Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Burn more calories every day Part 2

As promised, here are 5 more ways to up your daily calorie burn in order to increase your calorie deficit, and of course lose weight!

6. Do some cardio (maybe while the TV is on?). Doing cardio exercise ups your metabolism for many hours you finish it. Add that to the calorie burn that is created by doing the actual cardio, and your calorie deficit has just gotten a significant boost! When I combine watching my favorite show with doing some cardio, I feel like I have actually accomplished something as opposed to being lazy and just watching TV.

7. Move, stand, fidget. Get off your butt! Whenever possible, do your tasks while standing, or move around while doing the dishes, or just fidget a little bit while you're sitting down. You could stand while having a conversation. You could make 2 trips to the car instead of having your arms super full of stuff. If you have to be sitting, bouncing your legs a bit is a good way to not be so still; but this may not be as good of an idea at work around other people, it can make you look impatient or annoyed which wouldn't be good in front of the boss! Also, you can walk around while talking on the phone if you are using a cordless phone. That wouldn't work so well with a corded phone (but you can try if you don't believe me). Doing these things can burn up to 350 extra calories every day.

8. Clean house/wash car. If you throw in just 30 minutes of cleaning house, you can burn around 80-90 extra calories. Of course, if you're really scrubbing and working hard then you could burn more! Not only does it get you moving and burning calories, but it also gets you a clean house. Washing the car can burn about 110 calories in 30 minutes. I'll have to be honest here and say that I normally leave that one to my husband. However, it might be kind of nice to get outside in the sun and wash the car every once in a while. It doesn't have to be perfect though :-) All you have to be able to say is that you did it, had fun, and burned some calories that you wouldn't have otherwise.

9. Play with the kids. This can get you burning some serious calories. In around 30 minutes you can burn 120-150 calories depending how much effort you exert. Even if you don't have kids of your own, there are always kids around that want somebody to play with them, like nieces/nephews or even neighbors' kids. Just going outside and playing ball with one of them is a great idea. It burns calories for you, gets said child active, and develops relationships for both of you. A great idea, all around!

10. Cook dinner. I'll have to admit, this one is not one of my strong points. Cooking is not my thing, but it can burn about 60 calories in 30 minutes or so. That's a good average of how long it takes to make a normal dinner. If you do it just 5 days a week, you're halfway to losing 1 pound. All that chopping, stirring, and serving up can be combined with another activity on this list and add up to weight loss.

I hope that this list (today's post and this post) can help you include things in your day that will help you lose weight and live a fit life.

Stay fit!

No comments:

Post a Comment