Physical Wellness

Sex Burns More Calories Than Previously Thought

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Oct 29, 2013 04:51 PM EDT

Sex burns more calories than walking, according to a new study.

Canadian scientists have recently discovered just how many calories the average person burns during sex.

Researchers from the University of Quebec found that a having a session of moderately intense lovemaking burns 4.2 calories a minute for men and 3.1 calories a minute for women.

The study, which involved 21 heterosexual couples aged 18 to 35, had participants wear a SenseWear armband that tracked how much calories they burned during a 30-minute jog on the treadmill Afterwards, participants were sent home with the SenseWear armband and asked to have sex while wearing the sensors.

The findings show that the average recorded sex sessions lasted 24.7 minutes, with the shortest being 10 minutes and the longest being 57 minutes. Men burned on average 101 calories when having sex and women burned 69 calories.

While the average sex session burns more calories than a stroll in the park, researchers found that jogging still beat sexercise when it came to energy expenditure.  Researchers found that men burned 267 calories, or 9.2 calories per minute, and women burned 213 calories, or 7.1 calories per minute, on the treadmill.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

While the latest findings are encouraging for those who want a sexier way to burn off unwanted calories, previous research offers a different conclusion. Biostatistician David Allison of the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that the average sex session only burns 21 calories. Allison's research, published February in The New England Journal of Medicine, tested the "sexercise" theory and found that the average sex session lasts a meager six minutes and burns the same amount of calories as walking. 

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