Does walking count as exercise!

JoRumbles

I always walk like I'm late for something and I'm red a out of breath when i finish. Its more power walking relly/

CyberEd312

Yes walking counts as exercise.... at 560 lbs. and unable to stand for more than 30 seconds at a stretch the doctors put me in the therapy pool at our local YMCA/Wellness center and used water displacement to allow me to stand to exercise. I spent the next 16 months in the therapy pool walking from one side to the other and lost 170 lbs. doing this... as I lost I moved more and more to the shallow end of the pool taking on more of my body weight til I was at the point I could get out of the pool was fitted for braces and continued to walk to this day..... Its common sense that eating in a deficit will promote weight loss, that is a no brainer but the OP ask if walking can be counted as exercise and the straight forward answer to that is Yes...... Best of Luck Op...... :drinker:

Fozzi43

Yep.

Lindabrummett

Some of these calorie estimates are way off the mark if all you're doing is casual walking. Intense power walking perhaps but definitely wrong estimates for your casual walking speed.

Curious where you all got your degree in superior calorie burning knowledge.

Bravo!

mrshoneydew

My 60+ pounds loss is proof that walking is most certainly exercise and with a good diet, definitely assists with weight loss.

If you walk for an hour at an average of 3 mph, that's about 225 calories burned!
I've gotten to the point where I will walk about 4-5 miles at a time at 4.0 mph and I do this a few times a week.

Sezmo83

I count my 2 hour walks with the dog as exercise. It's not a slow amble around the park, it's a brisk walk through woods and fields and there are small hills I have to go up and down. If I walk to the shops I count that too as again it's at a brisk pace. I don't count wandering around the shops, taking the dog around the block for a pee or anything like that though.

atsteele

if you are unfit then yes. personally if my heart rate is below 150 i don't count it as exercise. while walking my heart rate is usually 90-100. that's too low for me to count.

Well this is one big steaming load of whoopdeewhoo. Last week I rode my bike 80 miles, 17+MPH, and rarely hit 150BPM. I suppose that's a few thousand calories I shouldn't count? NOT!!!

About 8 years ago I walked. And walked, and walked, then walked some more. It was my first form of structured exercise. I started losing fat like it was nobody's business. As my walking improved, and my fitness improved, and my health improved, I just kept getting faster and stronger and healthier. Next thing I knew, I was doing triathlons, and marathons.

I don't log walking much anymore, as it's usually something I do for fun, with my kids or my doggie or my beautiful blushing bride. For me, to log it, it needs to be something I've successfully planned and executed as a workout. And walking rarely falls into that category anymore.

But I used to do it every single day. And I loved it.

I agree. The MFP/HRM/online calculations of calories burned per exercise are merely estimates based upon age, sex and body weight. No one starts out their fitness journey burning calories like an elite athlete. Use these resources to your benefit. If you are not losing weight, adjust your exercise calories burned to a lower number and see if that helps. Or reduce the number of calories you are ingesting. Or both. If you are losing weight, you must be doing something right. Keep doing whatever that is.

avababy05

My calorie burn for 80 minutes walking 3..5 miles an hour including uphills is about 420.

I don't care what the "experts" on here have to say either.

Walking helps me lose weight no matter what anybody wants to call it.

beyondjupiter

Walking is exercise, yard work is exercise, sex is exercise.....anything that gets your blood pumping...exercise.

sex is exercise:noway: ...so all those DVD's I have are exercise DVD's. Sweet. :P

I think they meant sex with someone else. It is probably negligible when your hand is your mistress

beyondjupiter

NO! Walking is not exercise. Neither is running, weightlifting, squats, pushups, calisthenics, pilates, smilaties, deep breathing,CPR, reciting haiku, or disco dancing.

Oh no!!!

