Physical Activities That Give You The Best Burn For Your Buck

The brilliant folks at Misfit Wearables have created a fun infographic that mashes up the calorie burn of various activities (in kcal/hour for a 155 lb person) with the ‘startup cost’ of the activity (running = $80 pair of shoes). The data and sources aren’t exact science, and you have to expend a few brain calories to get oriented to the graphic. But the numbers are great fun to play around with to see what else pops out.

If you calculate the ratio of the calories burned per hour for the activity vs. the ‘startup cost’ of the activity, you get the ROI in kcal/hr per dollar.

The activities that give you the best ROI (calories burned per hour per dollar spent) are:

Basketball          18.7
Running              14.1
Swimming          12.9

The absolute worst ROI?

Watching TV     0.05

The take home messages:
If you want to invest in your health and burn lots of calories with minor cost, join a pick-up game of hoops, head out the door for a run, or dive into a pool.

If you want to damage your health portfolio and are looking for an ROI that is, in fact, negative (decreased life expectancy), sit on your butt.

What investments are you making in your health portfolio?

Sources

• Misfit Wearables
• Infographic sources
• Katzmarzyk PT, Lee I-M. Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis. BMJ Open 2012;2:e000828. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000828   “The analyses indicate that population life expectancy in the USA would be 2.00 years higher if adults reduced their time spent sitting to <3 h/day and 1.38 years higher if they reduced television viewing to <2 h/day.”

Related Posts

• Sweating the Myth of the Exercise Pill
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Weight Loss Maintainers
• Boosting Athletic Performance With Beetroot Juice, Nitrate and Spit

Print Friendly