Natural Ways to Burn More Calories Throughout Your Day

There are many ways you can go from sedentary to moderate or even elite exercise enthusiast. You can join classes for fitness, invest in exercise equipment, and commit to regimented programs that get your moving more.

But for diet success, you should also be working toward increasing your average, everyday activities - because it's in this area that the efforts can truly add up and amount to better health.

Use a Pedometer

If you don't have time to get your fitness routine done every day, there's still a way that you can burn calories. There's a simple and inexpensive device you can get that can help you to knock off calories and pounds.

You can get a pedometer. Studies have shown that using a pedometer helps people on their weight loss journey because it gives them a way to see their efforts. They get to see progress daily.

By walking 10,000 steps in a day, you'll walk about 5 miles. When you have a pedometer along with a healthy diet plan, you'll lose weight steadily. The best thing about a pedometer is that you can get in your daily steps even while you're just going about your regular routine.

You'll find that you're looking for ways to add to your step count - such as parking further away from the door of the store when you have to go shopping. You can start slow if you're not used to doing anything physical and you can increase your progress a little bit each day until you're at the point where you're meeting or exceeding your daily step goal.

Experience Short Bursts of Exercise at Work

Another way that you can burn more calories can be done while you're at work. Even if you have a job that requires you to sit at a desk for most of the day, you can still get in some quick and effective moves that will help you stay fit.

You can do seated leg lifts right in your office chair. Simply lift your left leg and hold it out straight. Count to ten and then lower the leg slowly. Switch to the right leg and do the same. Alternate each leg for a few minutes to tighten those muscles.

If you have an area at work where you can be alone for a few minutes, you can knock out some pushups using either the floor or against the wall. Sit ups are good, too if you can find some space to do them in.

While you're standing at the water machine or waiting for someone at the office, you can do standing leg lifts. Stand on one leg and bend the other one at the knee so that you're raising the heel of your foot toward your rear end. Hold until the count of ten then slowly put your foot down. Repeat with the other leg.

Walking during work is a great way to exercise and you can take a brisk walk around your office area. You can also go for lunch walks. If you don't have the time to get outside at your office, walk your office building to deliver messages instead of using email.

Skip using the elevator and instead, choose to use the stairs. Each time you use the stairs, those steps add up. Get rid of your desk chair and instead, sit on a large exercise ball. Using an exercising ball helps you strengthen your abdominal muscles while you're exercising. You're also exercising your calf muscles at the same time.

You can do toe raises while you're at a desk. With the heel of your foot on the ground, lift the toes of your foot upward and hold for the count of ten. Lower your foot and switch to the other foot.

You can burn calories and get your rear in shape at the same time by squeezing your glutes. You can do this while you're waiting to go into a meeting or even get in a few quick squeezes while in the restroom.

Jumping jacks are another easy exercise that you can do at the office. You can also run in place or do walking lunges for a couple of minutes at a time several times throughout the day. A couple of minutes here and there to do these simple exercises can easily add up to a workout.

Make Cleaning a Physical Activity

Sometimes, there's just not time to get to the gym or to go for a walk because life can get busy - or maybe you'd rather do anything else than commit to a daily exercise routine. You don't want to lose the momentum you have going and there are other ways you can shed calories.

One often overlooked way of burning calories besides heading for the gym is cleaning. Whenever your body is in motion, it's burning calories. If you don't have time to exercise or you hate to exercise, then start cleaning!

The more vigorous the cleaning, the more calories you'll burn. Just sweeping the kitchen floor can burn 112 calories. If you have carpet in your home, that can be a good thing to help you burn calories because every time you vacuum, you can knock off 119 calories.

Dusting the knickknacks or the furniture can net you a burn of 85 calories. Making a bed burns 68 calories. If all you did was work for half an hour and you made your bed, dusted the room and vacuumed, you'd burn a total of 272 calories.

If it took you an hour, you'd double that number. Before you clean your bedroom, if you decide to do some laundry first, you'll burn 36.5 in calories for every 15 minutes you spend doing laundry.

When it's time to clean your floors, think about the calories you'll burn while you're getting your home in great shape. Every time you scrub the floors, you burn 258 calories for every hour.

Spring cleaning your house burns more calories and can give you the same vigorous workout you'd get if you were going hard at it on a treadmill. Doing simple chores burns calories, too - and if you hand wash the dishes instead of putting them in the dishwasher, you'll take off 78 calories.

Chores where you have to work up a sweat can really take off the calories. If you need to clean your bathroom, you'll burn 200 calories and that's every half hour you devote to it. If you live in a home that has more than one bathroom, you get to multiply that loss by the number of bathrooms you have for every half hour that you clean.

The best part about knocking off calories through cleaning your house, besides having a clean house at the end of all the chores is that it doesn't all have to be done all at once like working out at the gym does.

Instead of spending hours cleaning, you can clean in short bursts for 10-15 minutes at time throughout the day and still get the same benefit you would if you'd worked straight through.

Do Some Outside Work to Burn More Calories

Besides cleaning inside the house, doing work outside is great for getting rid of calories, too. You can take your dog for a walk around your neighborhood and depending on your weight, you can easily burn 150 calories or more for every half hour you spend walking your pet.

The things you do to make the outside of your house look nice can be a good way for you to exercise as well. Washing the outside windows of your home knocks off 102 calories in a thirty-minute time span and will help make your house sparkle!

Mowing the yard is an outside activity that will burn calories fast. If you're 200 or more pounds overweight, you can burn over 276 calories for each half an hour it takes you to mow. So, if you mow for an hour, you'll burn over 550 calories.

Washing your car can burn up to 204 or more calories every hour. If you like flower gardening, you can have a yard filled with pretty flowers and take off 272 calories for every hour you spend giving your home some curb appeal.

Engage in Fun Activities to Better Your Health

Burning calories doesn't all have to be chore related. Don't forget that fun activities that help you relax can also burn calories. Dancing is one of those activities. You can dance at home, with friends or in an organized group class.

However, you do it, you'll be twisting and turning those calories right off. Dancing can burn 240 or more calories per half hour depending on the type of dancing that's involved. The more complex and the faster the pacing, the more calories you'll burn.

Many people enjoy roller skating - but you might not know that roller skating can easily burn 350 or more calories for every half an hour that you spend doing it. For people who like to engage in activities like kickboxing, they can burn over 480 calories every half hour they spend doing it.

If you take a kickboxing class, in one hour, you could burn 960 calories - and not only are you getting fit, but you could also be learning some helpful self-defense moves while you're at it.

Playing racquet type games such as tennis, badminton or squash can burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time. Because it's faster paced, squash burns the most, coming in at 533 calories for every half an hour spent in a game.

Tennis burns almost 400 and badminton 285. If you like to go bowling, you can take off 308 calories for every hour you spend doing it. Golf is a sport where you may not be going fast, but you can walk up to five miles if you play one round of 18 holes!

There are some days when you don't feel like doing anything outside or inside the house, even if it is fun. On days like that, if you spend half an hour playing with your children or with your pets, you can still burn calories. Playing with your children will burn 241 calories and playing with pets will burn the same amount.