Calories Burned Standing Calculator

Yes, standing does burn calories, though not as many as active exercise. Standing has a MET (Metabolic Equivalent of a Task) value of 1.5, meaning it burns roughly 50% more calories than your resting metabolic rate. Over the course of a day, this can still add up to a meaningful difference compared to sitting.

The formula is: Calories = T × MET × 3.5 × W / (200 × 60), where T is duration in seconds, MET is 1.5 for standing, and W is your weight in kilograms. This simplifies to: Calories = 5.25 × T × W / (200 × 60). For sitting, the MET value is approximately 1.0, giving a slightly lower calorie burn.

For a person weighing 70 kg (154 lbs), standing for 1 hour burns approximately 88–90 calories. Heavier individuals burn more, and lighter individuals burn fewer. The exact number depends on your body weight and the MET formula.

Standing burns roughly 50% more calories than sitting over the same duration. For example, a 70 kg person burns about 88 kcal standing for 1 hour compared to about 59 kcal sitting — a difference of around 29 kcal per hour. Over an 8-hour workday, that adds up to roughly 230 extra calories.

A person weighing 70 kg (154 lbs) standing for 8 hours burns approximately 705 calories. Compared to sitting for 8 hours (around 470 kcal), standing provides about 235 extra calories of burn. Keep in mind this is an estimate based on the MET formula and individual results may vary.

At 160 pounds (about 72.6 kg), you burn approximately 91 calories per hour while standing. For a full 8-hour day of standing, that works out to roughly 730 calories. This is meaningfully more than sitting, which would burn around 490 calories over the same period.

Standing alone is unlikely to cause significant weight loss, but it can contribute to a small daily calorie deficit when combined with a balanced diet. The real benefits of standing are more about reducing the health risks of prolonged sitting — like poor posture, metabolic slowdown, and cardiovascular strain — rather than direct fat loss.

MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent of a Task. A MET of 1.0 represents your resting energy expenditure. Standing has a MET of 1.5, and sitting has a MET of around 1.0–1.3. The higher the MET value, the more calories you burn per unit of time. Using MET allows calorie estimates to scale accurately with body weight and activity duration.