You may have heard about a new study that suggests that taking a hot bath has similar benefits as exercise. If not, here’s a quick summary. Researchers at Loughborough University conducted a study on 14 men who were instructed either to take an hour-long bath or complete an hour of cycling. Obviously, cycling did burn more calories overall, but they discovered that bathing was the equivalent of taking a 30-minute walk—which is close to 140 calories.
So while you may still need to hit the gym, this study got us thinking about other ways to torch calories without lacing up our sneakers. Here, find three seemingly mundane tasks that burn a surprising amount of calories.
Fidgeting
While tapping your foot, jiggling your leg, and other general signs of restlessness can elicit major side-eye from your coworkers, turns out fidgeting pays off in burning calories. According to research performed by the Mayo Clinic, the leg jiggles as well as exaggerated hand gesturing can burn as much as 350 calories a day.
Shopping
If you need another excuse to hit the shops, this is it. Apparently, you can you burn 15,000 calories a year on the hunt for the perfect pair of workout leggings. That’s right, the results from the survey conducted by Wall’s Solero Exotic show that when shopping, women walk, on average, a whopping 180 miles (that’s almost 290 km) a year.
Cleaning
Did you know that household activities can burn some serious calories? Health claims that vacuuming burns about 100 calories per 60 minutes, while cleaning every surface in your bathroom for 35 minutes is the equivalent to walking for the same amount of time on the treadmill. Time to get scrubbing!
Need to stock up on some non-toxic cleaning supplies? We’ve got you covered right here!
