How Many Calories Does Having Sex Really Burn?

No matter what you are doing, you are always exerting and burning off calories. Did you know you that 10 minutes of chuckling burns off about 50 calories? Even brushing your teeth for two minutes burns5. 7 calories.

Sex, the most enjoyable type of exercise, also burns off a handful of calories, but its difficult to say what a good median is. Some say its about 69 calories, whereas others claim sexercise can burn over 200.

Buried in a study about obesity in the New England Journal of Medicine is a small reference to this, which notes that a human in his mid-to-early 30 s engaging in the average length of sex activity thats six minutes would burn off just 21 measly calories. This is based on a rough calculate of a persons rate of energy conversion( metabolism) during sexuality an educated guess, really.

Clearly, its complicated. It depends on a huge range of factors, including but not limited to whether you are male or female, who youre engaging in a frivolous frisk with, how long the action lasts, how vigorous it is, your relative cardiovascular health, muscle mass and, of course, what stance( s) you are taking.

So what sex activity burns off the most calories? Lets consider what science has to say about it.

Calorie Counting

Physical activity, which plainly includes sexuality, constructs up just 10 to 30 percentage of your energy utilization. The more muscles you have, the more energy they require to be used, and the more you need to respire, the more energy youll use up.

So if you have especially spirited sexuality for longer, and youre especially muscly already, youll burn down more calories. Thats the basic science of any form of exercise.

Additionally, prolonging foreplay, maybe throwing in a massage or two or a spontaneous dance prove if youre into that kind of thing will certainly burn up more calories than just careening straight into coitus. There is one other thing thats worth considering, though: orgasms.

^{Orgasms do make a difference, but it is not clear by how much. Mariyana M/ Shutterstock}

Biological Fireworks

Orgasms require a fair bit of energy to take place, and were not just talking about the stimulation required to initiate them. Clearly, though, the longer it takes to bring someone to orgasm use a variety of somewhat repetitive actions, the more calories the stimulator will burn but what about the lucky orgasming person themselves?

Orgasms involve a rush of hormones, a spike in blood flow, the generation and the ejaculation of a variety of sex liquids, all of which expend energy. On median, the process of reaching an orgasm can burn off between 60 to 100 calories, according to one source. Another claims just 3 calories are used.

In any case, most men post-orgasm have a remainder or refractory period of time wherein they cannot achieve another until their wilted soldier has recovered. On median, this lasts 30 minutes. Certain females can have orgasms almost indefinitely during the same time period so in terms of calories burned through orgasms during an amorous conference, they definitely win this round.

Awkward Position

^{The science of sexuality is decidedly complicated. SOMKKU/ Shutterstock}

The more positions you attempt during sexuality, the more calories youll burn, but for simplicity sake, lets assume the same position is held throughout. So what stance flames away the most calories doggy style, cowgirl, classic missionary or something risky sounding called the passion propeller?

As it turns out, there arent too many studies on the subject. Arming a passionate couple with high-tech cardiovascular monitoring equipment is difficult for a fair few reasons, so most publishings have taken to devoting rough estimates that, at a glance, appear to vary wildly.

A company named UK Medix, an online pharmacy, has for some reason designed a Sex Calculator. This digital curiosity claims to work out how many calories a bit of bed-based bouncing burns off, depending on stance, your weight, and whether the participant in question is male or female.

It doesnt appear especially precise when asked about weight, one alternative is curves in all the right places, which appears to roughly translate as median weight. For the duration dropdown box, it ranges from slow and tender to fast and furious. It is unlikely to be particularly scientific.

However, another online calculator by another UK pharmacy, Superdrug, seems ludicrously comprehensive by comparison. It allows you to choose the gender of not just yourself, but your partner. Users can also numerically enter their specific weights, along with the duration of their passionate foray in minutes, from zero to 120.

Keeping to a moderate intensity, assuming sexuality lasts for 15 minutes, and using the average weight of 89 kilograms( 196 pounds) for US men and 75 kilograms( 166 pounds) for US females, the results are perhaps unsurprising.

For a human, standing-based sexuality burns the most calories (8 0 ), followed by doggy style( 76 ), missionary( 72 ), spooning( 67 ), and finally, cowgirl( 25 ). For a woman, cowgirl uses the most( 67 calories ), followed by doggy( 54 ), standing( 53 ), spooning( 48 ), then missionary( 24 ).

Roughly speaking, the most submissive positions burn up the least for both sexes. From a practical perspective, this constructs some sort of sense, although individual experiences may vary, of course.

Not an Exact Science

^{According to the calculator, an average duration foreplay and sexuality conference between a males and involving three or four different positions burns off this many calories. Superdrug/ Online Doctor}

In what is a frankly ludicrous scenario, moderate intensity missionary for a wince-inducing two hours would burn up 570 calories for the man according to Superdrug’s calculations, whereas the equivalent cowgirl would burn up 537 for a woman. The lower calorie counts for women are primarily linked to their lower median mass, and as aforementioned, it takes less effort to move less mass.

That missionary marathon, by the way, is roughly equal to playing tennis for 46 minutes, swimming for 74 minutes, or walking for 9.3 kilometers( 5.8 miles ). The latter example is equal of running for about 7.7 kilometers( 4.8 miles) at a moderate pace, doing yoga for 143 minutes, or dancing for 95 minutes. So, theoretically, sexuality could be a viable form of exercise like more conventional forms.

If youre curious, a human performing oral sex on a woman uses 40 calories, whereas a woman doing the same to a human employs 34. If youd like to see the results for same-sex couples, or to work out how much energy the wheelbarrow stance would consume, please dive into the mathematical model here.

This surprisingly comprehensive calculator doesnt go into much detail considering the scale methodology, but the designers, Fractl, seem to be a well-respected content agency which places emphasis on data presentation.

They reference various scientific ideas and papers, but they seem to get their basic calorific info from a somewhat tongue-in-cheek volume called Position of the Day Playbook, which they country contains no references to any kind of scientific methodology. Perhaps there were some Fitbits involved.

Either way, as is abundantly clear by this phase, this is not an exact science.

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Although there are plenty of minor discrepancies, its almost certain that the most vigorous, active positions burn up the most calories, and men burn up slightly more than women on average because they have highermasses. Weigh more, and youll burn up more.

At present, though, it appears most of the calorie counts given are educated guessings put through vaguely scientific filters. For any weight-watchers out there, take a stand if youre male, and do the cowgirl if youre female but wed suggest that if youre having sexuality primarily to burn of calories, your priorities are decidedly unusual.

^{Different strokes for different folks. David Tadevosian/ Shutterstock}

How Many Calories Does Having Sex Really Burn?
How Many Calories Does Having Sex Really Burn?
How Many Calories Does Having Sex Really Burn?
How Many Calories Does Having Sex Really Burn?
How Many Calories Does Having Sex Really Burn?