Website for energy expenditure - Walking?

Clawsal
Clawsal Posts: 255 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
Does anyone know a website that calculates the calories burned from walking accurately?
using: weight / height / + distance & speed or distance & time
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Replies

  • Clawsal
    Clawsal Posts: 255 Member
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?
  • Clawsal
    Clawsal Posts: 255 Member
    edited January 2018
    Is map my walk (App) accurate?
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    edited January 2018
    Make sure your calorie counter is not giving you "gross" calorie counts but net ones instead. What I mean by this is your body is burning calories 24/7 that's known as your BMR (basal metabolic rate). Those calories are already accounted for in your activity level.

  • Clawsal
    Clawsal Posts: 255 Member
    TeaBea wrote: »
    Make sure your calorie counter is not giving you "gross" calorie counts but net ones instead. What I mean by this is your body is burning calories 24/7 that's known as your BMR (basal metabolic rate). Those calories are already accounted for in your activity level.

    Thank you for the info. I do not have a calorie counter for walking. I am looking for one.
  • hotel4dogs
    hotel4dogs Posts: 72 Member
    How about walking in chest deep water?
  • Clawsal
    Clawsal Posts: 255 Member
    hotel4dogs wrote: »
    How about walking in chest deep water?

    What?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?

    Not until you are walking really, really fast and then the efficiency ratio changes.
    Otherwise for "normal speed" walking calorie burn (energy) is down to mass moved over distance.

    Obviously terrain and elevation change things.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Is map my walk (App) accurate?

    Every time someone posts about MapMyWalk the calorie estimates given are very, very elevated.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 10,018 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?

    It is low because a) we are perfectly adapted to walking upright. It is our natural mode of motion. It doesn't make sense evolutionarily to spend tons of calories from walking on two legs. b) there's no jump element in walking compared to running, thus you're not overcoming gravity.

    And no, speed has very little influence on this. Distance and weight has. Think back to school physics: calculating the energy expenditure of rolling a cart; that is a function of distance and weight of the cart. Our own efficiency in this is given by the multiplyer 0.3
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited January 2018
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?

    Walking is very efficient in terms of energy return due to the pendulum motion of your legs and the elasticity of your muscles, tendons and ligaments. You actually burn slightly more going slowly at first since you aren't taking full advantage of those energy return systems and you burn substantially more if you remain walking when your body naturally wants to run .

    However, most apps etc overestimate the caloric burn. If you go by the formula given it will be accurate enough for you to log against. What's the difference to you if you are +/- 1% after all.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?

    Personally, at my weight and walking at an average pace, about 150 cals per hour is fair. I do walk faster than average, I'm generally about 4mph, but that's unusual.
  • Clawsal
    Clawsal Posts: 255 Member
    Thank you for the suggestions and the explanations!
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?

    Unless you're walking faster than 4 mph, speed is very nearly irrelevant.

    https://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning
    https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn
  • Kalex1975
    Kalex1975 Posts: 427 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Is map my walk (App) accurate?

    Every time someone posts about MapMyWalk the calorie estimates given are very, very elevated.

    I compared my MapMyWalk calorie counts with the various calculators people posted on this thread and it was pretty close to what they estimated. It is definitely not "very very elevated".
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Kalex1975 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Is map my walk (App) accurate?

    Every time someone posts about MapMyWalk the calorie estimates given are very, very elevated.

    I compared my MapMyWalk calorie counts with the various calculators people posted on this thread and it was pretty close to what they estimated. It is definitely not "very very elevated".


    Lucky you. I'll modify my advice to "often frequently elevated" then! :)
    I've seen numerous posts where the calories giving were hugely inflated, even hugely inflated for gross calories let alone net calories.
    A comparison against the standard walking formula makes a lot of sense.

    MapMyWalk for me was comically high, Runkeeper was high, Strava was reasonable but a little high.
  • Kalex1975
    Kalex1975 Posts: 427 Member
    Some more details... here are my MapMyWalk stats from yesterday...

    DISTANCE
    8.26mi

    STEPS
    15171

    DURATION
    2:01:50

    AVG PACE
    14:45

    KCAL
    1180

    Compared to the verywell charts... 8 miles (220lb, 15 min pace) is 1,000

    Compared to the Runner's World calculator = 1,374

    Compared to the ExRex.net calculator = 1,057 (0 grade)

    So I would say it's pretty close!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    This seems rather low (like 160 kcal for one hour of walking) and it doesn't take speed into account? Surely you burn more calories when walking faster?

    Nah, that formula is pretty accurate and comes from Runners World and is a net calculation...meaning they are taking into account the calories you would have expended otherwise just sitting around doing nothing. A lot of calculations give you a gross expenditure which would be exaggerated because you would have burned some of those calories anyway just sitting on the couch or whatever.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Kalex1975 wrote: »
    Some more details... here are my MapMyWalk stats from yesterday...

    DISTANCE
    8.26mi

    STEPS
    15171

    DURATION
    2:01:50

    AVG PACE
    14:45

    KCAL
    1180

    Compared to the verywell charts... 8 miles (220lb, 15 min pace) is 1,000

    Compared to the Runner's World calculator = 1,374

    Compared to the ExRex.net calculator = 1,057 (0 grade)

    So I would say it's pretty close!

