Faraway Furniture™ Journeys

In the current climate, many of us are working from home and self-isolating. While we’d love to be out and about buying things, unfortunately we’ll have to find other ways to stay active from the comfort of our own homes. So, which at-home exercises are best and what activities burn the most calories?

Here at Faraway Furniture, we sought to find out which activities burn the most calories per 30 minutes using Yazio’s Calories Burned Calculator. We looked into 19 activities we’re most likely to do in self-isolation and ranked them according to how many calories they help burn per 30 minutes. We reveal the very best home exercises below…

What activities burn the most calories?

Surprisingly, dancing video games are the best way to stay active and lose weight while housebound. Just 30 minutes of playing a dancing video game will burn 240 calories for men and 209 calories for women!

In fact, dancing in general is a great way to keep active while in quarantine. Faraway Furniture considered several types of dancing in this study and ranked them from most to least calories burned:

• Cumbia (217 calories)
• Jazzercise (200 calories)
• Ballet (167 calories)
• Modern dance (167 calories)
• Jazz (167 calories)
• Salsa (150 calories)
• Flamenco (150 calories)
• Swing (150 calories)
• Tango (100 calories)
• Mambo (100 calories)
• Cha-Cha (100 calories)

Of these dance styles, most made it into the top ten exercises that burn the most calories. Specifically Cumbia, which comes in second place, burning 217 calories per 30 minutes for men, and 189 for women.

In third place is Jazzercize – this popular dance fitness franchise is bound to get your blood pumping and fill some hours of the day.

Any avid gardeners will be happy to read that felling trees (177 calories) and chopping wood (150 calories) are two of the best calorie-burning activities to do while self-isolating. Whilst physically taxing on the body, both will kill some time too.

If you would like to dedicate some time to your garden whilst self-isolating this Spring, you may like to read our handy guide on how to create a fruit and vegetable garden, or get stuck into some DIY garden projects.

Light yard work, however, burns significantly less per 30 minutes – 100 calories for men and 87 for women.

The Wii Fit is also a great way to plan your home workout, and what’s more, it’s great fun too! Just 30 minutes of fun fat-burning games will burn 77 calories for men and 67 for women.

Meditating isn’t one of the best exercises to help you burn calories as it focuses mostly on breathing techniques. Therefore, it is no surprise that meditiation comes last on our list, burning just 33 calories for men and a measly 29 for women per 30 minutes of exercise. Despite this, try to set some time aside to meditate each day, as it can have many positive benefits on your mental health.

Other activities that help to burn calories

• Doing the dirty doesn’t burn the calories

If you thought sex could keep you fit while in quarantine, think again! Men can only expect to burn about 60 calories making love, while women will do away with bout 53. This is less than washing your car, albeit not by much.

• Cleanse the body by cleaning your home

A clean house proves to be beneficial not only to your health, but your physical well-being. Cleaning/household tasks could scrap an impressive 110 calories for men and 96 for women.

• Do it yourself and bring your weight down

Home repairs are shown to burn a whopping 117 calories for men and 102 for women in just 30 minutes. Reduce expenses and kilos by making DIY part of your home workout plan.

We hope these have inspired you to get moving!

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If you’d like to read more about our gardening tips, take a read of our posts over on the Faraway Furniture blog.