: How many calories are burnt per hour sitting on an exercise ball? How many calories are burnt per hour sitting on an exercise ball? I have seen a number of 350 calories extra per day being tossed around on internet with

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According to this paper, about 4.1 kcal per hour above what you would have burned sitting in an office chair.

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Sitting on a therapy ball or
standing may be a passive means of
increasing energy expenditure
throughout the workday. The purpose of
this study was to determine the energy
expenditure and liking of performing
clerical work in various postures.
Subjects included 24 men and women
employed in sedentary clerical
occupations. Energy expenditure was
measured while word processing in
three standardized postures; sitting
in an office chair, sitting on a
therapy ball, and standing. Adults
ranked their comfort, fatigue, and
liking of each posture and were asked
to perform their choice of 20 min of
additional clerical work in one of the
postures. Energy expenditure was 4.1
kcal/h greater (p on a therapy ball and standing than
while sitting in an office chair.
There was no difference in energy
expenditure between the therapy ball
and standing postures (p >or= 0.48).
Subjects also liked sitting on a
therapy ball as much as sitting in an
office chair and liked sitting on a
therapy ball more than standing.

Compare to walking fast, which can consume about 5.0 kcal per minute.

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I did some small, very unscientific testing myself. I sat on a chair and ball for 2x30 minutes and averaged the heart rate and kcal/5 min. The bump at the beginning was caused by me drinking coffee. As you can see the heart rates are very similar and the difference in kcal is pretty negligible too.

On average I burn about 1-1.1 kcal / minute, which is pretty low given that my 2hr run yesterday burned an average of 12 kcal/minute.

So while your mileage may vary, I'd probably burn somewhere between 60 and 90 kcal/hour regardless on what I'm sitting. To get 45 kcal more, you'd probably need to be in some very unbalanced position.