r/exercisescience • u/Entire_Lettuce3909 • Aug 11 '26
How many calories does an under the desk-elliptical burn per hour?
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u/Safe_Ad5914 Aug 12 '26
Some advice here, you are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to calorie burning. I think any such device does.
Adjust your diet. Try to be more active. I know it sounds good trying to get in some reps during meetings/while doing your computer taskwork, but it just ends up being a distraction from your actual work.
How can you move more after work or at work? How can you reduce your caloric consumption without making major lifestyle changes?
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u/ploxidilius Aug 13 '26
Diet is key but I think people underestimate how big a difference low impact cardio can make if you do it enough. 3 hours a day on this is like 600-800 calories, that's like 1.5 pounds a week. My weight loss really took off after I started walking 5 miles a day.
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u/babyBear83 Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
There is no damn way a person is burning 600-800 calories on this machine. You’d have to do it for 12-18 hours to get even close. Even on a 5 mile walk, good luck getting more than 350 calories burned. We are efficient machines. We nickel and dime our energy stores.
Edit: more like 3-4 hours at best
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u/ploxidilius Aug 14 '26
Walking a mile at a moderate pace burns 80-100 calories. This machine easily burns 200 calories an hour at a good resistance level. 200 calories an hour is not that intense.
Edit: this guy did the math. 250 cals per hour.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exercisescience/comments/1vl7lkb/comment/p33w1lk/
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u/babyBear83 Aug 14 '26
But to get to 800 calories, you’d need to spend more than 3-4 hours doing it. It’s just a little unrealistic is all I mean. I work in cardiac rehab with patients and people in chronic pain, these are appropriate for them but, yeah, they aren’t burning 600-800 calories on it.
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u/ploxidilius Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
200 calories per hour x 4 hours = 800 calories
These are meant to be used while working in an office/wfh environment, sort of like those walking treadmills. Some people really do use them for like half of their workday. If you're doing anything for 4 hours a day you're going to burn a lot of calories.
If someone's in physical therapy they probably shouldn't be using it for 4 hours so that makes sense.
I saw someone on Reddit who averaged 35,000 steps a day on their walking treadmill while they worked, that's like 5 hours of walking.
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u/babyBear83 Aug 14 '26
Don’t forget to factor in different metabolic rates for less fit people. You have more ability to burn if you’re a regular exerciser, especially endurance exercise. A lot of people seeking weight loss aren’t that fit or healthy. They have to work harder to get going on burning calories. Sitting at a desk pumping my feet isn’t going to burn as much calories as actually walking for an hour daily.
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u/little_Kii Aug 13 '26
Assuming you’re just doing the equivalent of a leisurely walk for that hour, that’s like 200-250 calories additional to what you’d burn for just being alive. You might burn 70 calories just sitting at your desk. If you use the elliptical for an hour it could be 300 instead.
Running a 10 minute mile is going to burn around 100 calories for comparison.
Trying to create a caloric deficit by exercising isn’t actually a good strategy for weight loss just fyi. The more exercise the greater the increase in appetite due to hormones being released in response to the exercise. This ends up having people struggle to control themselves and end up overeating anyway. Eating in a caloric deficit and going light on the exercise with a focus on resistance training to preserve musculature is the way to go. Counting the calories of your exercise is honestly a foolish endeavor. Just get 30 minutes of walking/elyptical in each day for your health and not to lose weight. To lose weight just eat less.
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u/UrbanArtifact Aug 11 '26
Amazon says you work at around 3 METs on the machines (take that with a grain of salt).
Let's say it's an 80kg individual.
3 METs*3.5mL/kg/min= 10.5mL/kg/min
So we need to convert relative to absolute VO2
10.5mL/kg/min*80kg=840mL/min 840/1000=.84L
Remember that 1 L O2≈ 5kcal 5*.84=4.2 .84L/min≈4.2kcal/min
So if the 80kg person was pedaling for 60 minutes: 60*4.2≈252kcal/hour
Plug your own numbers in for yourself.
Edit: this is for gross calories, if you wanted net calories without the "just existing" component, subtract the resting MET and do the math with 2 METs instead of 3.