How to Lose Ten Pounds Without Trying

Putting some extra effort into completing your activities of daily living, like cleaning, catching-up with a friend and fidgeting, can help you burn an extra 100 calories a day. Try some of these ideas to help you lose 10 pounds without trying.

Three business people climbing a flight of stairs, white background. The stairs were digitally created.

If you want to lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you take in. Doing so might be easier than you think.

The answer isn’t found at the gym or the trail. It can be as simple as changing the way you do your everyday activities. Every time you choose to do something physically active, you use more energy.

Expending an extra 100 calories a day can land you a ten pound weight loss at the end of the year. Key word there being “extra.” If you look for ways to ramp up the activities you are already doing, you can burn that extra energy without much effort.  Try one or all of these tips to help you lose ten pounds this year without trying.

Change Your Route

One hour of walking burns ~225 calories, with variation based on body weight, intensity and speed.  Throughout the day, look for ways to increase you steps without hitting the gym.  If all of these small steps lead up to an extra 30 minutes of walking around, you can burn an extra 100 calories per day.

A few ideas:  Take the steps rather than the elevator, park as far away from the store as possible, walk on a treadmill or in place while watching your favorite TV show, carry things up the stairs one at a time and run the stairs if you can.

Clean More Aggressively

Like going to the gym, just showing up doesn’t cut it.  When cleaning, turn on the radio and put a little more oomph into your work.  Rather than load the dishwasher, wash the dishes by hand. Take laundry and items upstairs a few things at a time, so your forced to walk up the steps more often. Scrub your floors and cabinets with extra effort, incorporating all of your muscle groups into the activity.  An additional One hour of these activities per day, and you’ll be sure to use an extra 100 calories.

Walk And Talk

Rather than chatting on the phone from your couch, catch up with friends while moving. Take a walk outside or talk while on your treadmill. You burn an average of 100 calories per mile, which can be accomplished in less than 15 minutes, depending on your speed and fitness level.

Fidget

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared the energy expenditure of individuals in a supine position, to those sitting motionless and those versus sitting while fidgeting.  The increase over baseline was 4% while sitting motionless and 54% while sitting and fidgeting. That’s a sharp increase in the energy expended.  So, keep on twitching, squirming, finger tapping, or hair twirling, and you’ll burn more calories per day.

Remember, though, to burn the additional 100 calories per day, you’ll need to do these activities in addition to the activities you already do. You’ll also need to keep your food intake consistent. If you eat an extra 100 calories while increasing your expenditure, your weight will likely remain the same. The key is adding extra movement to the activities of daily living that you already do.

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