Want to Lose Weight? Ditch the Treadmill, Grab a Horror Movie

How many calories does watching 'The Exorcist' burn?

Watching a Horror Movie Burns Calories?

Get a load of a new scientific study that finds that watching a horror movie can burn more calories than a half hour of walking.

Take that, regular exercise. This is science talking.

Last night I forced myself to get on the treadmill after taking a few days (or so ... more like a week) off from walking.

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After a half hour of speed walking (I'm by no stretch a runner), I promptly finished my workout and immediately felt like throwing up.

I was so ill I lay down on my bed and fell asleep.

It sounds like exercise and I don't get along too well, and that's precisely why this new report about burning calories while watching movies has grabbed my attention.

The only problem? I don't like horror movies.Talk about a conundrum.

Well, there is one other problem, despite the promise of ditching a workout and plunking down on the couch for a movie -- there's no actual physical activity involved.

Still, look at the results of the study conducted by scientists at the University of Westminster, who monitored subjects while they watched horror movies.

They looked at the changes in oxygen intake, carbon dioxide output and heart rate and determined the amount of energy each subject used.

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According to The Daily Mail, the participants burned, on average, 113 calories during 90 minutes of watching a movie.

Scarier movies resulted in more calories burned, because the heart rate was elevated even more: The Shining burned 184 calories, while Jaws burned 161 and The Exorcist came in at 158.

Of course, I wouldn't ditch the treadmill or a regular exercise program just yet. The study was only conducted on 10 people ... plus, watching scary movies is obviously not a good substitute for a good old-fashioned workout.