    Walking is bodyweight in lbs x 0.3 x distance in miles

    220 x 0.3 x 8.26 = 545 calories.

    I wouldn't call that anywhere near close!
    The runnersworld calculator is for RUNNING not walking, running is twice the calorie burn per mile covered.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 10,018 Member
    so I gather you're 220lbs? Using the equation posted several times here, lbs * miles * 0.3 you'd only burn 545kcal, and not over 1000.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 10,018 Member
    Again, we're upright walkers. We're adapted to that and are not meant to burn a ton of calories when walking.
  • Kalex1975
    Kalex1975 Posts: 427 Member
    yirara wrote: »
    so I gather you're 220lbs? Using the equation posted several times here, lbs * miles * 0.3 you'd only burn 545kcal, and not over 1000.

    Yes, I guess I'm (and the ExRex calc/verwell charts) confusing net vs gross?

    This is pretty important to me. I started exercising a lot harder and wasn't eating back my calories. It lead me to some bad issues... headaches, moodiness, trouble sleeping, no sex drive. So, I just recently started to eat back about 50% of those exercise calories. I'm hoping I'm doing this correctly!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Net v gross becomes important for low rate of burn but long duration exercise - the extra 1 MET adds up.
    It gets lost in the general "noise" for high intensity but short duration exercise though.
  • Kalex1975
    Kalex1975 Posts: 427 Member
    OK, sorry for the multiple posts, now I'm more confused. That Runner's World article states...
    Lastly the calculations only apply to walkers doing an 18:36 pace and runners doing a 10:00 pace. Running faster or slower than 10:00 pace doesn’t make much difference in your calorie-burn per mile. (But has a major impact on your burn per minute.)

    Walking is a different kind of animal. Increases in walking speed dramatically raise calorie burn per mile as well as per minute. Indeed, at about 12:30 per mile, walking hits a point where it burns about the same calories/mile as running. Walk faster than 12:30 and you will burn more calories/mile than running at 10:00 pace.

    I thought the pace didn't matter so much? My pace above was 14:45 per mile - much faster than the 18:36 the article mentions. Is this why my calories are different than the standard formula?
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Kalex1975 wrote: »
    Some more details... here are my MapMyWalk stats from yesterday...

    DISTANCE
    8.26mi

    STEPS
    15171

    DURATION
    2:01:50

    AVG PACE
    14:45

    KCAL
    1180

    Compared to the verywell charts... 8 miles (220lb, 15 min pace) is 1,000

    Compared to the Runner's World calculator = 1,374

    Compared to the ExRex.net calculator = 1,057 (0 grade)

    So I would say it's pretty close!

    I ran the runners world calculation from

    https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn

    Manually and got 540 and 960. So it's somewhere between moderately high and way too high.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Kalex1975 wrote: »
    OK, sorry for the multiple posts, now I'm more confused. That Runner's World article states...
    Lastly the calculations only apply to walkers doing an 18:36 pace and runners doing a 10:00 pace. Running faster or slower than 10:00 pace doesn’t make much difference in your calorie-burn per mile. (But has a major impact on your burn per minute.)

    Walking is a different kind of animal. Increases in walking speed dramatically raise calorie burn per mile as well as per minute. Indeed, at about 12:30 per mile, walking hits a point where it burns about the same calories/mile as running. Walk faster than 12:30 and you will burn more calories/mile than running at 10:00 pace.

    I thought the pace didn't matter so much? My pace above was 14:45 per mile - much faster than the 18:36 the article mentions. Is this why my calories are different than the standard formula?

    14:45 is where things can get fuzzy because for many people 14:45 is a slow run, and the calculators start assuming run and that's where it gets screwy.

    Use the .53/.3 Gross/net * mileage. At 14:45 you're possibly/probably burning more than that, but it's better to leave those calories on the table/cutting room floor.

    Pace matters a little bit when you get past 4 MPH. How much isn't clear. Take the 600ish net calories as your baseline for refeeding/fueling your training. The rest are a bonus. It may be 400 or it may be 800 bonus. Don't sweat them.
  • Kalex1975
    Kalex1975 Posts: 427 Member
    @stanmann571 thank you! That makes sense. I will use the formula from now on and will shoot for eating back most of those calories. I think I was close to that anyways since I was only eating back about 50%.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Kalex1975 wrote: »
    @stanmann571 thank you! That makes sense. I will use the formula from now on and will shoot for eating back most of those calories. I think I was close to that anyways since I was only eating back about 50%.

    That's one of the reasons why the 50% number is so popular.

    I also walk very briskly... even for short distances crossing into the 5 mph range. My garmin normally dumps out within 10% of the Net calculation. When I dump the run into strava, It bumps the calories up by as much as 70%.

    I did 7.6 miles run/walk Saturday for just under 2 hours. Garmin gave me 900ish. Strava gave me almost 1800. The last time I used runkeeper it was 25% again higher than strava.
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