Does Ice Skating Help You Lose Weight?
Burning calories is always a challenge. Especially now, when most of us are working from home on computers, it’s hard to make sure we’re getting all of the physical exercises we need every day to balance out the food we’re eating.
Technically, yes, we could decrease the amount of food we’re eating. But the truth is that most people are living rather sedentary lifestyles these days. Now, in the remote work world, we don’t even have the trips around the office, walking back and forth to the car for our commutes, and lunches out with friends. More than likely, many people are getting less exercise without changing their diet habits.
So that leaves us with finding interesting ways to burn calories. The good news is that there are a million things that you can do for fun to get outside and burn off some energy. While things are still cold outside, winter sports are a great place to start.
Ice skating is a great way to lose weight and have fun at the same time. In fact, there are a ton of different things you can do in the winter to lose weight and experience new things.
You have things like sledding, building snow sculptures with the kids (if you have any), and ice skating to burn some calories without feeling like you’re grinding away on a treadmill in a gym. Mixing it up and adding excellent calorie-burning exercises to your routine is a great way to lose weight without the dread.
Let’s take a look at ice skating, how many calories it burns, and whether it will help you lose weight.
Trying Ice Skating for the First Time
Your first few experiences with ice skating will definitely be interesting. If you’re like most people, being on the ice for the first time is a mix of fear and excitement. Things are cold, and the ice is hard.
Falls aren’t the best, but thankfully most rinks have tools that you can use to keep your balance and the sport is famous for friendly skaters on the ice. If you do end up on your behind, you can likely count on a neighbor skater to come by and offer you a hand.
Just try and stick to walking until you get the feel for skating. In no time, you’ll get the hang of gliding, and then it’s off to the races. You’ll be doing circles around the rink in no time.
Skating is a fun social activity that’s a terrific date night or a good way to spend time with friends.
Once you’re done, and you finally get those skates off of your feet, you’ll feel it. Skating is a lot of work for your feet, ankles, and legs. If you’re new to the sport, then you’ll probably be sore in other places as well. Your auxiliary muscles jump into overdrive to keep you stable and shorten your reaction time to slips or missteps on the ice.
How Many Calories Does Ice Skating Burn?
You’ll probably be surprised to hear this, but constant ice skating for an hour burns anywhere between 640-850 calories. That’s a lot! Way better than walking or even running.
The best thing about ice skating is that you feel like you’re gliding across the ice. It doesn’t really feel like you’re doing an intense workout even though you are burning a ton.
When you’re first starting out with ice skating, you could be burning even more calories because your arms might be flailing around trying to help you keep balance, and a lot of beginner skaters move back and forth and jerk up and down trying to stay on their feet. Sure, it’s not great for your back the next morning, but it sure does make up for any snacks you may have had that day.
As you get better on skates, you’ll start to move effortlessly on the ice. So you can skate for longer without breaks, go faster around the rink, and maybe give a trick or two a try. Similar to most sports, there is always some new level to keep you pushing forward and improving.
Ice Skating Is Fun Exercise!
If you are looking for ways, other than simply not eating over the course of the day, to lose weight, then give ice skating a try! It’s a terrific way to burn calories and it’s much less torturous than a CrossFit class or something like a three-mile run.
There are good odds that you have an ice skating rink in close proximity to where you live. People love to ice skate all year, and plenty of rinks exist to support rec hockey leagues and ice skating classes for kids. Take a look online to see what’s near you and give your local rink a visit.
Before you go, though, make sure to check out the rink’s schedule to make sure you don’t go when there is some sort of structured class during that time slot. Most rinks have scheduled free skate times when anyone can come and have some fun. If you don’t have skates, that’s no problem either. Almost every rink has a rental shop where you can grab a pair for a small fee.
If you really get into ice skating, you’ll eventually want to buy a pair of skates for yourself. Individual skates will fit you better and deliver better performance on the ice. As you might imagine, rental skates aren’t always kept in the best shape, and they don’t take into account your individual body size or skating ability. They are dealing with the need to have skates that anyone can use.
As you progress in the sport, having a pair of skates will make you even better on the ice.
Final Thought
Give ice skating a try! Whether you’re on your own listening to a podcast during a lunch break or you take your friends to the rink for some weekend fun, ice skating is a fantastic way to burn calories and have a good time simultaneously!
