Love watching TV but hate exercising and you want to lose some weight? Well you may just need to love TV half as much. A new study claims that you can burn an extra 120 calories a day by cutting your TV watching by 50 percent. I know, you love your favorite shows, but the good news is that you can burn these extra calories without even exercising!
The lead author of a new University of Vermont study, Jennifer Otten, says that “the average American watches about five hours of TV a day.” The people in her study actually burned 120 calories more a day just by watching half as much TV a day. She said that this can render a whopping 12-pound weight loss within a year’s time; all without any additional change in their diet.
The researchers discovered that when the participants turned off the TV, they tended to do little chores around the house that eventually had a significant effect on their weight. She said that you can even burn calories by doing something as simple as organizing a photo album. Otten said that “small changes in behavior can be more sustainable over time and may have a real effect on fighting obesity.” That’s a good incentive to turn off the tube and get started on that “honey do” list.