See how many extra calories a standing desk and a walking pad add to a workday compared with sitting the whole time. Enter your weight and how you split your desk hours. Part of our free calculators and tools.
How it works
- MET stands for metabolic equivalent of task, the standard way researchers rate how hard an activity is. 1 MET is the energy you burn sitting quietly, and an activity rated 3 MET burns three times as much.
- Calories per minute = MET × 3.5 × body weight in kg ÷ 200.
- The baseline is sitting at a computer, 1.3 MET (Compendium code 11582). Extra calories are the difference between your mix of sitting, standing and walking and sitting for all of your desk hours.
- Standing at your desk adds 0.15 kcal per minute over sitting, about 9 calories an hour. That is the pooled result of 46 studies that measured people sitting and standing (Saeidifard et al., Mayo Clinic, 2018). The Compendium lists both sitting and standing computer work at 1.3 MET because its values are rounded, so we use the measured figure instead. Standing while moving around doing light tasks is 1.8 MET (code 11600).
- Treadmill desk walking is 2.0 MET up to 1 mph (code 11003) and 2.8 MET at 1 to 2 mph (code 11004). Faster speeds use the Compendium's level treadmill walking values: 3.0 MET at 2.0 to 2.4 mph, 3.5 at 2.5 to 2.9 and 3.8 at 3.0 to 3.4.
- MET values are population averages. Actual calories vary with age, sex, height, body composition and fitness.
Sources
- 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities (Herrmann et al., Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2024)
- Compendium paper (DOI 10.1016/j.jshs.2023.10.010)
- Compendium occupation activities (sitting, standing and treadmill desk codes)
- Compendium walking activities (treadmill walking codes)
- Saeidifard et al., Differences of energy expenditure while sitting versus standing (European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2018)
- Compendium unit conversions (MET to calories formula)
Sources last checked October 13, 2026. Estimates for general information only.