Our bodies burn calories every day without exercise. The number of calories each person burns without extra physical activity is variable, based on factors such as sex, age, height, and weight.
Exercise and daily activities can increase calorie burn during the day. Burning more calories during the day than the amount taken in through food and drink can result in weight loss.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/at-home-GettyImages-1461191278-665b61a0af7242488bfcd12eadaada90.jpg "Calories Burned in a Day: From Doing Nothing, or From Exercise (1)")
Calories Burned In One Day
The number of calories burned in a day varies based on how active a person is, age, height, sex, and weight. Factors such as having a health condition may also affect how many calories a body burns daily.
Doing Nothing, Without Exercise
The body burns a certain number of calories daily to keep its systems functioning well. These functions include breathing, keeping the circulatory system running, digesting food, and creating new cells. Scientists call this the resting metabolic rate (RMR), which accounts for the greatest daily caloric expenditure.
To put it another way, the RMR is the amount of calories burned in a day without any extra activity. It is the calories burned when a person is sedentary, not active, and only performing basic activities of daily living (such as getting dressed, moving gently, and using the bathroom).
Several different formulas may be used to calculate RMR. They use sex, weight, height, and age to determine the daily calories burned with no extra activity. The widely-used revised Harris-Benedict equation is:
- For those assigned male at birth = (4.38 × weight in pounds) + (14.55 × height in inches) − (5.08 × age in years) + 260
- For those assigned female at birth = (3.35 × weight in pounds) + (15.42 × height in inches) − (2.31 × age in years) + 43
For example, a 20-year-old, 170-pound female who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall (64 inches) would have a resting metabolic rate of:
- (3.35 × 170 pounds) + (15.42 × 64 inches) − (2.31 × 20 years) + 43 = 1553 calories
A Note on Gender and Sex Terminology
Verywell Health acknowledges that sex and gender are related concepts, but they are not the same. To accurately reflect our sources, this article uses terms like “female,” “male,” “woman,” and “man” as the sources use them.
What Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Measures
With Exercise
Physical activity or exercise increases the amount of calories burned during a day. It is also the most variable factor.
Various activities have different calorie expenditures attached to them. In general, exercise that increases the heart rate will require more calories. The amount of time and the number of times an activity is done will also affect caloric needs, as will a person's weight.
The following table is an estimate of the calories burned by a 170-pound person spending 30 minutes engaging in some types of exercise:
- Aerobics: 192 calories
- Cycling (5.5 miles per hour): 154 calories
- Housework: 115 calories
- Running/jogging (general): 269 calories
- Soccer: 269 calories
- Swimming (casual): 269 calories
- Walking (casual pace): 77 calories
- Weight training: 115 calories
- Yard work: 154 calories
If Weight Loss Is Your Goal
Weight loss—generally speaking—occurs when the body is in a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit is when the body uses more calories than are taken in through food and drink. Calories expended include those burned by the body at rest and those burned during any activity.
Doing the math to determine basic calorie needs can be helpful. Creating a deficit between the number of calories consumed and those expended during a day by about 500 can result in a deficit of 3,500 calories a week, which can translate to losing about 1 pound per week.
Experts recommend a slow and steady approach of 1 to 2 pounds per week to increase the odds of success and avoid adverse effects or lowering quality of life while pursuing weight loss.
Calories Burned in 10,000 Steps
The goal of 10,000 steps per day is often thought of as being a useful goal for meeting activity goals and in losing weight. How many calories 10,000 steps burns varies widely, because it will depend on many factors such as body composition and the intensity of the walk.
In the approximately 90 minutes needed to take 10,000 steps, most people will burn between 250 and 600 calories.
Factors Influencing Average Calories Burned a Day
Calculators and estimates of calories burned per day are available, but many factors are involved with calorie expenditure, and these tools are usually only considered rules of thumb. They are based on averages, so anyone outside whatever average looks like may be unable to rely on them.
The estimates for calories burned in a day may not apply well to people with a body mass index (BMI, an estimate of body fat derived from height and weight measurements) that's higher or lower on the spectrum. For instance, someone experiencing malnourishment may not expend the same amount of calories in a day as someone who is well-nourished.
Chronic illness may also affect the average calories burned in a day. It's not completely understood, but it's thought that, for instance, people living with cancer may expend more calories at rest. It's also theorized that people with acute, chronic, or critical illness may also have lower calorie needs.
Calories Burned in Males vs. Females
Differences are noted between calories burned in males and females. One factor is that female bodies are less well-studied. Extrapolating the results of research done on males and trying to apply it to females results in inaccuracies.
Additional factors differ between females and males, including hormones, body fat composition (females tend to have more body fat than males), and muscle mass (males tend to have more muscle mass than females).
All of these result in differences between calories burned with and without exercise and in the challenges of determining how many calories any individual person burns in a day.
How to Burn More Calories in a Day
For those looking to burn more calories in a day, increasing physical activity is the most accessible factor. You can increase activity in many different ways. Every person will need to assess how to approach increasing daily calorie burn so that it meets their needs, abilities, goals, and preferences.
One way to increase calories burned is to increase intentional exercise. You can attend an exercise class, work with a trainer, or find an enjoyable activity. Some accessible ways to burn calories are:
- Biking
- Lifting weights
- Playing a sport
- Stretching
- Swimming
- Walking
- Yoga
What Else Helps You Lose Calories
Another way to increase calorie burn is to incorporate more daily activities and movements that aren't thought of as exercise. Burning calories this way is called non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). When done consistently and often, they can increase total daily calorie burn.
Some ways to increase NEAT include:
- Cooking your meals at home
- Dancing to a favorite song
- Doing housework or chores (mopping floors, scrubbing the bathtub, washing the car)
- Doing yard work or gardening (weeding, mowing the lawn, raking leaves)
- Playing with pets or kids
- Taking the stairs instead of the elevator
- Using a standing desk at work, while watching TV or gaming, or when talking on the phone
- Walking instead of driving
- Walking the dog or pushing kids in a stroller
Essentially, activities that get the body out of a resting state (sitting or laying down) and moving will increase calorie burn. Doing more of these activities, as energy level and ability allow, will burn more calories during the day.
A Word From Verywell
It's sometimes really hard to get started. Any increase in physical activity, like playing an extra 15 minutes with our pets, can help us see benefits and remove our negative associations with exercise.
— AVIV JOSHUA, RDN, MEDICAL EXPERT BOARD
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/AvivJoshuaMS-444d168263494c7bad3840487624a450.jpg "Calories Burned in a Day: From Doing Nothing, or From Exercise (2)")
Summary
People burn a certain number of calories every day to maintain their body systems, but this varies to a certain extent from person to person. Some calculators can determine calorie burn without activity, but they may not be accurate for people with certain body types or who live with chronic conditions.
Increasing activity levels through exercise can burn more calories during the day. However, everything from doing household chores to taking the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator can also increase calorie burn during the day.
