How Many Calories We Burn Every Day Doing Nothing

We often hear that we need to exercise to burn calories, for example, to run or to do a morning workout. But very few people are aware that this is not exactly true. Moreover, a person burns approximately the same amount of calories during 8-hours of sleep as they do during 30 minutes of running.

5-Minute Crafts would like to help you figure out the question of how many calories a person burns when doing everyday things or just lying on the couch watching TV.

Why some people burn more calories than others when doing the same things

Imagine that calories are fuel. Your body burns them just like a car burns gas. If you don’t consume enough calories, your body won’t be able to function normally.

The process during which the body converts food into energy is one of the chemical reactions that keeps us alive. These chemical reactions are called metabolism. The body constantly burns calories to receive energy for work.

Every human body is different. Therefore, in order to know how many calories your body needs to maintain normal functioning, you need to know your age, weight, and gender. For example, a 50-year-old woman, 5 feet 6 inches tall, and weighing 135 pounds should consume 1,400 calories per day. If she leads an active lifestyle, this number will be different. In addition, certain health problems can also affect the metabolic rate.

How to burn calories doing nothing

Any of our activities require a certain amount of energy, so calories are burned even when we are doing routine things. For example, here’s how many calories a person weighing about 150 pounds can burn in approximately 30 minutes:

• gardening and weeding ≈ 153 cal
• vacuuming ≈ 119 cal
• mowing the lawn ≈ 205 cal
• walking ≈ 103 cal
• watching TV while sitting on the couch ≈ 40 cal

If you want to burn a few more calories, add some physical activity to your usual activities. For example, use the stairs instead of an elevator or escalator, walk your pet more often, or cycle to work if possible.

How to burn calories when playing sports

Sports games can be a great way to burn more calories if they combine intensive physical activity with fun. For example, here’s how many calories a person weighing about 160 pounds can roughly spend within 60 minutes:

• bowling ≈ 219 cal
• volleyball ≈ 292 cal
• baseball ≈ 365 cal
• basketball, football, or tennis (one-on-one) ≈ 584 cal

How many calories a person burns when sleeping

It might seem that a person is totally inactive when they are sleeping, thus there would be no energy consumption. But in reality, it’s not like that. During sleep, the body goes through recovery and regeneration processes. Therefore, the body temperature decreases, breathing becomes less frequent, and the metabolism slows down. During sleep, people burn about 15% fewer calories than when they’re awake.

We spend about 50 cal during every hour of sleep. Thus, you can burn almost 400 cal within 8 hours of sleep — more than an hour of playing volleyball. A lot depends on your basal metabolic level — this is the rate at which your body spends energy to support itself on a daily basis. If your basal metabolic rate rises, the number of calories your body burns while you sleep will rise too.