How to Burn Extra Calories Every Day

People don’t always realize when they’ve accidentally consumed unnecessary calories in a given day. This can cause problems for those trying to lose weight as well as those who wish to maintain their current weight. Adding extra calories can easily lead to adding extra pounds. To combat the accidental over indulgences, as well as to accelerate weight loss follows these simple tips to burn extra calories every day.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A little extra thought and effort

1. Burn more calories internally. Every minute your body uses calories just to keep you alive. Breathing and maintaining your core body temperature are the first examples that come to mind. Turn burn more calories internally all you have to do, is get your body to work a little harder to burn extra calories. Let’s start with the easiest.

2. Work on deep breathing exercises. While the numbers will be different for everyone studies show that deep breathing can burn extra calories for most everyone. This is because most of us do not truly fill our lungs with air; instead we take a series of shallow breaths. Increasing your oxygen levels even if only temporarily for the duration of a deep breathing exercise will allow you to burn a few extra calories very easily. Not to mention it’s a BIG help in relieving every day stress.

3. Change the temperature. Three very easy methods to do this start with changing the thermostat in your house. Mind you, I’m not suggesting you freeze to death but feeling a little chilled, like you might want to throw a sweater on chilled, not blue lips chilled, will force your body to burn extra calories to keep you warm. Drink Ice cold water as it has no calories and will require you to use calories in order to warm it up. You can also toss your blankets aside at night and just use a sheet to cover up with. Keeping your body warm will burn more extra calories while you sleep. (For goodness sakes, don’t catch a cold over it, just allow your self to be a little chilly once in awhile)

4. Fidget. I have mentioned this before and I will so again. A good fidgeter at a normal weight can burn up to 350 EXTRA calories by simply fidgeting. Constant motion, even if it’s “mini” motions burn extra calories. If you’re overweight you’ll burn even more than 350 calories…if you can master the art of fidgeting. A master will be someone who manages to spend the vast majority of their day in motion.

5. Subtract calories from food while you prepare them. This is actually easier than it sounds. If you are cooking a full meal on the stove or in the oven, or just microwaving for a few minutes, you can lessen the foods calorie cost by doing small, and easy exercises while you wait. If the food is only going to take a few minutes stand by the sink or counter and do leg lifts or kicks while you wait for the ding. If it’s going to take 20 minutes or longer, pace, instead of standing still in between stirring, flipping, and turning the meal you are preparing. Dance around the kitchen a little or if nothing else go sit in the farthest room from the kitchen for just a few minutes at a time before going back to stir, flip, or turn. All of this extra movement will burn calories, and for every calorie you burn while preparing your meal is one less calorie impact on your waist line for the meal in question.

6. Eat plenty of Negative calorie foods. A lot of people will argue that there is no such thing as a negative calorie food, however, water being one of the most obvious negative calorie items; it makes it hard to think that they don’t exist. The argument primarily stems from the fact that all foods contain calories and none are “negative” in the calories they contain. However, the negative calorie effect is what occurs after the food has been eaten. If the foods calorie content is low enough your body can use more calories to digest it than the actual calories consumed. This creates the ability to burn a few extra calories, just by eating. You can surf the web for a complete list, but here are several to start you off on: Asparagus, broccoli, cucumbers, oranges, apples, grapefruit, celery, pineapple, strawberries, and lemons, just to name a few.

7. Get more sleep. You burn calories even while you sleep. But sleep has an added benefit, you burn calories, and you consume none. If you’re getting less than 8 hours of sleep you could be consuming 200 or more calories a day that you wouldn’t if you were sleeping at least 8 hours. Aim for 8 or more hours a night. If you can’t do that every night go for a few nights a week it will at least help you consume fewer and burn more calories a few days a week.

[bossypants]

on 11/7/2009 Breathing and sleeping.... I can do that!! You offer terrific suggestions that most of us wouldn't even think of, for burning extra calories. Thanks!