That’s quite a headline but this is really an easy win! You don’t even have to change your diet–if the average TV viewer (who watches about 5 hours of TV daily!) cut their TV viewing in half, they could lose up to 12 pounds in one year! It turns out when people watch less TV they replace that activity with others that burn more calories.

TV viewing requires only slightly more calories than sleep–so replacing that with even slightly more active activities like knitting, sewing, cleaning, or scrapbooking make a difference over time.

Here’s another idea: if you have a piece of exercise equipment at home, try watching some of your favorite TV shows while you walk or peddle. If you don’t like sweating, keep in mind that you don’t have to work out at a frantic pace. Walking burns about 100 calories a mile…so if you watch a one hour show and walk 3 miles while watching, you’ve just burned an extra 300 calories!

Something that works for me is splitting my time on the treadmill into 2 sessions. I watch two of my favorite chefs on the Food Channel for 30 minutes each, one in the morning and one in the evening.  It is easier on my body than one 60 minute session and sometimes I end up going longer than 30 minutes so my total minutes for the day might actually work out to 75 minutes. The trick here is figuring out what works for you to keep on moving!