Last week I posted an article on Easter Candy–what you can eat, shouldn’t eat, and how to eat it “right.” While I’m sure there are a few people who can take in a several additional calories and very easily get away with it, some of us aren’t so lucky. And if you didn’t eat the “right” kind of candy within an appropriate “workout window,” then unless you were super careful with the rest of your calories throughout the day, you may need to work a little harder this week to burn off a few of those “extra” calories.
Now most nutrition and exercise physiologists will tell you that you can’t “work off” food. You can’t eat a donut and go run 3 miles. Unfortunately, our bodies don’t work the way our brains do. But we’re also human–we’re not perfect 24/7–and sometimes we indulge. And sometimes we work our asses off at the gym to make up for our indulgences. Even if it doesn’t always bio-mechanically work this way, at least we feel better, right?
So I just did some quick research to let you know how you can “burn off” a few servings of candy. I’m going to go ahead and just estimate based on my previous candy research that one serving size is around 200 calories. Some more, some less. So keep in mind how much candy you ate to balance out what you need to do to feel the burn.
I did most of my research on Active.com and Livestrong.com, and I looked up what it takes to burn roughly 200 calories. I wanted to find some “simpler” activities that EVERYONE can do, as well as some tough kick-your-ass kind of work. Unless you ate like 2000 calories worth of Cadbury Eggs, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised.
Yoga
You can burn 175 calories per hour in Hatha yoga, and 300 calories per hour in Ashtanga and Power Yoga. According to yoga.about.com, Hatha yoga is a slow-paced stretching class with some simple breathing exercises and perhaps seated meditation. Ashtanga yoga is a vigorous, athletic style of practice appeals to those who like a sense of order and who like to do things independently, and Power Yoga is a vigorous, fitness-based approach […] with an emphasis on strength and flexibility. Most gyms offer Power yoga and I’m sure if you Google any type of yoga, you can find the studio closest to your location. 
Did you eat a little more candy than you want to admit? Vinyasa yoga, a form of yoga that is synchronized to breathing, burns 445 calories per hour. Bikram (done in 104 degree heat) and Hot Yoga (Vinyasa style yoga in a heated room) burn a whopping 630 calories in an hour!! I put the double exclamation points there because I actually did Bikram yoga a couple weeks ago–90 minutes of it to be exact–and if someone told me that I was burning over 900 calories, I would have enjoyed the heat much more than I did! No WONDER I was SO EXHAUSTED the rest of the day.
Move those Legs
Walking at a slow pace will burn around 175 calories per hour, while a brisk walk will burn about 300. One hour of jogging will burn around 630 calories, and an hour bike ride–depending on your intensity–will burn between 400-600. Want something a bit more fun? Try dancing! You can burn between 200-400 calories per hour just from dancing. If I could burn off a Cadbury Egg just by taking Zumba, I’d put my dancing shoes on in a heartbeat!
Clean Something
This would be my least favorite way to burn calories but at least I’d get something done around the house for once. If you can sweep, mop, dust, and polish for an hour, you can burn at least a couple hundred calories AND work on toning those arms for your cutsie spring tank tops. But let’s not forget the short-shorts! Anything that makes you bend, squat, fold, or lunge will work on toning the lower half of the torso. Make a few beds, wash windows, do the laundry, pick up toys, run up and down the stairs as many times as you can….whatever you can find to do!
Go Outside
Gardening–though I’d be on the constant lookout for spiders–can burn up to 300 calories per hour AND you get fresh air all at the same time! When you’re kneeling, standing, squatting, shifting, weeding, watering, and jumping out of the way of creepy crawlies, you can burn the jelly right off your belly! (Insert cheesy Easter candy pun) 😀 And did you know that you can burn 100 calories per hour just mowing the yard on a RIDING mower? That doesn’t seem fair, but hey, I’ll take it! Push mowing will burn almost 200 calories per hour and shearing will burn the same–around 182 calories. Of course you’ve got to take in the landscape consideration–my yard is nothing but an incline so I BETTER be burning more dammit. And weeding? You can burn 182 calories for every 30 minutes of weeding! I will be weeding MUCH more this spring and summer than I have before.
Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That
I know, we all don’t have 90 minutes to spend on Bikram, three hours for the yard, or a whole weekend of cleaning house. BUT if you can swing the hell out of a kettlebell for 20 minutes, you can burn almost 300 calories. Do I need to say that again? 1 kettlebell + 20 minutes = 300 (give or take) calories. Or you could run a 6-minute mile pace for 20 minutes–that’s about the intensity level. Work hard to eat hard I suppose. The great thing about doing a 20 minute interval workout is that you’ll continue to burn calories throughout the day. So if you’re limited on time but you ate a little much, do some HIIT–high intensity interval training. You’ll burn mega calories–and continue to burn for the next 24 hours.
For some more interval workout ideas, click HERE.
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