The number of calories you burn during sleep is an important factor for determining your daily calorie expenditure rate. You will commonly use your daily calorie expenditure rate to predict your weight loss during a fitness program. Your calorie expenditure while sleeping relies primarily on your body weight.
Calculators
Online calculators are available that allow you to calculate your calorie expenditure while sleeping. The calculator at Fitness Watch requires you to enter your weight and the amount of time you spend sleeping. Assume you weigh 170 lb. and sleep for 32 minutes in this example. Your calorie expenditure is 39 calories.
Metabolic Equivalent
The metabolic equivalent, or MET, is a relative measure of an activity's intensity. The MET for resting is set to 1, so an activity with an MET of 2 has a calorie expenditure rate twice as fast as resting. Sleeping has an MET of 0.9 according to the "Journal of Applied Physiology." This means that sleeping burns calories at 90 percent the rate resting does.
Weight
Scientific formulas such as the one for calculating calorie expenditure typically use kilograms. Most Americans know their body weight in pounds, so this usually requires you to convert your weight to mass in kilograms. Divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to obtain your mass in kilograms. If you weigh 170 lb., your mass in kilograms is 170 / 2.2 = 77.3kg.
Formula
The formula for calculating calorie expenditure is C = (W x MET) according to My-calorie-counter.com. C is your calorie expenditure during 1 hour of the activity, W is your body weight in kilograms and MET is the MET value for that activity. Sleeping has an MET of 0.9, so the specific formula for calculating your calorie expenditure while sleeping is C = (W x 0.9).
Procedure
Assume your weight is 77.3kg. Input this weight into the formula C = (W x 0.9) to get a calorie expenditure of (77.3 x 0.9) = 69.6 calories. A person weighing 77.3kg will therefore burn 69.6 calories per hour while sleeping.
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