Science Says Knitting Burns More Calories Than Sex

February 3, 2013 // 1:00 am // By: Erika Grant

That’s according to a new study released by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which debunked popular myths about sex as a major calorie burner. The study concluded that the perception of sex as a fat-burning athletic activity was based around sexcapades lasting an hour or more, but that’s not the reality of most American sex lives. Brace yourselves for the truth, people: Americans have sex for “an average time span of six minutes per sexual encounter.”

That’s pretty depressing, and it only gets worse. Those six minutes only burn 21 calories. To put that in perspective: you burn twenty-five calories in ten minutes just by standing up. Your grandma burns fifty-five calories by knitting for half an hour, and most of those calories are from yelling at her grandkids to find her dentures.

True, having sex for half an hour would burn more calories than knitting would. But grandma’s knits and purls have a stamina that the average American’s sex life just can’t match. Long after your six minutes are up and you’re lying in a shameful pool of spent fluids and sexual exhaustion, she’ll still be clicking her needles together and daydreaming about all the awesome sex marathons she had back in the day that put our mere six minutes to shame.

H/T + PicThx Geekologie

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Erika Grant is an Orange County native in a long-distance relationship with the Bay Area. She's enthusiastic about all things vegan/vegetarian, has cheese dreams on the regular that make it difficult to commit to the vegan lifestyle, and gets obscenely excited about avocados in anything.

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MamaSnaps

Glad to see that knitting is featured, but its 2013. Knitting hasn’t been a grandmas-only thing for quite some time. It’s a thriving industry and filled with innovative, youthful people.
Shirley Richardson-McCourt

Why in the world would “Grandma” need her dentures to knit? Does the writer even know a knitter? Or what knitting is? Or how it’s done?
Anonymous

Your characterization of a yelling, toothless grandma is offensive. Grandmas can be busy, socially and/or politically active, real human beings who may or may not knit. BTW, knitting is for all ages, not just for old people.
http://www.facebook.com/anne.munro.940 Anne Munro

so THIS is why I lost so much weight after my husband left! LOL
Keith J Davies

who can finish in only six minutes?

http://www.facebook.com/stephanie.briggs3 Stephanie Briggs

Try being chronically ill and needing to take breaks.

Liz

Knitting isn’t featured at all in this ‘study’. It only highlights that the energy expended during sexual activity isn’t sufficient enough to fend off obesity… Duh?
http://www.facebook.com/ava.blackburn.73 Ava Blackburn

…While I like the information that’s provided here. Picking on Grandmas just isn’t cool and being a knitter myself I’m always slightly amused to see the ignorance of people when it comes to the craft, so lets clear up some questions. No I’m not an old lady and you don’t have to be elderly to knit. Yes knitting can be fashionable (I’m sure you’ve worn a cashmere sweater or mittens before?) and it’s not mindless it keeps your mind in shape and shows skill. When’s the last time you where able to say you created something that didn’t come from a box? Educate yourself.
http://www.facebook.com/robin.mira.54 Robin Mira

Where is everyone’s sense of humor? Sheesh. Cute article – made me giggle.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Fox/558686375 John Fox

As with most of these studies, you can read into them anything you want. Obviously, the author just needed an excuse to not have sex. Maybe it’s just sour grapes, I think she is thinking “I don’t have sex very much, so I’ll just knit. Hey look … it says here you burn more calories knitting. Guess I was right all along”

I took from the article that the best way to burn calories is to have sex
standing up. Then sitting down. Then standing up. Then sitting down.
ButterPlate

Bahhahaha all the knitting comments are hilarious. But really, let’s be real. They’re just crazy cat people in a corner knitting up a storm.
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aj

Man, I think you are with the wrong person if it’s only 6 minutes! Wow…