I wasn't sure where to post this, but I guess it could be considered exercise.

Anyway, I'm a server/waitress/whatever you want to call it at a relatively busy restaurant. I work in "Michigan's Little Bavaria" if anyone gets that reference.

I was wondering, how many calories do you think you burn working...let's say a 5 hour shift? And could it be considered as a day's workout?

Gosh I have no idea! I think whether you could count it as your exercise depends on whether you have been at this level of activity for a while or is it a new job, where you have added activity? If you've been doing this job for a while, it's only enough exercise to keep you maintaining at your current weight, because that's what it has been doing. So you probably need to add a higher intensity workout to really get the benefits of raising your heart rate and burning additional calories. Our bodies are terribly efficient and once we have done the same thing for a period of time, they need fewer and fewer calories to accomplish it. That's why you always hear to switch up your workout routine.

If you just started this job, from a previously sedentary job/lifestyle, it might be enough to help you lose weight.

I'm assuming you are asking this with the goal of weight loss, not necessarily improved fitness or endurance. For improved fitness or to build muscle, I would think you might need to add additional exercise.

i know dailyplate has a "serving food" in their fitness directory.

i'm a waitress too! represent!

This site has a great calculator for a lot of activities, but it is based on the 'average' BMR.

I use it to credit myself for calories burned but I input my target weight, not my current one. This way, I account for my slower metabolism and know I am not over-crediting myself.

Well, I've been serving since...hmm last June-ish? I do workout normally as well as work on the weekends. I was thinking of getting a pedometer to see roughly how many calories I burn...but those are never very effective. Yeah, I'm sure I don't burn nearly as much as I used to, but man, it gets hot at work, so I'm always sweaty. Ew!

Daffy - I was looking for that link today and couldn't find it. Thanks.

The one thing I was going to add is that if you're going to use that site for longer duration activities (ie. like work) you should probably subtract the sleeping calories for the same duration.

ie. if you walk for 30 mins you will burn X amount of calories. However, if you did nothing, you would burn y amount. So you're really only burning x-y in excess calories (ie. higher than your BMR)

So at 237lbs, 5 hours of sleeping burns 484.7 calories, and serving burns 1077.2 calories. So your work burns and extra 595.5 calories. Tammy made a great point though - if this is a job you've done for a while (and you're maintaining), your body needs a deficit either from food, or new exercise.

Hi death,

Hmm, if you've been doing it since June, I don't think you can really count it as exercise to help create your calorie deficit. You're going to need to either cut calories (you've probably already started doing that) or add exercise. You say that you workout normally as well as work on the weekend. Does that mean you're already working out M-F and just using your waitressing on the weekend? If that's what you mean, you're probably getting enough exercise that you don't need to do more on weekends.

What kind of food plan are you doing?

Hey you!

I waitressed for a long time, 9 years maybe, and gradually got fatter doing it. I wasn't ever a nibbler at work, no time for that, and was a single girl who spent money on clothes, not food in my spare time so I would agree it probably doesn't count as an exercise if you're acclimated to it.

Waitressing is HARD work, fun- but hard. It was always so amazing to me that I wasn't stick-thin while serving. I miss it sometimes, I've even talked about opening a restaurant just so I could do it again (without any pissy bosses except myself )

Alot of serving, for me, was down time- although the rushes felt like eons of stress and sweat. The real bulk of the time seemed to be spent polishing silverware, folding linens and cleaning.

have you considered buying a pedometer to count your steps? some of them will even measure body movements as well and are able to estimate how many calories you burned in a day.

Hey I found this really surprising. I wore a pedometer when I waited tables tonight and I walked 2 miles between 6 and 10pm. Granted it was suuuuper slow. It wasn't busy at all tonight...so wow! That's pretty cool!

And the answer is provided by a Misplaced Michigander currently Menacing Austria...

Frankenmuth or ... Christmas Town!!

OMG do I miss home! Also missing the 140 outlet stores just up the highway in Birch Run... Great Deals!

Yeah, i know, it's pretty amazing. It's funny how many steps we take without thinking to much about it. I go to school at a college with a fairly small campus, so you pretty much have to walk every where. It's nothing for me to get in 10,000 a day without trying too hard really!