With a Master of Science in Dietetics and Exercise Science, 11 years of experience in fitness, and 5 years in nutrition, Hollee Mohni is a professional dedicated to improving individuals' health and confidence through sustainable habits.
When it comes to losing weight, a proper calorie deficit diet and exercise are essential to ensure you reach your goals. While you can lose weight by simply changing your eating habits, adding exercise to your routine will help quicken the process and tone your body and has multiple other health benefits.
For many people in the fitness world, the number of calories burned during exercise is something they obsess over. The higher the number, the better. This proves that the session was great and that they gave it their all. If you’ve been tracking your calorie burn during exercise and you want to see if you can burn 700 calories, then you’re in the right place.
We all know that depending on which exercises you choose to do – and the intensity at which you do them – the calorie burn will vary. But what can you do to ensure that you’re burning 700 calories a day through physical activity? Is it even possible? Read on to find out.
Here’s an unfortunate truth that many people who are just getting into fitness need to understand: calorie burn, just like weight loss, is based on the individual.
It is affected by several factors and so the period it takes to burn 700 calories for your friend may not be the same as for you. These factors include (1, 4):
Younger people are likely to burn more calories than older people, even if they both do the same workout.
The truth is that as we age, we start to move less overall and we lose muscle tone, which ends up slowing down our metabolic rate. This makes it more difficult to burn as many calories and lose weight in general.
Men generally burn more calories than women. Due to their naturally higher levels of testosterone, they have less body fat and more muscle in their bodies than women of the same age and weight, which makes calorie burning easier (3).
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People who have more muscle (regardless of age or sex) will burn more calories than those who have less muscle but still weigh the same.
For example, if a woman who weighs 70 kg of mostly muscle and another who weighs 70 kg of mostly fat decided to see how long it would take to burn 700 calories a day by walking, the one whose weight is mostly muscle would hit their goal faster, even if both women walked the same terrain and at the same pace.
This is because simply having extra muscle in the body increases your metabolic rate by up to 15%, so you burn more calories doing less or the same amount of activity as others with more fat in their bodies (3).
Larger people burn more calories than smaller people, whether at rest or while working out. It takes more energy to move their bodies and function, which equals more calorie burning.
Also known as non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), this is the energy that is expended for everything we do that isn’t sleeping, eating, or sports-like exercise (7).
Physical activity is not the only way to burn calories. Activities such as breathing, typing, cleaning utensils, fidgeting, and gardening all count toward increasing your NEAT.
Basically, when it comes to answering the question ‘how long does it take to burn 700 calories?’ the answer is that it all depends on the individual. All we can say for certain is that if you do your workout at a higher intensity, you’re likely to burn these many calories faster. Building muscle over time will also help you burn calories much faster.
Yes, burning 700 calories a day is enough to help you lose weight.
Losing weight works in three main ways:
You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. This is the first piece of advice that many get when they’re looking to lose some weight. When you overeat – particularly without working out to help burn the extra calories – you end up gaining weight.
Creating a calorie deficit means you give your body less calories than it uses in a day. This forces the body to find other sources of energy to keep you going, which results in fat burning and weight loss. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a deficit of 500 to 1,000 kcal/day is ideal and can help you lose 1 to 2 pounds a week (5).
Yes, you’re always burning calories while at rest, but this isn’t enough to help kickstart weight loss. To do this, you must increase how many calories you burn in a day, which is generally done through exercise.
Doing a ‘burn 700 calories workout’ three to five times a week can help you achieve a safe, healthy weight loss rate of approximately one to two pounds per week (6). Remember, the number of calories you burn during the workout depends on the type of workout, intensity of workout, current metabolic rate, time spent exercising, and your current weight.
Sure, the two above points can work separately to help you lose weight, but they work best when they’re combined. It’s also easier to get rid of 700 calories through a combination of exercise and diet, rather than just one thing.
Read more: Kimchi: Calories, Nutrition, and Health Benefits
That’s hard to say. As explained above, both calorie burning and weight loss are dependent on multiple factors, not just exercise, so predicting how much weight you could lose burning 700 kcal a day is impossible.
However, gradual, steady weight loss is equal to losing 1 to 2 pounds a week (6). The common belief is that 1 pound of fat is roughly equivalent to 3,500 calories.
Taking this into consideration, we can say that if you burn approximately 700 calories a day and maintain a calorie deficit consistently throughout each week, you could expect to see a loss of 4 to 8 pounds a month.
