Men burn off more calories than women during sex: Quebec University study

WHEN it comes to having sex, who burns off the most calories - the man or woman? And is it better for you to just go for a jog instead? This study reveals all.

Men burn off more calories having sex than women but both would be better to go for a jog.

A SMALL published study has uncovered the answer to a big question - who burns the most calories during sex?

Researchers at the University of Quebec in Montreal tracked 21 heterosexual couples, aged 18 to 35, to find out.

The couples were armed with a fitness tracker, SenseWear, and had to undergo a 30-minute jog on a treadmill to give a baseline measure of their calorie expenditure, stated the study published online by PLOS ONE.

They were then sent home to have sex while wearing their sensors.

Sex sessions lasted about 25 minutes (with the shortest 10 minutes, longest almost an hour) and it was found that men expended more energy than women. On average, men burned 101 calories (4.2 calories a minute) when having sex, and women burned 69 calories (3.1 calories a minute).

The result showed that the sex was better for losing calories than taking a walk but the couples would have better going for a jog, where men burned 276 calories, or 9.2 per minute, while women shed 213 calories, or 7.1 every minute.

A separate study published earlier this year found that sex only burns 21 calories on average. David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, tested the "sexercise" theory - that sex can be exercise - but found that sex lasted only six minutes on average, burning a paltry 20 or so calories. The findings were published in February in New England Journal of Medicine.

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