Does driving burn calories? Yes, but the answer will disappoint you if you’re hoping to lose weight behind the wheel. The average person burns around 150 to 250 calories per hour while driving, and just 80 to 130 calories per hour as a passenger. That sounds decent until you compare it to sitting on your couch, which burns about 60 to 80 calories per hour. The actual difference between driving and doing nothing is only 20 to 40 extra calories per hour.
So while your body does burn energy when you drive, the amount is so small that it won’t make any real difference to your waistline. A one hour drive might burn about 30 extra calories compared to sitting still. That’s about the same as eating three almonds.
How many calories does driving actually burn?
The exact number depends on your weight and the type of driving you do. According to the Compendium of Physical Activities, driving a car has a MET value of 2.0. MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent of Task, and it measures how much energy an activity uses compared to sitting still.
A MET of 2.0 means driving uses twice the energy of complete rest. Here’s what that looks like in real numbers.
A 70kg person burns about 147 calories per hour driving a regular car. A 90kg person burns around 239 calories per hour driving. A 68kg person burns roughly 179 calories per hour at the wheel.
For comparison, that same 70kg person would burn about 80 calories just sitting in the passenger seat. The difference is only around 67 calories per hour between driving and being a passenger.
9 Steps To Shed 5–10kg in 6 Weeks
While spending as little as 90 minutes per week in the gym!
Includes an exercise plan, nutrition plan, and 20+ tips and tricks.
Without dead boring diets that are like watching paint dry
Without getting results at a snails pace
Gym or at home version
Why does driving burn so few calories?
Driving is a sedentary activity. Your body stays mostly still, and your muscles do very little work. Yes, you move your hands to steer and your feet to press the pedals. But these movements are tiny and use almost no energy.
The Compendium of Physical Activities lists the MET for sitting in a car as a passenger at just 1.3. That’s barely above complete rest. Driving bumps it up to 2.0, but that’s still far below walking at 3.0 to 4.0 or cycling at 6.0 to 8.0.
Your brain does work hard when you drive. You watch traffic, make decisions, and stay alert. Mental effort does burn some calories, but not nearly as much as physical movement. The brain uses about 20 percent of your daily calories, and focused driving might increase that slightly. Still, the boost is minimal.
Does the type of driving matter?
Yes, but the differences are small for most drivers.
Stop and go traffic burns more calories than highway cruising. Your body works harder when you constantly brake, accelerate, and check mirrors. Research suggests heavy traffic can increase calorie burn by up to 30 percent compared to smooth driving. So instead of 150 calories per hour, you might burn closer to 195 calories in gridlock.
Driving a manual transmission burns more than an automatic. Shifting gears and working the clutch requires extra physical effort. One study found manual drivers can burn up to 20 percent more calories than automatic drivers.
Driving larger vehicles burns slightly more too. A 68kg person driving a bus or heavy truck burns about 136 calories per hour compared to 118 in a regular car. That’s because bigger vehicles need more physical effort to steer and control.
Race car driving is the exception. A 68kg person racing can burn around 340 calories per hour. The intense concentration, g forces, and constant physical adjustments make it a real workout. But unless you’re a professional racer, this doesn’t apply to your daily commute.
Truck driving with loading and unloading burns the most. A 68kg person can burn about 374 calories per hour when they combine driving with physical labour. The MET value jumps from 2.0 to 6.5 when loading is involved.
Is driving bad for weight loss?
Here’s the real problem with driving. It’s not just that driving burns few calories. It’s that driving replaces activities that would burn far more.
Walking burns 353 calories in an hour for the same distance you might drive. Cycling burns 484 calories per hour. Even taking public transport, where you walk to the station and stand on the platform, burns more than driving door to door.
The average person spends about 100 hours per year just commuting to work. That’s more time than most people spend on vacation. If you drove those 100 hours, you’d burn roughly 15,000 to 25,000 calories total. But if you cycled that same time, you’d burn about 48,400 calories. The difference over a year is around 6 to 10 kilograms of body fat.
This is where NEAT comes in. NEAT stands for Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It’s all the calories you burn through daily movement that isn’t exercise. Things like walking around the house, cooking dinner, fidgeting at your desk, or climbing stairs.
Research shows that a highly active person can burn up to 2,000 more calories per day through NEAT compared to someone sedentary. That’s huge. And driving eats into your NEAT by keeping you trapped in a seat instead of moving.
What burns more calories than driving?
Almost everything that involves actual movement burns more calories than driving.
- Standing burns about 130 more calories than sitting if you stand for 15 minutes every hour over an 8 hour day
- Walking at a normal pace burns 200 to 300 calories per hour
- Cycling burns 400 to 600 calories per hour depending on intensity
- Cleaning the house burns about 170 calories per hour
- Gardening burns about 200 to 400 calories per hour
- Playing with kids burns about 150 to 300 calories per hour
- Taking the stairs burns about 500 to 700 calories per hour of climbing
A 30 minute walk burns 100 to 200 calories. That’s the same or more than an hour of driving. And walking gives you health benefits that driving never will.
