Burn calories doing nothing! Lose weight while you sleep! No, you haven’t tuned in to a late-night infomercial. This dream is a reality. Here’s the trick: Exercise vigorously in the morning, and you’ll burn more calories than usual for the rest of the day and then some. That’s what happened to a group of average Joes (not trained athletes) in a new study. They alternated resting one day with cycling vigorously for 45 minutes the next. The intense exercise boosted their resting metabolism so much that they burned almost 200 more calories than normal during the next 14 hours — even while they slept. That’s a 37 percent bonus on top of the calories they’d pedaled off.
It’s as if you get the calorie blast of working out one-third longer when all you’re actually doing is watching “American Idol.” Sweet.
