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8 Ways to Burn Calories and Fight Fat

These healthy habits may help give your body a calorie-burning boost.

By Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic-Feature

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

For years, products have been marketed with the promise of helping you burn more calories. But is there really anything you can do to increase the number of calories your body burns each day?

Well, yes and no, experts say. The truth seems to be that the No. 1 way to burn more calories is the old-fashioned way -- by moving more.

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"Essentially, we know of no way to burn more calories or up our metabolism than to move more," says Barry M. Popkin, PhD, director of the Interdisciplinary Obesity Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Still, research suggests that there may be a few other ways you can increase calorie burn. Here are eight possible ways to burn more calories and fight fat:

1. Exercise to Burn Calories

Christopher Wharton, PhD, a certified personal trainer and researcher with the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, put it simply: "The more time spent exercising and the more vigorous the exercise, the more calories will be burned."

Indeed, obesity expert George Bray, MD, with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., believes that taking a brisk walk every day is probably the single most important piece of advice for anyone wanting to burn more calories.

Obviously, when you exercise, your body burns calories to fuel your activity. But exercise is the gift that keeps on giving. That's because even after your workout has ended, your body is still burning more calories.

While it's hard to pinpoint just how long this effect lasts (it varies depending on body composition and level of training), "itâs safe to say metabolic rate can be elevated with aerobic exercise for at least 24 hours," says Wharton.

If you want to prolong this calorie-burning effect, Wharton advises exercising for longer periods.

"Studies have shown that with increases in exercise time, the elevation in resting metabolic rate is prolonged," he says.

2. Do Strength Training to Build Muscle

When you exercise, you use muscle. This helps build muscle mass, and muscle tissue burns more calories -- even when you're at rest -- than body fat. According to Wharton, 10 pounds of muscle would burn 50 calories in a day spent at rest, while 10 pounds of fat would burn 20 calories.

"The most effective way to increase metabolism and burn more calories is by aerobic exercise and strength training. Both are important," School of Nutrition and Exercise Science at Bastyr University, says in an email interview.

Strength training becomes especially important as we get older, when our metabolisms tend to slow down. One way to stop this is to add some strength training to your workout at least a couple of times a week. The largest muscles (and therefore the largest calorie burners) are in the thighs, abdomen, chest, and arms.

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