If you burn just an extra 500 calories a day, you can easily lose a pound a week. Exercise doesn’t have to be monotonous, painful or unenjoyable. In fact, making sure that it’s not can help you avoid burning out. If spending 60-70 minutes on the gym’s elliptical every day of the week sounds mind numbingly boring to you, as it should, try pulling from any of these more interesting ways in order to keep yourself interested.

50 Fun Ways to Burn 500 Calories

1) Clean the house for 2 hours; turn on your favorite music and you can probably boost that number by 15% (if you dance while you vacuum, of course).
2) Garden for an hour and a half.
3) Hit the slopes; 65 minutes of just downhill skiing burns 500 calories; you only need 50 minutes of cross country skiing to burn the same.
4) One hour of Zumba burns roughly 500 calories, if you give it your full effort throughout the entire class (the Zumba 1,000 cals per hour thing is a myth).
5) Play 55 Minutes of racquetball. Grab a partner and you wont even realize that you’re working out.

Feeling brave? Try our 1000 Calorie Workout Video with HIIT cardio, strength training, abs, and more.

6) One hour and 15 minutes of lawn mowing does the trick. Sorry, riding mowers don’t provide the same workout!
7) 45 Minutes of back to back bodyweight exercises burns 500 calories; check out Fitness Blender Routines for workouts using only bodyweight.
8) Do the Booty Boot Camp 3x through (21 minutes) with the Treadmill Incline Workout (30 minutes) to burn a total of 500 calories.
9) Two hours and ten minutes of guitar playing (standing) burns 500 calories and turns you into a rockstar.
10) Do 120 minutes of belly dancing. As a bonus, it tones your core.

11) Jump rope for only 42 minutes to burn your caloric goal; it certainly works but do beware of terribly sore calf muscles the next day.
12) Punish a punching bag for 70 minutes. Think of someone who annoys you and swing away.
13) 45 Minutes of rugby burns 500 calories.
14) Play a full court basketball game for 50 minutes; the interval type cardio will boost your cardiovascular endurance, and rev your metabolism.
15) 50 Minutes of shoveling snow will meet your quota.

16) 40 Minutes of martial arts blasts 500 cals, along with reducing stress and increasing focus. Judo, chop!
17) Do 40 Minutes of rock climbing. Wear a helmet!
18) Walk at a moderately brisk pace of 4 MPH for 90 minutes.
19) Play volleyball and benefit from allover body toning. To burn 500 playing volleyball, you’ll need an hour and 45 minutes of play if you’re playing in a gym, or 50 minutes if you’re playing in the sand.
20) Running at 6 MPH (a ten minute mile) for 42 minutes will burn 500 calories.

21) Like horseback riding? An hour and 45 minutes of horseback riding burns 500 calories. Who needs the gym?
22) Golf for an hour and a half - it only counts if you're walking, and carrying your own clubs.
23) One hour and 15 minutes of Wii Just Dance blasts 500 calories…Wii Zumba burns a comparable amount.
24) Go play with your kids; 90 minutes of moderate play time with the wee ones does the trick, plus, they’ll love it.
25) 90 Minutes of water aerobics is a great low impact option.

26) 2 Hours of bowling burns 500 calories.
27) An hour long intense aerobics class will burn half a thousand cals.
28) Kayak for 55 minutes and you'll also get a fantastic upper body workout.
29) Can you believe hula hooping burns 10 calories a minute? Get in 50 minutes of this core workout & reach your goal with a hula hoop.
30) Pilates and Yoga; 2 hours of either of these burns about 500 calories. For this reason, an hour of either of them combined with a half hour cardio is ideal.

31) Surf’s up; just 60 minutes of surfing burns 500 calories, works a complex combo of muscles, and develops your core and balance abilities.
32) Do one hour on the stair stepper and tone your glutes, as well.
33) 50 Minutes of touch football will burn your daily calorie goal.
34) 1 Hour and 20 minutes of snorkeling burns 500 cals; that sounds so much more fun than the elliptical, doesn’t it?
35) Do one hour on the rowing machine.

36) Give someone a 2 hour long massage. Make sure they return the favor when you're done.
37) 50 Minutes of circuit training with little to no resting time will blast 500 calories and help you get a toned body.
38) Do 65 Minutes of waterskiing.
39) Do two and a quarter hours of shopping. Did you need another reason to keep shopping?
40) 1 Hour of moderate bike riding will burn your 1/7 of a pound.

41) Six hours of kissing burns 500 calories. Bring chapstick.
42) Eating burns 100 calories an hour; eat for 5 hours and you'll hit 500 calories burned...but that may be considered counterproductive.
43) 2 Whole hours of Frisbee in the park will do the trick and it hardly even feels like any work at all.
44) An hour of tennis meets the criteria and will keep you from getting bored.
45) 75 Minutes of weight lifting burns 500 calories; the trick is to keep moving and not take cell phone breaks between every set.

46) Leisurely swimming is nice on a sunny summer day; 65 minutes of it burns 500 calories.
47) Working under the hood of an automobile burns 500 calories in just an hour and 20 minutes.
48) Ice skate for 50 minutes for a caloric burn of roughly 10 cals/minute.
49) Running stairs for 45 minutes burns 500 calories; no pain no gain, right?
50) 7.25 Hours of lying still and quite burns 500 calories; I thought this one deserved to make the list, just to put things in perspective.


Most of the things on this list happen at home or outside, you don’t even need a gym.

Calories are the fuel that keeps our most basic bodily functions running; our bodies are using energy constantly. The activities on this list step up your caloric burn (especially compared to lounging on the couch) and can even boost your metabolism.

*These figures are based off of estimations for a 150-pound woman. These are only rough estimations, as the exact number of calories that a person burns depends on their build, gender, muscle content, physical fitness level, and many other variables.