Do you burn more calories when active all day?

[astridel]

I notice when I've been sedentary for most of the day (lazy Sunday), but then walk about 5 miles at night before turning in, my total calorie count for the day is around 2,500. 

On the other hand, if I am "active" between 9 am and 6 pm (i.e. all my little dots on the activity tracker are lit up and I walked at least 250 steps each hour), my calorie count is around 2,800 for the day even though my total steps walked are the same. 

Does it really make that much of a difference when you spread your activity out over the course of a day rather than getting all your exercise in one fell swoop? 

[GershonSurge]

I just checked my data for June and your conclusion appears to be correct. 

[Bill_k]

I think the number of calories used depends on your heart rate. If you are active all day and your heart rate goes up you burn more calories.

I don't think the number of steps comes into it.

[astridel]

Right, but here's my confusion: 

Let's say I get up for a few minutes' walkabout every hour. That's 9 hours, call it three minutes' activity per hour to get those 250 steps - so 27 minutes total, for 1,750 steps. 

I don't get how the calorie burn should be different whether I walk for 3 minutes every hour or 27 minutes all at once at the end of the day. Isn't it simply the number of minutes you were active, not how those minutes are distributed across the day? 

[etvete]

There are a few things that contribute to calories burned:

1. How long were you active?
2. How strenuous were you active when you were moving? For example were you walking quickly or strolling?
3. Were you able to get your heart rate up, and does your tracker take that into account?

Now to highlight those in my experiences

• Yesterday I got 9647 steps with 78 active minutes (double header for softball so lots of cardio and elevated hr) and an overall burn of 2900 calories.
• Last Thursday, I got in 13554 steps with 64 active minutes (all walking at about 3 miles an hour) but my burn was only 2597 calories.
• Late June I got in 17090 steps with 94 active minutes (all walking at about 3 mph) with a burn of 2956.

I believe that what happens also if you continue to move through out the day is that your body needs to expend energy repeatedly to move and raise your heart rate multiple times, in the same fashion that High Intensity Interval Training would. That being said, in my experience, the fewer active minutes still means more steps when looking at calorie burn.

[DanielleinDC]

Well,  yeah, exercising early in the day--even if you only go 10 or 15 minutes--will rev up your metabolism for the rest of the day. And exercising throughout the day--even if it's only short bursts of activity--will also keep your metabolism up. 

I usually don't do my fitness walks on the weekend (when my boyfriend is over) and I have a hard time getting my calorie burn up. On weekdays, when it's just me, I can work out easily.