Exercise Calories Burned

Submitted by Kevin Pederson on February 20, 2012

People who exercise often wonder how many calories they are burning while they exercise. For many people who exercise, calories burned are in fact the key factor. After all, most of us do not work out because we enjoy it, but to lose weight and stay fit. This is not a particularly good way to go about exercising. Ideally, one should take up a form of exercise that one enjoys,...

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...since approaching exercise as a chore is a sure way to cut corners, skip sessions, and finally stop exercising. A fun workout is great motivation in itself. However, in the initial stages, the exercise calories burned are important factor in motivating you to keep exercising. Knowing how many calories you are burning gives you a goal to work towards and a sense of achievement too, even if the fun factor is low.

Of course, the question of how to calculate the exercise calories burned still remains. The answer is that it depends on several factors, and it is therefore impossible to provide a universal figure for the number of calories burned by a particular exercise. Your body weight is one obviously important factor - you will be happy to know that the greater your body weight, the more calories you burn. However, remember that other factors play a role too. Gender plays a role, and each person's conditioning and metabolism varies too. For a person in peak fitness calories burned during exercise will be different than a person who lives a sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle. Another important factor is of course the intensity of your workout. A mild workout would burn fewer calories than an intensive workout. Certain exercise activities, by their very nature, will not allow you to burn too many calories. Walking, while it is extremely healthy and among the most natural of exercises, does not burn as many calories as common knowledge would have you believe. Exercise calories burned walking are considerably less than, for example, the exercise calories burned in aerobics or even in cycling. Swimming is one of the most intensive workouts possible, and is among the activities that burns the most calories. Of course, as mentioned earlier, intensity matters. A person walking uphill, for example, burns a huge amount of calories, while certain more relaxed swimming techniques do not burn much more than walking can. In yoga, calories burned do not tend to be much, although some types of yoga are more intensive than others.

To find out exactly how many calories you burn when you work out, you could use one of the numerous exercise calories burned calculators available online.

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