The activities below can all help you burn 1,000 calories. But how long it takes you to get there will depend on your workout intensity, body weight, your pace and how consistently you maintain it, and your current fitness level.
1. Running
You can burn anywhere from 11 to 17 calories per minute from running, but the exact numbers vary based on how much you weigh and how fast you run.
Let’s say you weigh 150lbs, burn 15 calories per minute, and can run a 10-minute mile. You’d be able to burn 1,000 calories by running for about 70 minutes or 7 miles.
However, this assumes that you can maintain the same pace for all 7 miles. If your pace slows down at all, it will take you longer to burn 1,000 calories.
2. CrossFit
CrossFit workouts are intense because they involve a combination of strength, endurance, gymnastics, and HIIT. But they also tend to be short. You can go all-out for eight minutes and still only burn 150 calories if you don’t do any extra work before or after the workout of the day (WOD).
According to the American Council on Exercise, males burn an average of 20.5 calories per minute during a CrossFit WOD while females burn 12.5, depending on the nature of the WOD and exercise intensity.
So, even in a typical one-hour CrossFit class that includes a strength portion and a WOD, you’ll almost never come close to burning 1,000 calories. You’d need to do multiple WODs a day to get to that point.
3. High-Intensity Interval Training
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) can burn 25-30% more calories than other forms of exercise, but the amount of calories you burn varies based on what kind of exercise you do.
For example, a HIIT cycling session for 30 minutes can burn anywhere from 390-690 calories. But you have to be a heavier person and pedal at close to a 20mph pace to get to the higher end of that range. If you’re a smaller individual or don’t pedal that fast, it can take at least 90 minutes to burn 1,000 calories.
The one drawback of HIIT workouts is that you can’t sustain a high-intensity pace for very long because they require you to move at an intensity that you can only maintain for a few seconds. It’s not recommended to do HIIT workouts more than two to three days per week because of how taxing they are on the body.
4. Cycling
If you’re cycling at a rate of 10-12mph, you can burn roughly 7 calories per minute depending on how much you weigh. If you bump up the intensity to 14-16mph, you can burn up 15 calories per minute.
Based on these numbers, you’d have to maintain a pace of 14 mph for about 65-70 minutes to burn 1,000 calories.
5. Rowing
Depending on your weight, you can burn anywhere from 510-750 calories per hour using a rowing machine.
For smaller individuals, it would take just under two hours to burn 1,000 calories. If you’re tall or you weigh more, it could only take about an hour and 20 minutes.
6. Elliptical Machine
Like most cardio activities, how many calories you burn on the elliptical depends on the level of effort you put into it.
An average person can burn anywhere from 350-450 calories per hour moving at a moderate pace. You’d have to spend more than two hours on it to burn 1,000 calories.
7. Daily Step Count
You only burn 30-40 calories for every 1,000 steps you take, so you’d have to get 33,000 steps each day to burn 1,000 calories from walking alone. It’s extremely difficult to do that unless you have an active job.
Fortunately, research shows that getting 8,000 steps per day is enough to improve your health. But you have to also engage in other activities that contribute to your TDEE to burn 1,000 calories per day just from increasing your daily step count.
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