Walking uphill - a more accurate method for calculating calo

bio_fit

Hi all,

My daily walk to walk involves walking down, then walking back up, a reasonably sized hill. It definitely gets my heart pumping and my calves burning on the way up...

However, on MFP the 'walking uphill' option only has the option of doing this at a 'brisk pace' - i'm sure I don't walk that fast uphill :laugh: Besides, surely it isn't the TIME you take walking uphill, surely it's a function of the heigh climbed vs. distance?

So, this evening I set out to figure this out as best I can. First, I signed up to mapmywalk (free account) and drew in my route. It tells me that the total journey (there and back) is a total of 1.75 miles with a gain of 223ft, with part of the return journey showing a climb of 200ft over 0.67 miles.

Anyway - how does this translate to calories burned? I found this calculator: http://hikingscience.blogspot.com/p/calculate-calories-burned_22.html where you plug in the round trip distance (it assumes half of the journey is going down and the other half back up, or vice versa) and the total gain in elevation. Both of which are calculated by mapmywalk. In my case, 1.7 miles and 223ft gain. Add my weight, backpack weight (if required) and calculate! It then gives you average number of calories burned when walking uphill, and average number walking downhill. So it looks like I have been underestimating my daily workout by at least 50-70 calories per day, as I have just been using the '3mph walking' option to try and encompass the uphill vs. downhill portions.

It is by no means a perfect method, as acknowledged in the Q&A of the calculator site, but I believe it gives a far better indication than 'number of minutes'

Hope that helps someone :happy:

bio_fit

Bump! I'm sure I'm not the only person who walks up hills :bigsmile:

Terasome

I'm a little unsure of the calories burned on mapmywalk now. It has been telling me for 4 days now that I have burned 113 calories walking no matter where I have walked or what else I have done.I have been wearing a pedometer which also tells me calories burned and tonight it was way off what mapmy walk estimated. My pedometer has told me I burned 185.6 as opposed to 113. Half of my walk was up a very steep hill.

bio_fit

I didn't actually realise you could calculate calories on mapmywalk! I just took all the elevation and distance data and put into a different calculator, link is in my post.

leilaphoenix

Get a HRM to be more accurate

bio_fit

Well yes, of course, I'm not claiming this is the most accurate method out there. But I don't have a HRM and am unlikely to buy one, so I rely on free calculators. As I am sure there are others in my position, I thought I'd point people in the direction of a free method which is more accurate than the MFP 'standard'