How to Burn Calories While Sitting
Did you know that you can even burn calories just by sitting around? If no then I am sure you will be happy to know that it is true. Calories are even burned when you perform a simple activity for life like breathing, sleeping, walking and sitting. But remember these activities will not burn your body fat. If your aim is to lose weight then you need to perform certain aerobic activities for at least 30 minutes daily.
Sitting is not an aerobic exercise and will not burn your body fat, but yes you can burn calories while sitting. Also read about calories burned walking
Calories Burned Sitting
Calories burned while sitting shall largely vary according to your body weight, height, sex and age. The table below gives general estimates for the calories you burn by sitting and performing different activities like reading, typing, writing, watching television or eating.
Calories burned by sitting per hour
| Body weight in pounds
|
| Activity | 120 Pounds
| 154 Pounds
| 170 Pounds
| Sitting (Eating)
| 80 kcal | 150 kcal
| 115 kcal
| | Sitting (watching TV or reading) | 55 kcal
| 70 kcal | 75 kcal
| | Sitting (writing or typing) | 100 kcal | 105 kcal | 140 kcal |
How to Lose Calories While Sitting
Yes, you can aim to burn more calories just by sitting.
Try to increase your muscle mass. One pound of muscle can burn more than 30 calories per day just by sitting. If you compare this to one pound of fat in your body, it cannot even burn more than 2 calories per day.
Here are some simple and fun ways to increase your calorie expenditure just by sitting –
- Where you sit doesn’t matter (in the office or at home), the important point is to keep your mind busy. Concentration, thinking, planning while you sit can burn more calories than an ideal mind.
- Chew a sugar free gum while sitting or working on your office desk. This simple activity will not only help you to remain active but also help you to burn 11 extra calories per hour.
- When you are free while sitting, at office or at home have some laughs with your family members, friends or colleges.
Spend some time sharing jokes or watching a funny movie together. Only 10-15 minutes of a healthy laugh can burn up to 50 calories more. Moreover it can elevate your mood and also make you feel fresh for the rest of your day. - Try some stretching exercises while you are sitting. If you have a sedentary job, try to take short 5 minute breaks every hour and stretch your body. Simple stretching like rotating your hands, some neck exercise or leg stretch will help too. If you know pranayama then this form of breathing exercise will also help to burn your excess calories and remain fit.
- Play a video game or a play station or a Wii while sitting in your free hours. Just 40 minutes of playtime will burn around 100 calories.
- Basically avoid being just a passive sitter; researches prove that people who fidget burn up to 350 calories more when compared to passive sitters. Also see calories burned swimming
Exercise is the key to feeling better and living longer. Exercise is not confined to any particular age group and in fact whether young or old it is good to have a regular exercise routine to help you to remain active and healthy. The most important aspect is to find an exercise routine that corresponds to your age and one that suits your requirements. It takes a lot of determination and effort to force oneself to follow a strict diet and exercise schedule. Many people who wish to lose weight or maintain their current weight draw up restrictive diet plans but avoid planning an exercise schedule as well. There are several exercises for weight loss that one can make use of to ensure quick weight loss without compromising one’s health. It is best to draw up a diet plan that is not too restrictive so that it is easy to stick to a healthy diet plan. A sudden reduction in food intake can cause serious health problems and so it is not advisable to follow a crash diet plan. Crash diet plans may provide quick results in terms of immediate weight loss but this weight loss is due to the loss of muscles and water. In most cases, people who follow a crash diet plan experience weight gain once they stop following their restrictive diet plans. This weight gain is caused by binging that follows a restrictive diet plan as it is the body’s natural reaction to what it perceives as starvation. Weight gain is caused by the excessive intake of calories where an individual’s daily calorie intake exceeds his/her daily calorie requirements. It is only logical then that in order to ensure lasting weight loss one would need to decrease one’s calorie intake as well as increase one’s calorie requirements. A sedentary lifestyle decreases a person’s calorie requirement and so it is important to include exercise in your daily schedule. You can choose to use the stairs and walk instead of driving if the distance is not too great. For distances that cannot be easily covered on foot, you can cycle. These simple daily activities help to increase your activity levels and help to increase your metabolic rate and therefore encourage weight loss. Gardening and mowing the lawn also helps to keep you active. How to Burn Calories While Sitting At a Desk
Even in office if you have your own separate cabin you can burn some calories sitting on an exercise ball and get your work done at the same time. When you sit at your desk you can burn additional calories when you share a couple of laughs with your colleagues. Laughter is considered to be very effective in burning calories while sitting still. At home you can burn calories while sitting at your desk and playing on the Wii. 40 minutes of this type of playing is said to burn up at least 100 calories. The key to burn calories while sitting is not to be a passive sitter and instead make sure that you are constantly active so that you burn calories as you sit at your desk or on your couch. The calories you burn while sitting down still at your desk would be different from the number of calories you would burn if you were sitting at a desk and doing light exercises at the same time.
