Before determining the best way to burn an additional 1000 calories a day, it’s first important to understand the number of calories you are burning during normal daily activities. A calorie is just a way to measure a unit of energy, and your metabolism is always working to burn energy. During times of higher activity, your body will burn more calories than when you are at rest.
3 Ways Your Body Burns Calories:
- Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)
- The Thermic Effect of Food
- Physical Activity
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)
Metabolism is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. The calories in food and beverages are combined with oxygen to release the energy your body needs to function. Even while you’re resting, your body needs energy for all the functions that happen while you’re not “doing” anything or even thinking about it. These things include breathing, circulating blood, adjusting hormone levels, and growing and repairing cells.
The number of calories your body needs to accomplish these functions is known as your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is sometimes used interchangeably with basal metabolic rate. These are commonly referred to as your metabolism. The energy your body needs for these basic functions stays consistent and is not easily changed. This means that once you’ve determined the number of calories your body needs to perform these functions, you can adjust the number of calories either over or under this amount, which will lead to fat loss or fat gain.
The Thermic Effect of Food
The thermic effect of food is defined as the increase in metabolic rate after the ingestion of a meal (food or drink). The role of the thermic effect of food has been extensively studied, but its role in body weight regulation isn’t 100% known. For this reason, it’s important to understand that it has some effect but should not be used primarily as a method to burn extra calories. Some of the calories in the food you eat are used in the process of digestion, absorption, and metabolization. Other calories from food are stored as fat if there’s an excess of calories to what your body needs for both your resting metabolism functions and your normal daily activity. And finally, some of the calories from the food you eat are burned off as heat.
Physical Activity
While there are many forms of physical activity, we will focus on 2 key components that help determine the best way to burn 1000 calories in a day, over and beyond what your body needs to perform its basic functions. The two types of calorie-burning exercises are:
- Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)
- Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT)
Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating, or athletic exercise. NEAT describes the calories burned by the movements we make when we go about our daily routine. If, for example, you have a job that requires miles of walking around a large building site or warehouse throughout the day, yet your body is over a healthy weight, you are still consuming more calories than what your body needs to perform its routine functions. This means that to achieve fat loss, you will either need to increase your physical activity to burn additional calories and lose fat or decrease your calorie intake. This is important to understand as having a physically demanding daily routine can sometimes lead a person to believe they are able to eat an increase or excess in calories and not store fat.
If you are over a healthy weight, you will need to either decrease daily calories or increase daily activity, regardless of the high or low physical demands of your daily routine.
Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT) refers to the number of calories you burn when you’re purposely engaging in athletic or sports activity. While this is different for each person, it will always involve pushing yourself in a physical and cardiovascular way. The exact activity required for EAT to happen differs from person to person. For example, a very overweight person may be able to accomplish this by simply walking faster or a bit further than what they typically do. A person with more physical and cardio strength will have to continue to change and improvise as their body adapts and more easily performs these exercises.
Is it possible to burn 1000 extra calories in a day?
While it is possible to burn 1000 extra calories in a day, it is easier for some people than others. Men and people with bigger bodies tend to burn more calories during the same workout as women or people with smaller bodies. There are some very active people who routinely burn 1,000 or more calories in a single day of exercise, and it doesn’t necessarily affect their weight. If weight loss is indeed the goal, you will need a proper formula that is right for you. Also, burning 1,000 calories in a day is a meaningless goal without context. Almost everybody’s body requires at least 1,000 calories a day just to do what it’s doing to function. It’s essential to keep that in mind!
Best Exercises For Burning 1000 Calories
Understanding that our bodies burn calories NO MATTER WHAT we’re doing, it is crucial to determine what you need to do and how often you need to do it to burn 1000 extra per day.
Here are some of the best calorie-burning exercises:
- Running
- Swimming
- Stationary bicycling
- HIIT Exercises – High-Intensity Interval Training
1. Running
Running provides a high-calorie burn. The faster you run, the more you’ll burn. Typically, one 30-minute run is guaranteed to burn between 200-500 calories. Running burns more calories every minute than any other cardio activity. Like it or hate it, running comes in as the number one best way to torch calories fast.
2. Swimming
The number of calories you can burn while swimming depends on the type of swimming you’re doing. For example, swimming breaststroke will burn between 300 and 560 calories per hour. Swimming backstroke is estimated to burn 476 calories per hour, while swimming sidestroke is estimated to burn 544 calories per hour. Even though the number of calories burned will vary based on your weight and intensity, there is no denying that swimming is an amazing exercise to burn extra calories.
3. Stationary Bicycling
As with any exercise, the number of calories you can burn while on a stationary bike will depend on your weight combined with the intensity and speed that you’re biking. Harvard Health Publishing reports that 30 minutes of moderate-intensity stationary biking burns about 210 calories for a 125-pound person, 252 calories for a 155-pound person, and nearly 300 calories for a 185-pound person. The exercise bike is also an excellent low-impact exercise when running is not an option due to injury or discomfort.
4. HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)
HIIT involves short bursts of intense exercise alternated with recovery periods. Because the focus of HIIT is intense bursts of exercise, the types of exercise vary greatly. You push yourself aerobically for a few minutes or even seconds, then slow or stop. HIIT workouts can burn a significant number of calories in a short period of time, making it a great option for a quick workout. Depending on your body weight, the exact exercise, and intensity, you could burn as much as 500+ calories in a 30-minute session. While HIIT training can include any exercise that challenges your cardiovascular system, here are some fun ones to include in your HIIT program:
- Jumping Rope
- Battle Ropes
- Kickboxing
- Kettlebell Circuit
- Higher Speed Weightlifting
The Takeaway: Understand Your Goal
As with all fitness and weight loss efforts, it’s most important to understand your own body, how it functions, what the norms are, and compare that to your goal. Burning 1000 calories in a day is a common, routine function of your body. Burning an EXTRA 1000 calories in a day so that your body is not storing food as fat will be a unique process for you and your body. It is important that you think objectively about the food your body needs for fuel vs. how much is too much. It is then important to determine the additional amount of physical activity that your body requires to burn even more calories in a day.
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