Clocking Up Your Sexy Time: How Many Calories Does Sex Really Burn?

Maybe it’s just one of those urban myths we love to believe are true…

"Booooo!"

Despite the myth that we burn up to 300 calories, an average love session only burns a fraction of that.

Thinking your lovah-lovah time is sufficient enough to skip a trip to the gym is not as fool-proof as you would have thought. The average person burns a mere 21 calories during sex.

David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, decided to investigate the claim as part of a study into widely-believed health myths.  

As part of his research, he discovered that sex lasts an average of six minutes and that the energy output is the same as just walking.

Looks like we'll have to hit the gym after this then...

Allison put emphasis on the fact that he thinks false assumptions like these are part of the reason for the obesity crisis in the UK.

He also investigated health myths like whether snacking or skipping breakfast was bad for you and whether physical education classes in school made any difference to a kid’s weight.

He discovered that PE classes are not long or intense enough to make any difference in a child’s lifestyle and he found that the link between skipping breakfast and weight gain depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.

So, moral of the story? You can’t really count your average sexy time as exercise.