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As with the above question, this question is a little complicated to answer as there is no blanket answer that will work for everyone.
Your daily caloric intake is influenced by various factors, including gender, height, weight, activity level, and age (1), so this in itself makes it difficult to provide an answer that is correct for everyone.
However, on average, a woman should eat 2,000 calories per day to maintain her weight, and she should limit her caloric intake to 1,500 or less in order to lose one pound per week. At the same time, the average male should consume 2,500 calories a day to maintain his body weight, or reduce it to 2,000 a day or lower if he wants to lose one pound per week (1).
As explained above, a combination of exercise and calorie deficit works best for weight loss. So, if you’ve been averaging an intake of 2,000 kcal, going on a dietary calorie deficit and exercising to burn 700 calories would help you lose said weight. You don’t need to eat back the 700 kcal lost through exercise.
To know how many calories you should be eating while exercising in the hopes of losing weight, we suggest using a reputable calorie-counting app. By inputting your current weight, height, age,, and amount of physical activity done a day, these apps will help you come up with an accurate calorie intake to help you reach your goal.
As body weight plays a huge role in how many calories you can burn during exercise, not everyone will burn the same number of calories in 30 minutes or an hour of exercise.
Using estimates of calories burned in 30 minutes by Harvard Health Publishing, here are the activities/exercises that can help a 155-pound and a 185-pound person burn 700 calories (and how long the workout session will take) (2)
| Activity | Time for a 155-pound person | Time for a 185-pound person |
|---|---|---|
| Vigorous cycling | Just under an hour | 45 minutes |
| High-impact step aerobics | 1 hour | 45 minutes |
| Martial arts | 1 hour | Just under an hour |
| Running at 5mph | 1 hr 15 mins | 1 hr |
| Cross-country skiing | 1 hr 15 mins | 1 hr |
| Beach Volleyball | 1 hr 15 mins | 1 hr |
| Vigorous swimming | 1 hour | Just under an hour |
| Circuit training | 1 hour | Just under an hour |
| Vigorous stationary rowing | 1 hour | 1 hr 15 mins |
Read more: Intermittent Fasting Macros – Managing Calories the Smart Way!
The best way to figure out how many calories you should burn a day to achieve your weight goals is to use a calorie counter app. By cutting just 500 calories from your diet and increasing your daily level of physical activity, you can expect to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week.
If you want to try walking to burn these calories, you may need to walk for a very long time. According to Harvard Health Publishing, calories burned walking 1 hour at 4 miles per hour burns 378 kcal.
Therefore, a person who weighs 185 would need to walk at this pace for just under 2 hours to burn 700 kcal. Instead of choosing this option to burn 700 calories in an hour, opt for any of the above listed activities.
Running (at 6mph) or really fast rope jumping could also work. Hot yoga will make you sweat a ton during the session, but it doesn’t quite burn this much energy – a 1-hour class burns 330 to 600 kcal.
You don’t need to strive to burn off everything you’ve eaten. Your body still needs some energy to function, so over-exercising to burn off everything you’ve consumed or eating too little in the hopes that you’ll burn it off while working out is not a good idea.
Eating too little will leave you with too little energy so you can’t even function throughout the day, let alone exercise, and it can also trigger an eating disorder. The National Center for Eating Disorders warns that under-eating could lead to depression, mood swings, loss of sexual desire, problems with concentration, restlessness, cravings and obsessions over food and weight, and much more (9).
Over-exercising also has similar effects to undereating, but it comes with a higher risk of injury during workouts, loss of muscle mass, reduced performance, irritability, insomnia, hypertension, restlessness, heavy and sore muscles, and anxiety (8).
The most important thing to keep in mind is that weight loss occurs when you exercise and eat 500 to 1,000 calories less than your body needs. There’s no need to go above and beyond to try and force your body to lose weight as quickly as possible. This will only lead to more harm than good in the long term.
A goal to burn 700 calories a day for weight loss is an admirable one. However, due to several factors that affect how many calories you can burn in a workout session, it’s best not to obsess over this number. In any case, not many can reach it.
As long as you reduce your daily calorie intake, consume lots of protein, drink a lot of water, and work out through strength training and cardio, you will be okay. Be patient (with yourself and your body), stay consistent with proper eating habits and exercise, and remember to rest a full 24 to 48 hours a week, and you’ll see amazing changes in your body in just a few months.
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