SkinnyNotes

This article will detail a technique for calculating the number of calories burned during common exercises and activities to help count calories for weight loss.

A calorie counting approach to weight loss requires you to have an understanding of the calories you consume and the calories you burn. Maintaining a food journal is an good way to count the calories in the foods you consume and you can total the calories of the foods in your journal to see the the total calories you are consuming. To get an approximation of the calories you burn there are a number of approaches.

A weight loss calculator will give a good initial indication of the of the total calories you burn. To get a basic idea on how many calories you’re typically burning on a given day, you can enter information about your body size and your estimated average amount of daily activity, and the program will calculate the calories you are burning. It caln also be useful to be able to see the calories burned during any given exercise or activity. An estimate of this can be computed through the use of a calories burned calculator by using the time it takes to do the activity and your weight.

The calculations are on the basis of a metric called the activities MET (Metabolic Equivalent). The MET indicates the calories burned by an exercise as a multiple of you resting metabolic rate (RMR) which is the typical number of calories you burn at rest. Lets have a look at a some examples of this.  The MET value of sleeping is 0.9, and as such burns less calories than rest. A moderate pace walk is considered to have a MET of 3.3, and therefore burns approximately 3.3 times the calories than in a resting state.  Running up stairs has a high level of calorie burnage and has a MET of approximately 15. You can use an online calories burned calculator to convert an exercises MET value to an approximation of the calories burned during the activities. These calculators operate by multiplying an your weight in kilograms by the exercises MET value and its duration in hours to get the calories you have burned.

If you are counting calories it is beneficial to become familiar with the typical calories burned in your common activities.  The calculated calories burned in an activity should not be added to the more general calculation of your total calories burned by a typical weight loss calculator, as such calculators already include you activity level and provide an estimate for a twenty-four hour period. Alternatively, you may want to add the calories you burn in your total activities over a twenty-four hour period to give an alternative estimate of your total calories burned for a day.