How Many Calories Are You Really Burning?
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Pages in this Story:
- Get Fired Up
- 5 Common Calorie Myths Busted
- Workouts That Blast Calories
- Blast Calories in Your Sleep
- Workouts That Keep Working
- Smart Get-Slim Strategy
Smart Get-Slim Strategy
Lean people rack up more than two and a half hours of additional daily movement than their overweight peers, a study showed. That means they can zap up to 350 extra calories a day on top of their daily exercise. "The calories we burn puttering around are far more important for weight maintenance than we ever imagined," says study author James Levine, MD, PhD. Here's how it all adds up.
| Doing this… | Time | Burns off… |
| Window shopping | 2 hours | 295 calories |
| Planting flowers | 1 hour | 290 calories |
| Raking the lawn | 1 hour | 255 calories |
| Vacuuming | 1 hour | 225 calories |
| Washing the car | 1 hour | 290 calories |
| Playing tag | 30 minutes | 160 calories |
| Barbecuing | 1 hour | 160 calories |
| Playing guitar, seated | 1 hour | 130 calories |
| Throwing a Frisbee | 30 minutes | 95 calories |
| Walking the dog | 30 minutes | 95 calories |
| Bathing the kids | 30 minutes | 95 calories |
| Folding laundry | 30 minutes | 65 calories |
| Talking on the phone, standing | 30 minutes | 55 calories |
| Laughing at a funny movie | 30 minutes | 50 calories |
| Doing the Sunday Times crossword | 30 minutes | 40 calories |
| Chewing gum | 2 hours | 22 calories |
| Darting up stairs | 1 minute | 15 calories |
Originally published in FITNESS magazine, June 2007.
