SnapCalorieBurn — free MET-based calorie calculators
How many calories do you burn sitting for one hour? About 65–120 kcal. Compare sitting vs standing and see tips to move more.
Sitting for one hour burns approximately 65–120 calories — your body's baseline energy expenditure for maintaining essential functions while at rest.
Sitting is humanity's default modern position. Office workers, students, and commuters spend an average of 9–12 hours per day seated. While sitting burns the fewest calories of any waking activity, your body is still working — maintaining posture, breathing, pumping blood, and running millions of cellular processes. The problem isn't that sitting burns few calories; it's that excessive sitting is associated with negative health outcomes independent of exercise habits.
Sitting burns about 30% fewer calories per hour than standing and 65% fewer than walking. Replacing just 2 hours of daily sitting with standing adds ~80 extra calories burned; replacing it with walking adds ~200 extra calories. Over a year, these small swaps accumulate to meaningful differences.
You can't avoid sitting entirely, but you can minimize prolonged bouts. Set a timer to stand every 30 minutes, take walking meetings, use a standing desk for part of your day, and walk during phone calls. Even small increases in daily movement significantly offset the metabolic cost of a sedentary lifestyle.
Direct answer: 1 hour of sitting burns an estimated 77–135 calories, depending on body weight (180 lb / 82 kg: ~107 kcal). Intensity assumed: Sitting quietly (MET 1.3). This is an estimate, not a measurement.
| Body weight | Calories burned |
|---|---|
| 130 lb (59 kg) | ~77 cal |
| 155 lb (70 kg) | ~91 cal |
| 180 lb (82 kg) | ~107 cal |
| 205 lb (93 kg) | ~121 cal |
| 230 lb (104 kg) | ~135 cal |
Example: At MET 1.3, a 180 lb (82 kg) person doing 1 hour of sitting burns approximately 107 calories: 1.3 × 82 × 1.00 h ≈ 107 kcal.
An estimated 77–135 calories, depending on body weight. A 180 lb (82 kg) person burns about 107 kcal, calculated as MET 1.3 × 82 kg × 1.00 hours.
About 1.8 kcal per minute for a 180 lb (82 kg) person, or 1.3 kcal per kilogram of body weight across the whole session.
Because the MET formula scales directly with body mass: a 130 lb person burns about 77 kcal here versus 135 kcal for a 230 lb person — a 75% spread for the identical session.
From the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference database of measured MET intensities for physical activities. Every figure on this page uses that value in the formula Calories = MET × body weight (kg) × duration (hours).
They are estimates from population averages, not measurements. Individual results commonly land within about ±15% of the figure shown; actual intensity and pace, body composition and fitness, terrain and technique all shift the real number. The values are gross calories, so they include the energy you would have burned at rest.
Open the sitting calorie calculator to enter your own weight, intensity and duration.