In this article, I am going to detail a basic method to see the typical number of calories burned in various exercises and activities to aid in a calorie-counting approach to losing weight.
A calorie counting approach to weight loss requires you to keep track of the calories you consume and the calories you burn. To see the calories you are consuming, you can maintain a food journal to be able to sum the calories in the foods you are eating. To get an indication of the calories you are burning there are a number of approaches.
A basic indication of the calories you burn a day can be achieved through the use of an online calorie calculator. Here you can input some basic details about yourself such as you age, gender, height, weight and you general level of activity and you will see an estimate of the number of calories you are burning. It is also useful to be able to see the calories burned during any given exercise or activity. Research has been performed to allow calculators to give an estimate of this simply based on your weight and the duration of your activity.
These calculations are based on a metric known as the activitie’s Metabolic Equivalent (MET). An exercise’s Metabolic Equivalent is basically a measure of the energy expended during an exercise expressed as a multiple of the calories you burn at rest, or your resting metabolic rate (RMR). To give some examples, sleeping has a MET of 0.9, indicating you are burning slightly less calories while sleeping than while at rest. Walking at a moderate pace may have a MET of 3.3 indicating you are burning approximately 3.3 times the calories than while at rest, while running up stairs may have a MET of 15, showing a high level of calories burned.
An online calories burned calculator will be able to convert these METs to an indication of the calories you burn during a given activity. This is computed by multiplying an exercise’s MET value by your weight in kilograms and the exercises duration in hours.
If you are counting calories it is useful to familiarize yourself with the typical calories burned in your common activities. When computing the calories burned in an activity, this should not be added to your estimate of the calories burned during a day in a more general calorie calculator, as this estimate will already incorporate your activity level, and already spans a 24 hour duration. Rather than this it can be useful to add the calories burned in your various exercises over a 24 hour period to give another basic indication of the typical number of calories you are burning through activity.
[ad_2]
