The 7 Best Ways to Cut Empty Calories

When you’re trying to slim down or get healthy, cutting empty calories are the easiest way to give your efforts a jump start.

By empty calories, we mean soda, desserts, doughnuts, chips—stuff that you eat and drink that delivers calories with little long-term satisfaction and precious few nutrients. To pare them down, you don’t need to start cooking every meal from scratch (although that’s not a bad idea. See what happened when our fitness director tried it). But you do want your food to be filled with something other than calories. Like hunger-busting and health-boosting fiber, or muscle-friendly protein. And lots and lots of micronutrients that come from plants that your body runs on.

How Many Calories Does an Orgasm Burn?

Having an orgasm is a powerful, full-body experience. Your muscles contract, your breath quickens, and you might even break a sweat.

Which is why you may have wondered at one point or another: How many calories does an orgasm burn? Your heart's pumping like you're running a marathon and you're clenching your core like you're busting out an ab workout, so it's got to be something, right?

Determined to figure it out, I put on my Sherlock Holmes cap and reached out to Dr. Uchenna Ossai, a pelvic health physical therapist and sex educator for LifeStyles Condoms. Here's what she had to say.

These 3 Winter Sports Will Help You Burn Calories in the Cold

For most people, dropping temperatures and falling snow are a signal to start the winter hibernation. But if you're looking to stay in shape all year 'round — and avoid developing a rotund, bear-like shape during the colder months — you should try to get outside to sweat in the snow.

Since the white stuff makes it tougher to do all your favorite summer activities, you're going to have to find some new seasonally appropriate workouts. You wouldn't walk outside in shorts in 20 degree weather, so it doesn't make sense to try to exercise the same way you did when the thermostat was pushing higher temps. That takes (most) water-centric sports out of the running — now, the key is to find ways to make the most out of all that snow on the ground.

How Many Calories Do You Burn During Sex?

BY AMY RUSHLOW,

Ever wonder what kind of workout you get between the sheets? Thanks to new research from the University of Montreal, we have the precise answer: Men burn 100 calories in the average sex session, while women expend 69. (Yes, 69.)

The typical romp lasts 25 minutes from the start of foreplay to the end, but that’s just an average—the times varied widely in the study, and ranged between 10 and 57 minutes. The longer the session, the more calories burned.