Lifestyle
Want to Burn a Lot of Calories While Eating? Cook a Lot!
Strange how working on your feet for hours is sorta like exercise
The Blue Zone Guy is right, when in his documentary series he extolls the virtues of spending hours in the kitchen as a form of exercise. It’s fun watching the grandmothers of the globe get their workout (and gossiping) hours in by making complicated time-honored traditional dishes together.
Certainly cooking, which usually has to be done standing up, burns more calories than sitting down in a restaurant and ordering off the menu, or ordering lunch via a food delivery app while doing sedentary computer-based work.
The number of calories burned per hour can vary based on several factors, including an individual’s weight, age, metabolism, and the intensity of the activity. In general, standing and moving around tend to burn more calories than sitting.
Sitting at a Computer
- Calorie Burn: On average, sitting at a computer burns fewer calories compared to standing or engaging in physical activity.
- Estimate: The calorie burn during desk work or computer use can range from approximately 80 to 120 calories per hour for an average adult.
- Factors: Factors such as typing, using a mouse, and minimal body movement contribute to a relatively low energy expenditure.
Standing up and Cooking in the Kitchen
- Calorie Burn: Standing and cooking generally require more energy than sitting, since in addition to standing it requires moving and performing various manual tasks.
- Estimate: On average, standing and cooking can burn around 150 to 250 calories per hour, depending on factors like the complexity of the meal preparation, the cooking techniques used and the individual’s level of activity.
- Factors: Chopping ingredients, stirring, and moving around the kitchen contribute to increased calorie expenditure. Cooking activities that involve more physical effort, such as kneading dough or using manual tools, can further elevate calorie burn.
Additional Considerations
- Muscle Engagement: Standing and cooking engage more muscle groups, including leg muscles and core muscles, compared to sitting. This contributes to a higher overall calorie burn.
- Metabolic Rate: Individual metabolic rates vary, influencing the number of calories burned at rest. Standing generally increases the metabolic rate compared to sitting, leading to a slightly higher calorie burn.
Tips for Increasing Calorie Burn
- Movement: You can increase the movement involved with cooking through multitasking, for example by preparing multiple fillings simultaneously for soft tacos.
- Meal Prep Intensity: Engaging in more physically demanding cooking activities, such as manual chopping or multitasking between cooking tasks, can elevate calorie burn during meal preparation. You might also consider getting some kind of life-sized human effigy that you can curse and yell at while doing your best Gordon Ramsay imitation, which should increase calorie burn significantly!
