How Many Calories Does Sex Burn?

There are several ways to reignite the sparks between you and your partner in your 50s, but if you’ve recently noticed a lack of imagination under the sheets, knowing that having sex can also keep you both fit and intimate may be a good motivation to delve more deeply.

“One of the great joys of being older is that you can settle into your body more without fears and inhibitions getting in the way,” says Antonia Hall, author of The Ultimate Guide to a Multi-Orgasmic Life. “Women often say that in their youth they were concerned with their sexual performance. But now they understand their bodies. They don’t have time for bad sex!”

So, what better time than midlife to consider a new sensual way to work out?

Of course, the number of calories you’d burn depends on several factors like your weight, how vigorous and long your physical activity is, the positions you’re in and the specific things you and your partner do during sex. But don’t expect much fat loss, rather consider it a gentle workout.

Some studies showed that men burned about 101 calories during sex or 4.2 calories per minute. Instead, women burned about 69 calories during sex, or 3.1 calories per minute. In other words, the person doing the most movement during intercourse is most likely going to burn more.

According to experts, the key to high-calorie-burning sex is to make it hot, long and steamy. “The longer and more vigorous your sexual activity is, the more calories you’ll burn,” says Carole Lieberman, MD, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist and author of Bad Girls: Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets.

Doing some math, we can say that for a woman who weighs 140 pounds and her male partner who weighs 190 pounds, the missionary position with her on the bottom for 10 minutes will likely burn 14 calories for her. It will burn 47 calories for him. If they were standing during sex with her in front, she would burn 30 calories and he would burn 51 in 10 minutes. Lastly, if he was holding her up for 10 minutes during sex, he would burn 65 calories and she would burn 40.

But staying on track is not easy and calculating calories while having sex would only make everything less exciting.

Thankfully, to help couples in the bedroom, Superdrug has shared the 23-minute love-making fitness track. Designed to sync perfectly with calorie-burning sex sessions, the track aims to help couples to work up a sweat between the sheets. The compilation was created by a team of fitness experts and music producers who analysed the sexual habits of 2,000 British couples to produce a continuous 22 min 48s sexercise track that compliments the average length of a UK sex session and encourages couples to pace their love-making movements to the changing beat of the music.

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