I played Pokemon Go for a full day and didn’t even burn that many calories

Being a very girly girl, I had never given Pokemon a second glance as a child, dismissing it as inferior to my beloved Tamagotchis. But in July 2016, a revelation happened. My eyes were opened to the world of Pokemon Go.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or are edgy enough not to have Facebook, you will have noticed the obscene amount of chat around the new app ‘Pokemon Go’. Which, when you think about it, is ironic as the game itself is all about less chat and more action.

Essentially, you can’t play the game without walking around. Which is probably why, with 30 percent of America being classified as obese in 2014, they released it over there first. However, now the bad boy can be downloaded all over the UK and we can all get fit without even realising it. Win win for everyone.

The game basically forces you to walk around in order to enslave a race of tiny animals (formally known as Pokemon) and build up your points – you can also get extra goodies if you find a scenic landmark (although Nintendo’s idea of a scenic landmark is normally your local post office). This meant that everyday when I got back from work I grabbed my boyfriend to go for a romantic evening stroll to get some XP. The game is highly addicting, and before I knew it we had walked 5km around town, aimlessly wondering around flinging Poke Balls in every direction, and praying that the game didn’t crash when we arrived at the next Pokestop.

The biggest game changer in Pokemon Go is when you get an Egg. This is when shit gets real. An egg usually contains a rarer Pokemon character (unless it’s a shit egg), which you cannot hatch until you have run or walked two, five or 10km. For the first time in about two months I got off my lazy arse and ran four eggs. Which meant that despite formlessly staring at a computer all day at work, I still burnt just over 700 calories in a day from playing Pokemon Go.

While the time went quickly because I was so emotionally and physically involved in the game, the actual time/calorie ratio was not as good as I’d hoped. Evidently, walking doesn’t actually burn that many calories. So even though I’d walked a ridiculous amount of kilometres, and spent about two hours of my day walking around, my fitness levels and calorie loss had not been as much of a success as the game itself.

Also, being so busy trying to hit the Pokemon characters meant that I didn’t notice myself nearly being hit by a car multiple times, and I definitely tripped over more than average – but hopefully lifting myself back off the ground burnt off some extra kcals.

So even though it can be pretty embarrassing when you turn up to the same spot as a bunch of pre-pubescent teenage boys at your local park when you’re trying to take over the next gym, and you won’t end up looking like a fitness model, you’ll still burn more calories than you would sitting around watching Geordie Shore.

@katiecloughx