Did you know you burn calories just living everyday?

Yes, that's right. You just read that title to this blog correctly. There's a reason why the government suggests a certain amount of calories per day according to gender. It's because sleeping, reading, sitting, watching TV, eating, cooking, driving, basically everything you do burns calories accordingly with your weight, age, and gender.

This is a link to a website that helps you calculate your daily calories burned ("exercise" or not).

According to the above website I burned 2959 calories today. I burned more than I ate. For instance, my calorie intake was 1416, and today, including my walk I burned 3159 calories total. Meaning because I burnt more calories than I ate, I am losing weight rather than gaining or maintaining. I burned everything I ate by taking a 45 minute walk at about 2-3 mph and merely existing. Weird, huh? Make sure you're at least burning what you're eating if you aren't able to incorporate your exercise. Especially if you can't make time just yet. (Maybe you're waiting for summer vacation and are still in high school but trying to lose weight?) It's also important to remember the following: 3,500 calories = ONE POUND. So if you eat that much food or even don't burn 500 calories that you ate that day, then you just gained 1/7th of a pound onto your weight. And if you BURN 3,500 calories or more, then you will lose a pound or more depending on how many calories you burned.

For instance, I ate 1416 calories. I burned 3159 total calories. I burned what I ate today (3159 - 1416 = 2084), and burned 2084 calories or about 1.6 of a pound on my body. (Which is why I wake up weighing less than the day before, but not exactly a pound less.)

I feel like this is an important topic to bring up since when I was in high school, I had no time to lose weight and I gained as a result but if I had kept calorie count and stayed at or beneath the daily limit of calories (1,500) then I probably could've burned calories and shed some pounds. In fact, I could've been doing this last year when I said I was going to lose the weight...but I didn't know that you will naturally burn about those many calories even without exercising.

I'm not trying to say exercising isn't important. Let me make this clear, EXERCISE IS VERY IMPORTANT. It's incredibly important when you're at a weight like mine to start exercising to tone the body after being at a weight that has stretched your skin or left stretchmarks. And no time is better than now. I am even considering getting a yoga DVD to start working on it since I'm so embarrassed over it and don't want to be left with sagging.

So, remember that you burn calories by just merely existing, but that when you are heavier, especially above 200 pounds, you will need to exercise more for toning benefits more than anything.

Hope this post was informational and helpful! ♥
Sweet dreams~