How to burn an extra 350 calories a day—without working out.
If you’re not keen on hard-core workouts like I am, you might actually have one up on me: you may move more during the day and bump up your non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).
Mayo Clinic researchers found that thinner people just move their bodies more during the course of the day compared to those who are overweight. In a way, that makes sense because the heavier you are, the more energy you expend to move around. In fact, they move so much that they burn, on average, 350 more calories per day compared to overweight individuals. If you’re looking for a sure-fire way to drop a few lbs, simply moving your body more during the day to burn additional calories is a great start.
We’ve covered the many reasons why sitting is bad for your health, so use these simple steps to help increase the NEAT in your life. If you can burn an additional 200-300 calories a day from standing more, pacing and fidgeting, you can lose close a pound every coupe of weeks. That’s without changing your diet whatsoever.
5 Ways to Burn an Extra 350 Calories
Use these tips and others and you’ll be burning more calories per day than you currently are and if you keep it up, you’ll see the scale heading down.
- Take phone calls standing, not sitting. The more you can stand up and pace during the day, the better. Remember…stand in place of sitting and walk in place of standing.
- When brushing your teeth or showering, do stabilization and core exercises by balancing on one leg or hold a wall squat while you brush your teeth.
- If you watch TV, spend each ad break walking around, stretching or doing light calisthenics. Every hour of TV has about 21 minutes of ad time.
- Avoid escalators and elevators as much as possible. Walk at least a few flights of stairs every chance you get.
- Keep your car from getting dinged and always park far away in the corner of lots and walk the extra distance to the shopping center.
One trick I have found for me that really has increased the NEAT in my life is using the FitBit. With it, I keep tabs on my daily steps and how many flights of stairs I’ve taken, along with my calories burned through normal metabolism and exercise. In order to meet my 10,000-step-per-day goal, I walk in place on the phone, take more mini breaks during the workday to move more and I almost always get up during advertisements on TV to move.
Even when traveling, I’ve been known to do laps around the hotel or around the hallways in hotels to reach my goal.
Share below in the comments section how you keep on track with your daily fitness goals.
Written By,
Julie Upton, M.S., R.D., CSSD
Co-Author, 101 Fat Habits & Slim Solutions (Penguin, 2013)
