While we often think of the kitchen as a place where we cook up calories, it’s also possible to burn additional calories while cooking. There are several advantages to building some “workout” time into the time we spend preparing food.
- Cooking is a time already reserved for an activity and is on our schedule.
- You have to eat, so it is less likely you’ll have a schedule conflict.
The following examples are some simple ways to burn more calories while you cook. Values for approximate calories burned are from MyFitnessPal at www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/lookup and are for a 150 pound person. You can adjust the weight and amount of time entered in the online calculator.
These activities aren’t meant to replace regular physical activities such as walking, biking, weight-lifting, etc. However, while the individual amounts appear rather small – just by adding together a few activities, one can see how it is easy to burn 100 or more calories during a regular ongoing event such as food preparation. As an extra 100 calories daily could lead to a weight gain of 10 pounds a year, this amount of energy expenditure could be significant over a period of time.
Burn Calories by Cooking
Just by cooking, you’re burning more calories than eating out or picking up a take-out meal. Plus, you’re more likely to eat a healthier meal.
Activity (time): Cooking or food preparation (20 minutes)
Approximate calories burned: 37
Workout while waiting for water to boil
Just walking around, waving your arms in circles, raising your legs, etc. will burn calories.
Activity (time): Calories burned from light calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort (5 minutes)
Approximate calories burned: 20
March in place while stirring at the stove
Many recipes say to “stir frequently.” Use the time between stirs to add in some activity such as marching in place.
Activity (time): Marching rapidly, military style (5 minutes)
Approximate calories burned: 37
Dance while dinner is in the oven
Rather than sit and watch TV or play games on your phone while dinner is cooking, dance the time away. Play some tunes and start dancing. Or, simply head outdoors and take a brisk walk while dinner is cooking.
Activity (time): Dancing, general (10 minutes)
Approximate calories burned: 51
Make kitchen items less convenient
Short on space in your cupboards? Perhaps there are some items you could store up or down stairs. Rather than an inconvenience, they become an opportunity to add a little extra activity into your day. If you don’t have stairs in your home, you could store items in a linen closet on the opposite side of the house.
Activity (time): Walking, upstairs (2 minutes)
Approximate calories burned: 18
Join the clean team
Thoroughly clean as you cook. Clean the stove top, give your countertops a good scrubbing and wipe those spills from the floor. Your kitchen will look better for it and so may you. You might even do some squats as you load the dishwasher. The more vigorously you clean the more calories you burn.
Activity (time): Cleaning, light moderate effort (5 minutes)
Approximate calories burned: 14
If you do all of these activities, you would burn approximately 175 calories!
Source: Alice Henneman, MS, RDN, Extension Educator University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, 2015