It’s autumn! Although I deeply love summer and fear what waits for us as autumn wanes, there is much about fall to be excited about.
Some may dread the temptation of unhealthy food that the cold months bring, like pumpkin pie, apple cider, and Halloween candy, but there is also an abundance of fresh apples, squash, and autumn-centric activities that can keep us active.
While exact calories burned during traditional autumn activities is a personal calculation, the internet can provide an estimate (in this case, for an adult between 145 and 160 pounds.) Try entering these activities into a personalized app for a more accurate calorie count.
- Football is my favorite part of this season. Although I am mostly seated for at least two games per week, I am also clapping, yelling, and sometimes jumping. To burn more calories, playing touch football can burn approximately 574 calories per hour.
- Raking can be a fun or dreaded activity in the fall, but if you concentrate on the calories your burning, it may not seem so bad. You can burn approximately 290 calories in an hour of raking, but if you run and jump into the pile and rake it back up, you will burn even more. Play can be good for you physically and emotionally!
- Another way to enjoy the colors of the changing leaves is to take a hike, which burns approximately 400 calories per hour.
- It is estimated that camping can burn 165 calories per hour. Camping includes intense activities like putting up a tent, as well as less rigorous activities like sitting around the campfire.
- Visiting pumpkin patches and apple orchards is the perfect autumn day activity. An hour of picking apples can burn approximately 200 calories. Plus, think of all the healthy snacks you have to take home with you!
- As long as you’re not eating the Halloween candy, trick or treating is estimated to burn 250 calories per hour.
- In Indiana, we have the Hilly Hundred every year – a two day bike ride through the hills of Brown County for a total of 100 miles. Just an hour of biking 14-16 miles per hour can burn approximately 696 calories per hour. I’ve ridden some of those hills, and I am sure they burn more!
What other Fall activities do you enjoy that can also burn calories?