For many people, the thought of burning calories can only mean hitting the gym and exercising.
Working the treadmill, cardio, and engaging in a variety of rigorous exercise in order to burn calories and fat.
It becomes a lot weirder when you try to explain to someone that you burn some calories while reading.
The importance of reading is already established, you already know about all the benefits and how it can help the mind.
There are also health benefits that aren’t even related to building mental capacity, but having an influence on your body by burning calories.
This could be as simple as reading about dietary plans and how to implement a diet that will reduce your calorie intake or reduce it.
The calories burned while reading may not be directly linked to reading, and may have more to do with the calories that you burn on some of the basic metabolic processes.
If you have a large muscle mass, then you have a higher rate of metabolism.
You can include light workouts while reading in order to burn more calories.
Another method is to chew gum with zero calories while reading.
It might sound misleading to suggest that reading in itself can help you burn calories, whereas not doing anything at all will use up some calories.
It is just the way that the body works.
There are some basic functions like respiration which will ultimately burn some calories.
It is also for the same reason you would not ask a person who is trying to burn some of their calories by reading frequently, it just does not work that way.
So to answer the question of whether reading burns calories, it is a yes and no.
- Yes because reading as an activity will require some input whether you are sitting or laying down and
- No because reading per se does not burn calories.
Even if reading burns calories, it will be in very little amounts, maybe as much as your body needs to perform some basic and essential function.
So if you intend to use reading as a means to burn those calories, you had better be doing that while walking on a treadmill or lifting some weights (whichever way is practical or possible).
As mentioned earlier, the more you weigh the more calories your body burns by trying to circulate blood around your body.
So, basically, your beating heart burns calories.
If you weighed 140 pounds and you read a book whilst lying down, you will burn about 50 calories every hour.
A person who is 160 pounds heavy will burn up to 67 calories.
Some have suggested that sitting up while reading can help to burn more calories.
A 140-pound individual will burn up to 67 calories, while the 180-pound individual will burn about 86 calories.
There are obviously no scientific facts that back the claim that reading burns calories.