How can commuters burn more calories?
If you must drive, there are still ways to boost your daily calorie burn.
Park further away from your destination. An extra 5 minute walk each way adds up to 50 minutes of walking per week. That’s about 250 to 500 extra calories burned each week just from parking strategically.
Take breaks on long drives. Stop every hour or two and walk around for 10 minutes. Four 10 minute walks during an 8 hour road trip burns about 300 to 400 extra calories.
Stand or pace when stuck in traffic. Obviously only when you’re completely stopped, but getting out to stretch during a jam adds movement to your day.
Consider active commuting for part of your journey. Park at a station and cycle or walk the rest of the way. Mixing driving with active transport massively increases your calorie burn.
Fidget more while driving. Tapping your feet, shifting position, and moving around in your seat can burn small extra amounts. Research shows fidgeting can increase calorie burn by 20 to 30 percent compared to sitting completely still.
Why does NEAT matter more than driving calories?
Your resting metabolic rate burns 50 to 70 percent of your daily calories. This is just your body keeping itself alive. You can’t change this much.
The thermic effect of food burns about 10 percent. This is the energy needed to digest what you eat.
That leaves 30 to 40 percent for all your movement. And most of that should come from NEAT, not formal exercise.
Research published in 2023 tracked older adults over 7 to 10 years. For every 287 extra calories burned per day through physical activity, there was about a 30 percent lower chance of dying. That’s the power of daily movement.
The problem is that modern life pushes us toward less NEAT. Driving instead of walking, sitting at desks, and ordering delivery instead of cooking all reduce daily movement. Every hour you spend driving is an hour you’re not walking, standing, or doing anything more active.
One classic study found that when people reduced their body weight by just 10 percent, their NEAT dropped by almost 500 calories per day. The body fights weight loss by making you move less. You have to consciously push back against this by finding ways to move more.
How much should you move each day?
Research suggests aiming for 7,000 to 12,000 steps per day. A 30 minute walk gives you about 3,000 steps and burns 100 to 200 calories.
If you add one 30 minute walk every day for a month, you can lose about half a kilogram of fat. That’s without changing anything else. And it’s far more effective than hoping driving will burn enough calories to matter.
Standing more helps too. If you stand for 15 minutes every hour during an 8 hour workday, you burn about 130 extra calories compared to sitting the whole time. Over a year, that adds up to about 6 kilograms of potential fat loss.
FAQ
Can I count my commute as exercise?
No. Driving burns so few calories that it doesn’t count as physical activity. The World Health Organization recommends 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. Driving doesn’t qualify because your heart rate barely rises and your muscles do almost no work.
Does nervous driving burn more calories?
Slightly. Stress and anxiety do increase heart rate and burn some extra energy. But the difference is small and not worth the health problems that come with chronic stress. Anxious driving might burn an extra 10 to 20 calories per hour at most.
Will a steering wheel workout device help?
Those resistance bands attached to steering wheels can add some upper body exercise while stopped in traffic. But the amount of time you actually spend stopped is limited, and the resistance is usually too light to make much difference. You’re better off adding a proper walk to your day.
Does air conditioning affect calorie burn?
Technically yes. Your body burns extra calories to stay warm in cold environments and to cool down in hot ones. But the climate controlled environment of a car minimises this effect. You’d need to turn off the AC on a hot day to burn noticeably more calories, and that’s not worth the discomfort.
How does driving compare to other sedentary activities?
Driving burns slightly more than watching TV, which has a MET of about 1.0. Typing at a desk has a MET around 1.5. So driving at 2.0 is at the higher end of sedentary activities. But it’s still far below any actual physical activity.
Is it better to stand while driving?
You can’t stand while driving a normal car. But if you use a standing desk for work and then drive home, you’ve mixed in more activity. The goal is to reduce total sitting time across your whole day, not just during driving.
What if I drive for my job?
Professional drivers face real health challenges from sitting all day. Studies show truck drivers have high rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. If you drive for work, building extra movement into your day becomes even more important. Take every break as a chance to walk. Park far from stops. Do bodyweight exercises during loading times.
Should I get a fitness tracker to measure driving calories?
Fitness trackers often overestimate calorie burn during activities. A 2018 meta analysis found trackers overestimated energy expenditure by 28 to 93 percent depending on the brand. So the calories your watch says you burned while driving are probably inflated. Use trackers to count steps and encourage movement, not to justify eating more because your drive burned calories.
While driving burns minimal calories, understanding overall energy expenditure ties into career choices and lifestyle balance. For effective calorie burning, recovery matters too – learn if seven hours of sleep is enough to build muscle. To maximise your calorie burn through proper exercise, work with a personal trainer in Epping.
