Calories burned while walking on the treadmill

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jeby8
jeby8 Posts: 41 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been walking on my treadmill while working (not to lose weight, but because I can't stand to sit all day long) and I usually wear my heart rate monitor and strap to calculate my steps/HR/cals burned. There are days when I walk up to 4 hrs and my watch says I burn 1000+ calories. I'm just not sure if I believe that. Is that even accurate? I mean, I'm not really accounting for it for weight loss, although my worry is that if I really am burning that many calories, and I'm not appropriately eating the right amount of cals -- will my body go into starvation mode and prohibit weight loss?

I don't expect to lose that much weight by the walking but I guess I'd like to know if I should even pay attention to the calories on the watch? Thanks in advance!

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  • BerryH
    BerryH Posts: 4,698 Member
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    Walking while working is a brilliant way to keep fit and stave off the bad effects us office workers suffer from a sedentary life, well done, wish I could do it!

    There are a couple of factors to bear in mind:

    During long, gentle exercise, you need to take into account that even if you were sitting still you'd be burning a significant proportion of those calories. For instance. my BMR for 24 hours is 1523, so I'd be burning 254 calories in four hours even asleep, and somewhat more being at work. So whereas it wouldn't make so much difference if I was running fast for half an hour and burning 300 calories, it's a bigger proportion for a long, slow walk.

    Secondly, HRMs are calibrated for heart-rate elevated by steady state cardio. While walking qualifies, it might be less accurate at a slower pace. Compare the burn with what MFP gives you for walking at that pace to see if it's giving you a sensible burn.

    Finally, if I were in your situation, I'd take your work-walking into account via setting my activity level to "active"and not counting it separately.

    Hope that helps! :flowerforyou:
  • weird_me2
    weird_me2 Posts: 716 Member
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    1000 calories in 4 hours isn't very high at all. Like PP said, you'd be burning calories during this time anyway, so if you are planning to eat them back, then you would want to discount part of the calories burned due to this, but you are still getting a pretty good burn.

    if you are walking at a speed 2 mph or higher, use an online walking calculator (like MFP or caloriesperhour.com). Walking calories burned calculators are actually pretty accurate based on weight since walking has probably been the most studied form of exercise.

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