Other than physical activity and exercises, you will be surprised to know that simple activities like sitting, breathing, sleeping and just lying still can also burn calories in your body. These activities will not be sufficient to burn your body fat and give you a perfect shape but they will definitely help you to burn up those extra calories that could in the long run turn into body fat. But if you are the kind who would rather sit in one place and exercise then even then you will be able to find enough exercise that that can help you to burn calories. Though calories burnt sitting at a desk are much lesser than the ones burnt with physical activity you can still try to burn calories sitting. It is important to know how to burn calories while sitting as this will help you to burn calories while sitting at your desk while you are working. You could also find out how to burn 1000 calories in an hour so that you can have a high intensity workout at the start of your day to help promote weight loss throughout the day by increasing your metabolic rate. Once you have learned how to lose calories while sitting and are able to calculate the calories burned while sitting and doing simple exercises, you will be able to find out your daily calorie requirements. Tips on burning 1000 calories a day It is believed that just sitting and eating a light snack can burn up to 80-105 kcal, sitting and watching TV or reading is able to burn up to 60-70 kcal whereas sitting and writing or typing can burn 100-140kcal. But all this depends greatly on your body mass index but on an average this is how calories can be burnt while sitting. One of the easiest ways to burn calories while sitting still or sitting at a desk is by doing wrist exercises and neck exercises. One of the easiest exercises to get your fingers used to gripping is to use a grip trainer or a soft tennis balls. This will help to increase the strength in your wrists and make it supple enough to bend and hold.as you sit at your desk you can also try to rotate your neck first slowly from the right side to the left in a circular motion and then change the direction by rotating it from left to right. Simple stretching exercise can burn calories sitting at your desk. As you sit make sure that at frequent intervals you elongate you back and try to stretch as much as possible without getting up from your seat and raise your hands above your head and bring them down to your sides as this will also help to burn some calories as you sit at your desk. Deep breathing exercises or pranayama as it is called in yoga can be a very good way to burn calories at the desk sitting. Try to inhale deeply and hold your breath for a few seconds and exhale slowly, do this at least 10 times at 5 minutes intervals as this is said to burn up to 150 calories if you do it for about an hour. Thinking and planning and concentrating on some particular work will also help you to burn calories sitting down. Another fun activity to increase the calories you burn while sitting at your desk is chewing gum. This requires no movement at all except that of your jaws. In this way, you can burn up to 100 calories as you sit at your desk and chew gum. This can even be done at your office desk and it will also help you remain active throughout your day. If you are at home you can also get yourself a huge exercise ball and burn a few extra calories sitting on an exercise ball. You can do some daily activities while sitting on this ball - you can watch TV, work on your computer, and even cut your vegetables and get you work done as you sit on it. It is also important to note that the calories burned while sitting on an exercise ball are more than the calories burned sitting at a desk. You can find out how to burn 1000 calories an hour or in a day either at the gym on an elliptical trainer or at home. |
