burn calories - featured image

10 Easy Tips for Burning More Calories Every Day

Trying to lose weight and maintain a good figure? Looking and feeling healthy is everyone’s goal but there’s no one-size-fits-all way for losing weight. But burning more calories ever day is a great place to start.

Once you burn calories more efficiently, your body will have less energy surplus (energy to store as body fat). This helps you maintain good muscle mass and a lean looking physique.

To achieve this, you’ll need a mix of physical activity, good lifestyle habits, and better food choices.

Key Point: In this article, we walk you through accessible tips and habits that will help you leverage your metabolism for better weight management.

burn calories - data monitoring

There’s no Substitution for Exercise

Before we dive in to the best tips for burning more calories every day, we need to mention something.

These tips will help to improve your metabolism and the calories burned, but they will work best when supplemented by good fitness routines.

A good fitness routine is absolutely crucial. Exercise ensures that your bodies burn the right type of calories–that is, fat calories.

Here’s a helpful video exploring the difference between calories as fuel sources:

1. Drink Caffeinated Beverages

drinking caffeinated drinks burns calories for weight loss

Do you ever feel jittery after drinking a cup of coffee?

This is due to the release of adrenaline or epinephrine hormone. This hormone spurs physiological activity.

As a result your body tends to break down more fat, giving you a jolt of energy.

This sudden surge of energy may allow you to get more out of physical activities and workouts like aerobic exercises. In other words, caffeine works to encourage a more efficient calorie burn during physical activity.

Caffeinated Beverages to Stimulate Metabolism

Caffeinated beverages are great pre-workout drinks because they provide you with enough energy boost. Caffeine is a also good stimulant for your metabolism. With a higher metabolic rate, your body can break down more calories easily without worrying about adding some weight.

Lesser body fat also leads to a faster metabolism, which leads to better caloric processing.

Some of the caffeinated drinks that you can try are coffee and tea.

  • Coffee is a good source of caffeine and has few calories. You’ll need to hold off on adding too much sugar and milk as a way to reduce your calorie intake.
  • In the same manner, tea is a good source of caffeine with little to no calories. 

However, these caffeinated drinks may affect your sleep, so avoid them before bedtime.

The Bottom Line: To encourage more physical activity and to stimulate the metabolism, consider drinking caffeinated beverages.

2. Eat More Frequent Smaller Meals

Most people have the impression that eating more often will make you fat.

However, eating small portions while following a frequent meal schedule may actually increase your body’s ability to burn significantly more calories!

With frequent, small meals, you can obtain a good metabolic rate and your body burns calories more efficiently, thereby promoting weight loss. Once you’ve adjusted to eating more frequently, you are likely to eat less on your every meal.

Additionally, frequent meals mean you’ll have a busy stomach. Digestion requires energy that’s produced by processing calories. So, instead of storing any excess energy, it’ll be used in digesting your food intake. 

Keeping a steady food intake may also help curb your cravings. This will help you feel satiated all the time so you won’t be tempted to binge eat. Plus, you’ll get the energy you need throughout the day.

Bottom Line: Monitor your caloric intake, and consider dividing your recommended diet into more frequent smaller meals. This stimulates your metabolism and spends more calories on digestion, while curtailing cravings.

3. Engage in Aerobic Exercise and Strength Training

aerobic training

Another way to burn more calories and achieve weight loss is by building and maintaining your body’s muscle mass.

Think of your muscles as little engines that continue to burn fuel even as they idle.

Compared to fat tissue, muscle tissue burns more calories. Even when you’re resting, your muscle continues to burn calories than body fat.

Over time, your body may also lose muscle mass due to aging. That’s why it’s vital to stay active and be fit by omitting to strength training and aerobic exercises. This helps mitigate the loss of metabolic rate due to aging.

