Losing Weight After the Holidays: Which Sports Burn a Lot of Calories?

Created: 12/26/2022, 9:40 am

Snacked too much over the holidays and put on a few pounds?

With certain sports you burn calories quickly and take off those Christmas pounds again.

Christmas is definitely not the time for dieting.

Even the die-hard fitness lover will get weak over the holidays with a Christmas cookie or two.

If it's just a few cookies and a Christmas feast, that's fine too.

But if you eat gingerbread and the like a few times too often during the festivities, you may have gained a few annoying kilos afterwards, which you now want to get rid of quickly.

So it's fitting that New Year's Eve and the New Year are just around the corner.

Now is the time for good resolutions and for many Germans, "more sport" is on the to-do list.

After all, stubborn Christmas pounds want to be trained off again, and with these types of sports or activities in everyday life, things go particularly quickly.

Losing weight after the holidays: Walks are the secret weapon

If you skate on the ice for an hour, you can burn 350 calories.

© Westend61/IMAGO

You get rid of calories by burning them.

To do this, the body has to move, but not necessarily sweat uncomfortably.

Anyone who manages to incorporate regular exercise into everyday life is already doing a lot for their body, their fitness and also against the pounds without exerting themselves too much.

This includes, for example, incorporating more walking or cycling into everyday life.

You usually have to pull yourself together to go for a walk or a bike ride.

But if you have a goal, then the path is much easier to master and doesn't feel like wasted time that could have been used differently.

If you are lucky enough not to have a very long commute to work, you should soon walk or cycle longer distances.

The nearby supermarket can also be reached by other means than by car.

This is how you build physical exercise into everyday life that feels natural and not like a sport measure.

But if the way to work is too long, you can also go for a walk.

Just half an hour of walking in the fresh air per day already increases muscle growth and makes it easier to lose weight because the metabolism and fat burning are stimulated.

In addition, the time outside is good for brain power, the immune system and the cardiovascular system.

A 30-minute walk with a weight of 70 kilos burns about 100 calories.

If there is even some snow after Christmas, you'll be doubly lucky, because a walk in the snow burns 200 calories.

In addition, fast walking can also delay the aging process and prolong life.

You can find even more exciting health topics in our free newsletter, which you can subscribe to right here.

Winter activities: burn calories in the snow

Another everyday activity not to be missed when there is snow is snow shoveling.

This is an annoying, but also a calorie-killing duty.

60 minutes of shoveling snow, depending on whether you just have to sweep or really shovel, burns from 140 to 380 calories.

The traditional sports in the snow, such as sledding, ice skating, skiing or building a snowman, are a bit more fun.

On average, sledding burns about 400 calories per hour, as does leisurely snowboarding or skiing.

If you do cross-country skiing, you can even burn 500 calories an hour, and an hour of ice skating will still get rid of 350 calories.

If you prefer to build a snowman or an igloo with the children in the garden instead, you don't need to underestimate the activities in the snow either.

Snowball fights or construction activities with the white mass burn up to 370 calories per hour.

Sports for at home: How to train off the Christmas kilos at home

If you don't dare to go to the gym with your tummy full of Christmas cookies (although nobody needs to be ashamed!), you can also do numerous sports at home that burn a lot of calories and for which you hardly need any equipment.

The list is long and at the top is jumping rope.

For this sport you only need ...?

You guessed it: a rope.

In theory, any slightly thicker rope that has enough weight to be swung while skipping will work.

But you can also buy a real skipping rope in a sports shop or online for little money.

In half an hour of jumping rope, a person weighing 80 kilograms burns around 440 calories and best of all, you don't need any instructions to jump rope.

So you can comfortably play music or a Netflix series and just jump up and down in front of the TV.

The same goes for spinning or indoor cycling, where an 80-pound person can burn around 340 calories.

But for that you need an indoor bike, which you have to invest in first.

But if you already have one at home, it's a great way to burn calories quickly.

If you want to do sports without any accessories, we recommend something that only requires an Internet connection.

High-intensity interval training, also known as HIIT, is a training protocol consisting of cardio, aerobic and strength elements performed at short intervals with short breaks.

You burn about 320 calories in half an hour and definitely come to the brink of exhaustion.

At the same time, the short, vigorous training sessions can reduce the risk of a stroke.

The same goes for Zumba.

The dance-fit program, which can burn about 260 calories in half an hour, is just as easy to do at home.

A DVD or a YouTube video are usually enough instructions and with the music and the movement you also do something for your good mood.

After the winter: burn calories in the fresh air

When the snow has melted again and the Christmas belly has gotten a little smaller, outdoor sports or sports in a club are popular again.

After all, doing sports in the fresh air or with friends is much better.

If you like to train for yourself, you can finally go jogging outside again with the beginning of spring.

A person who weighs 80 kilos burns up to 360 calories walking for half an hour in the fresh air.

But you can also use sports equipment and, for example, take out your bike or inline skates.

Leisurely cycling burns around 150 calories in half an hour, while inline skating burns 300 calories, twice as many.

Sports that burn an enormous number of calories: This is how you achieve your dream figure even faster

View photo gallery

Indoor sports and clubs: burn calories together

Swimming is a little slower, but no less effective.

If you crawl for half an hour, you can burn up to 400 calories and best of all: You are pleasantly exhausted after training, but not so badly sweaty.

Climbing and boxing are also not high-speed sports, which sometimes only makes them more strenuous and demanding for the muscles.

In half an hour, a person weighing 80 kilos can burn up to 320 calories in both sports.

In addition, both are available at any time of the year and can lead to nice sporting contacts, because you usually always meet new people in climbing gyms or in boxing studios.

Bonus: Anyone who goes boxing regularly not only stays fit, but also learns self-defense at the same time.

If you don't feel like doing sport alone, you can either look for a training buddy in the gym or sign up for a club sport.

The number 1 club sport in Germany is probably football, where you can make lots of social contacts and train your body at the same time.

30 minutes of soccer burns up to 320 calories.

Basketball and tennis are also sports that are usually played in clubs and are real calorie eaters.

Half an hour of tennis burns 290 calories, basketball up to 260 calories.

30 minutes of volleyball will burn about 160 calories for a person weighing 80 kilos, just like half an hour of table tennis.

This article only contains general information on the respective health topic and is therefore not intended for self-diagnosis, treatment or medication.

In no way does it replace a visit to the doctor.

Unfortunately, our editors are not allowed to answer individual questions about clinical pictures.