Many people say that they don’t have enough time to exercise. But, you don’t even need to set aside an hour a day to exercise. You can easily burn a good amount of calories in 30 minutes or less. Burning calories doesn’t even have to be work. You can have fun or even do normal everyday activities in order to burn calories. In order to make it more fun, you should try to do something that you enjoy, so it doesn’t seem like work when you are doing it.
The calories you burn will add up
If you currently aren’t exercising, you can start small and aim to burn even just 100 calories per day, which would add up to 700 calories per week, and in 5 weeks, that would be 3500 calories, which is equal to one pound. Of course you would have to watch what you are eating to make sure that you aren’t just eating the calories that you are burning. It might not seem like a lot, but the pounds will add up and it is better than not exercising at all.
Every time you move, you are burning calories. You even burn calories when you aren’t moving. Just sitting, a 140 pound person burns about 1.3 calories per minute, which is 39 calories in 30 minutes. The greater the intensity of your movements, the more calories you are going to burn. So, if you do an exercise that is higher in intensity, you may even be able to burn 100 calories in as little as 10 minutes, which would mean that if you did that same exercise for 30 minutes, you could burn 300 calories.
So what can you do to burn 100 calories in 30 minutes or less?
Play basketball for 10 minutes
Basketball , or other sports which require a lot of movement, is a great way to burn calories if it is something you enjoy. It makes it fun. You won’t even feel like you are working out, and the time will fly by.
Do aerobic dancing for a little more than 10 minutes
Many people love to dance. There are even dancing video games that you can try. This is another fun and easy way to burn calories quickly.
Run for 7 minutes
Many people run as their exercise of choice. It burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time.
Walk for 12 minutes
This is something that is easy and most people can do. You can even go for a walk on your lunch break at work or if you have a dog, you can walk your dog and make that your exercise for the day. It is good for you and your dog.
Ride a bike for 14 minutes
Most people know how to ride a bike, so if you own a bike, this is also a very easy way to burn calories. You can even ride your bike to the store (if it is close enough) instead of driving.
Work in your garden for 15 minutes
You may not think of gardening as something that would burn calories, but with all of the digging and weeding that you are doing, the calories add up.
Go cross country skiing for 10 minutes
Cross country skiing is a great exercise, and it can be a very fun winter sport if you are on vacation or live in that type of climate.
Do weight training for 12 minutes
Weight training should be included in everyone’s fitness regimen. It can burn calories and build muscle at the same time.
Swim for 10 minutes
Swimming is a great exercise, and is not hard on your joints like some weight bearing exercises are. In order to burn this amount of calories from swimming, try doing the front crawl at a moderate pace.
Play tennis for 13 minutes
This is another sport that you can play as a fun way to burn calories.
The above exercises are based on a 160 pound person (Calories burned can vary depending on your weight). You may even want to invest in a heart rate monitor to see how many calories you are burning when you do certain activities.
You can also use our free calorie counter and find out more great ways to burn 100 calories in 30 minutes or less
These are just some of the exercises you can do to burn calories in a short amount of time, but you can do other things in your everyday life to burn more calories in a short amount of time. Just by being more active in your daily life, you will burn more calories. You can take the stairs instead of the elevator or park far away from the entrance to where you are going. Little things add up. Even cleaning your house will burn more calories.
So, whatever your goals are, whether it is to lose weight or just to live a healthier lifestyle, you don’t need to take a lot of time to add exercise into your daily routing, and it can be fun.
Make sure you also read how many calories to lose weight for a step by step guide.
References used in this article