  • You may train the different muscle groups of the body by doing full-body workouts. Try different strength training exercises like lifting weights, doing squats, and holding planks.
  • Aerobic exercises are best paired with strength training since they promote muscle repair and recovery. This allows your body to build a good set of muscles. 
  • When done consistently aerobic exercise has been shown to raise resting metabolic rate, which refers to how many calories you body burns during periods of rest.
  • It’s recommended to train your arms, chest, and thighs since these are the larger muscle groups, which may increase how many calories you’ll burn.

If you’re not familiar with doing workouts, you may hire a certified personal trainer to help you with proper training.

Bottom Line: Muscle mass burns calories. Leverage muscle building to increase the amount of calories burned and aerobic exercise to increase your resting metabolic rate.

4. Eat Breakfast and Dinner Earlier

Eating earlier than the standard time for meals gives your body more time to burn the calories you’ve taken.

Eating an early breakfast allows your body to feel satisfied and energetic at the beginning of the day. This helps you avoid taking in extra calories in your next meals.

If you eat dinner earlier, you’ll have more time to digest and burn calories, compared to when you eat late and go to bed right away.

How Eating Late Disrupts Your Diet

Adjusting your eating time may also improve your food intake by improving digestion. Eating late may cause you to still feel full the next day so you may choose not to eat breakfast.

By skipping breakfast, you tend to overeat during lunch and dinner. This causes dysfunction in your eating schedule and can disrupt your metabolism. 

Bottom Line: Eating on time and early will have a positive impact on your metabolism, burning more calories throughout the day. Some studies show that it’s best to have your breakfast by 7 AM while dinner time should be around 6 to 6:30 PM. 

5. Practice Intermittent Fasting

intermittent fasting to lose weight

Intermittent fasting is an eating schedule that allows you to eat only at a given period, and then fast the rest of the day.

This may allow your body to establish an effective digestive clock and promote good metabolism, resulting in weight loss.

Even if you consume the same amount of calories during your eating window as you normally would, there’s strong evidence that shows your body will use these calories more efficiently after a fasting period.

This is best paired with small frequent meals during your eat-window that leave you with more calories burned and better energy (calorie deficit). This helps reduce the risk of your body storing these calories as fat due to a starvation response.

Most intermittent plans range from 12 to 14 hours of fasting. However, some fasting schedules may reach up to 16 hours, leaving you with only 8 hours to consume any solid food.

There are other intermittent fasting methods that include alternate eating days and gradual calorie reduction. Some studies claim that intermittent fasting may also help with building muscle and maintaining good muscle mass since the body may process your body fat for energy while fasting.

Our Recommendation: Experiment with intermittent fasting by eating dinner 12 to 14 hours before you plan to eat breakfast. Move dinner earlier instead of moving breakfast to a later time.

6. Drink Plenty of Water

Hydration is important to maintain different organ functions, regulate your temperature, and lubricate joints.

It may assist with digestion by more efficiently converting calories into energy and transporting nutrients throughout the body.

Water is also crucial in burning stored energy and carbohydrates.

Additionally, some studies link increased water intake to better resting energy expenditure. This means that you’ll burn more calories even while at rest.

As for the recommended water intake, this may depend on your body size, activities, and even temperature. The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) recommends up to 3,700 mL of water for men and 2,700 mL for women daily. 

Drinking cold water may help you burn off more calories.

Bottom Line: Just like how a water dispenser takes more electricity to heat up water, your body also needs more energy to process cold water. Since this takes up more energy, your body will need to convert more calories.

7. Stand Up and Walk More

walking to burn calories

Maintaining an active lifestyle is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to burn calories and lose weight. 

However, being active doesn’t require you to be in the gym or join aerobic exercise classes every day.

Although this may help you burn more calories, simple physical activities like standing up or walking around also does the trick. Standing and walking burn more calories compared to lying down or sitting.

Experience better calorie burning and weight loss by:

  • Opting for the stairs instead of taking the lift
  • Setting an alarm to stand up and walk around every hour at work
  • Use a standing desk instead of the conventional table where you’re forced to sit all day and store excess energy in fat cells
  • Standing for a few hours to promote better blood circulation and avoid cardiovascular diseases

Bottom Line: If you’re not the gym-going type (or even if you are) walking is a great alternative or supplement to a fitness routine. It helps to stimulate a calorie burn with minimal physical effort.

