that they were very large had posted this thread if they'd've recieved a different variety of response? I wonder if it would have been more or less vicious?
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