15 Everyday Ways to Burn 100 Calories

Diabetes: 15 Everyday Ways to Burn 100 Calories

You don't have to go to the gym to get exercise with diabetes. Find out how you can burn calories easily throughout your day.

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

Medically reviewed by Farrokh Sohrabi, MD

Physical activity plays a big role in keeping blood sugar in check and helping you lose weight with diabetes, but if going to a gym doesn’t appeal to you, there are still plenty of ways to get your daily exercise. You can burn calories conveniently during everyday activities, like walking, gardening, and just climbing stairs. Research also shows that increasing the intensity of your exercise for even a few minutes can make a big difference in your overall health.

Why Exercise With Diabetes?
By increasing physical activity, you can gain better control of your blood sugar, your weight, and your blood pressure. You can also reduce your “bad” LDL cholesterol and your risk of heart disease and nerve damage, which are health problems often associated with diabetes.

The benefits of exercise with diabetes go down to a cellular level, helping with insulin resistance. "Most people with type 2 diabetes have insulin resistance. When we weigh more than our ideal body weight, our body may be making insulin, but our cells might not be sensitive to it — so glucose stays in the bloodstream,” explains Donna Kernodle, CDE, RD, a diabetes educator at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Exercise, on the other hand, makes our cells more sensitive to insulin and less resistant."

A consensus statement from the American Diabetes Association, published in Diabetes Care, recommends people with type 2 diabetes get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week. To gain the benefit of increased insulin sensitivity from exercise, your physical activity should be spread out over the course of at least three days so you're not sedentary for more than two days in a row. A good rule of thumb is to plan for 30 minute of exercise, five days a week.

How to Burn Calories and Lose Weight With Diabetes
The number of calories you burn during exercise depends on your weight. This is true for all weight-bearing activities, such as running, climbing stairs, gardening, and dancing.

"It simply requires more energy to move a larger body size," explains Kernodle. "A calorie is just a unit of energy. With extra weight, you will burn more calories just doing basic movements, like walking around or jogging."

The downside is that as you lose weight, you plateau. "When you become lighter, you are not burning as many calories with the same activities," she says. "To maintain progress, you need to not only increase your activity level, but also pick up the intensity of your exercise."

Boosting Your Exercise Intensity
To distinguish between high-intensity and low-intensity activity, Kernodle says to imagine taking a walk. At first, it may be a leisurely stroll on a beautiful day, so you're not exerting yourself. Then, when you see storm clouds on the horizon, you pick up the pace and intensity of your walk so your heart rate increases, as does the number of calories you're burning.

Research shows this type of combined low- and high-intensity exercise, known as high-intensity interval training, is particularly beneficial for those with type 2 diabetes. A study published in Australian Family Medicine in 2012 found that the benefits of aerobic exercise, especially weight loss, are even greater with high-intensity interval training. The study suggested that repeatedly exercising at a high intensity for 30 seconds to several minutes, with 1 to 5 minutes of rest or low-intensity exercise in between, is associated with improved management of diabetes and reduced risk of heart disease.

High-intensity interval training can be easily incorporated into your daily routine by alternating your pace as you walk, jog, or climb stairs.

15 Activities That Burn 100 Calories
Although the number of calories you will burn during exercise depends on your weight and the intensity of your activity, there are a number of activities that will burn roughly 100 calories — and you can do many of them without your ever stepping foot in a gym.

Here are 15 examples of how a 150-pound adult can burn 100 calories:

10 minutes of:

• Running up and down stairs
• Jumping rope
• High-impact aerobics
• Running 1 mile
• Biking at a speed of 15 miles an hour

20 minutes of:

• Walking up and down stairs
• Walking the dog
• Yoga
• Dancing
• Mopping the floor
• Yard work, including mowing the lawn, gardening, or raking leaves
• Washing the car

40 minutes of:

• Cooking
• Washing dishes
• Shopping

To increase the likelihood that you will incorporate more physical activity into your daily routine, it’s important to find activities you enjoy so you’ll continue to exercise. Kernodle also emphasizes being prepared. "Always keep your walking shoes in your car," she suggests. Having well-fitting exercise gear also helps because it may be more tempting to give up on an activity if you’re uncomfortable in the clothing you need to wear for it.

Simply by ramping up your everyday activities, you can burn calories and lose weight with diabetes — which means you’ll feel better both inside and out.