8. Take Thermogenic Supplements

Taking thermogenic supplements may also help you burn more calories.

Natural ingredients are used in these supplements to boost your metabolism so your body burns calories more efficiently and at a faster rate.

Some thermogenic supplements include green tea, caffeine, and other herbal mixes:

  • Caffeine supplements are known to drive your metabolism while managing your appetite. Caffeine is also a stimulant, particularly producing more adrenaline that lets you tap on fat cells for energy. This means that you’ll eat less and burn off more calories.
  • Green tea supplements help in burning more calories with the caffeine they contain, along with a plant compound called epigallocatechin gallate. Evidence suggests that this compound amplifies the effect of adrenaline in the body, allowing you to burn more fat cells.

Bottom Line: While these supplements increase the calories you burn and benefit your overall health, provide health benefits, it’s best to consult with a doctor before taking them, especially if you have existing medical conditions and maintenance medication.

9. Get good sleep.

sleeping soundly to burn calories

Getting a good night’s sleep may help your journey to lose more calories.

Did you know that you burn an estimated 50 calories hourly in your sleep? Research suggests that this may vary according to a link between basal metabolic rate and the quality of your sleep:

  • Getting a shallow sleep burns a fewer number of calories than having rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM burns more calories due to an elevated heart rate and an increase in your brain function. This causes your body to convert more calories to supply more energy.
  • Cold temperatures may also help you burn twice as many calories while you sleep because your body will need more energy to keep you warm. 
  • Limit your screen time to at least an hour before bedtime. Blue light, often emitted by your smart gadgets, may affect your ability to fall asleep. 
  • Avoid caffeine and heavy meals before bedtime since this may keep you awake longer.

Bottom Line: Getting good sleep is a cornerstone of good health. So we shouldn’t be surprised that good sleep is linked to optimal metabolic health.

10. Eat More Proteins

Having a diet rich in protein may significantly impact your body’s ability to burn more calories and drop the extra weight.

Compared to carbohydrates and fats, protein has a better thermic effect on your metabolism, which leads to burning more calories. Protein also takes longer to digest so you’ll need more energy to convert this into nutrients and more energy. 

Eating more protein may also make you feel fuller for a longer time compared to eating more carbohydrates, cutting your calorie consumption. This happens at a hormonal level where hunger hormones are suppressed so you won’t go looking for more food.

Aside from looking lean and muscular, you’ll develop a healthy metabolism that keeps all your organs healthy. Some good protein sources include meat, egg, fish, and dairy products. In terms of meat, you may want to consume more lean meat like chicken and beef. Some vegetables and nuts may also provide a good amount of protein. 

Broccoli and spinach have some of the highest protein content among vegetables. A protein shake made from whey powder is also one good way to get your protein fix.

burning calories through food and exercise - concept

The journey to fitness and good nutrition will be long and challenging for many. But it doesn’t have to be!

Check out our other guides and content aimed at making the process easier for you:

Conclusion

There are many ways to help your body burn more calories!

  • What you eat matters! By sticking to good eating habits like eating frequent small meals, having a protein-rich diet, and good hydration, you’ll be able to maintain a healthy metabolism that allows you to turn more calories into energy.
  • Staying active matters just as much! Different activities like strength training, aerobic exercises, or even by just walking and standing more guarantee a positive impact on your body’s ability to burn more calories.

The key is Consistency: Stay healthy and lose weight by practicing these habits every day. And if burning calories is a challenge for you because of specific health issues, ask your doctor and clinical nutrition expert, or certified strength or conditioning specialist!

Jack Kelle

Jack is an entrepreneur, outdoorist, and animal lover with a background in philosophy, psychology, and business. He enjoys music, friends, and family. At RAVE, Jack works as the manager of marketing and content development.