Fall Activities: How Many Calories Do They Burn?

As Labor Day is upon us, ready to signal the end of summer and the start of fall, our thoughts start to stray from swimming and days at the beach to cool-weather plans. But just how many calories do autumn activities burn?

We looked at a few popular fall pastimes on the Health Status website and noted how many calories the average 150-pound woman would burn over the course of 30 minutes. You can adjust the activity, weight or duration to answer your questions using the Health Status calculator.

Actively Outdoors
Fall brings cooler temps and outdoor activities that keep you outside in the chilly air. Good news: Many of the things you're already doing are burning lots of calories! Raking the leaves in your lawn for 30 minutes burns about 135 calories, while chopping wood torches 207. If you're getting away from it all, you can burn 176 during a brisk, 4 mph walk, or 202 hiking for half an hour.

Homebound and Happy
Rather than heading outdoors to soak up the crisp fall air, you're staying indoors. You might be surprised to learn that cooking (a warm kitchen is just the thing on a chilly morning!) burns 90 calories in 30 minutes! And if you feel like mixing things up and rearranging your furniture, you'll burn 225 calories.

Fall Scholar
Maybe September means you're up to your eyeballs in books and assignments. Well, studying burns only 24 calories an hour, but if you can take a quick 30-minute break, you can burn 90 calories playing hacky sack (in the quad, of course) or 103 playing Frisbee. Really looking to burn off the ramen noodles? Moderate jump roping for half an hour burns a whopping 271 calories, and if you join a kickball league (we hear they're popular with the kids these days), you'll knock off 181.

And remember -- you don't have to throw all your hard work away on football weekends. Check out these great game-day snack makeovers!