I love disco dancing :sad:

SteveJWatson

I walk around a lot for my job (farmer) and if it burned as many calories as some people on here are saying then by rights I should have dropped dead from exhaustion by now.

phjorg1

Then please explain how someone (me) who has walked 178 miles in the last 4 weeks, who burns an average (mode) of 7.5 kcal/minute while walking (1.5 kcal/min lying down, I'm rarely sitting or standing still), who has eaten back 35,070 exercise calories in the last 4 weeks, who has a target deficit of 1,125 kcal/day, has lost 9.8 pounds in the last 4 weeks.

Easy. your BMR is higher than you think it is.

savithny

A lot of estimates (whether HRM or just online calculators) are inflated. But not necessarily so much overflated that walking "doesn't count as exercise." It absolutely counts.

My pedometer and the online calculators at MFP, Mayo clinic, CDC etc all agree that 30 minutes of fast walking (>3.5mph) burns 150-180 calories for someone my height/weight/gender, and that doesn't take into account the steep hill for the last 10 minutes of my walk.

Interestingly enough, if you take all the walking I do to avoid being "sedentary" and add it to the "Sedentary" TDEE calculations I did? It comes pretty damn close to the "Lightly active" TDEE that I"m doing the activity to attain.

Using the Level of Percieved Exertion test, I'm walking fast enough that my heartrate is elevated, I'm getting sweat started around my hairline (at 50degreesF), and I'm breathing a bit faster and heavier. Exercise research says that LPE is actually a better test of being at the "right level" of exertion than HRMs, so I'm pretty sure that my walking is "exercise."

phjorg1

I also have to disagree with some of his logic, mainly because I would assume an elite athlete burns less in an hour of exercise than an out of shape person, based on my own experiences getting more and more fit and now struggling to burn as many calories in exercise.

Yes and no. the energy required to do x amount of exercise at Y amount of weight will be not too different regardless of your fitness level. This is where heart rate monitors fall flat. It's an estimation of calories burned based upon Z amount of O2 per beat. Problem is, the more trained you are, the more O2 per beat you get. thus lower heartrate, even though calorie burn is the same.

Granted there are some things that can fluctuate this so it's not a direct corolation. an elite athlete will have better technique and strength. so even at same work they will burn less calories. I will grant this. But the difference I would assume to be rather overstated. The key is they make it up by having more top end output. Their average run is faster than a lot of peoples on here full out sprint.

Point still remains, I have yet to see anyone tested at more than 16cal/min going full out cardio. Beginner or otherwise. Trying to claim similar burns from walking, regardless of your shape is laughable. If you're losing weight, then grats, keep at it. But don't assume you're the burning machine you think you are.

Mock_Turtle

while I agree that it's pretty LOL people are logging calorie burn rates that are higher than TDF cyclists, you have to acknowledge that the average TDF rider is what 155 lbs? A 205 athlete (not sure - mma or hockey?) will probably exceed your 16 cal/min upper limit

watfordjc

Then please explain how someone (me) who has walked 178 miles in the last 4 weeks, who burns an average (mode) of 7.5 kcal/minute while walking (1.5 kcal/min lying down, I'm rarely sitting or standing still), who has eaten back 35,070 exercise calories in the last 4 weeks, who has a target deficit of 1,125 kcal/day, has lost 9.8 pounds in the last 4 weeks.

Easy. your BMR is higher than you think it is.

Then please explain how the 3 weeks I was in bed with the flu I also lost the amount I expected.

watfordjc

I walk around a lot for my job (farmer) and if it burned as many calories as some people on here are saying then by rights I should have dropped dead from exhaustion by now.

If you are not 5' 6", sedentary, 205.2 lb, and have a RHR of 47 bpm, your stride length, activity level, weight and/or fitness level are probably different to mine and your "exercise calories from walking for 30 minutes minus calories from normal daily activity for 30 minutes" will probably be different. My exercise calories subtract me lying on my bed, yours subtract you moving about - even if we were twins with the exact same weight, body composition, and metabolism, our exercise calories would be different because our daily activity level is different (and most calculators do not take activity level into account when estimating calorie burns from an activity, which is why some of them are widely off).

My most recent long walk: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/312103154
Same walk, two weeks earlier, different pit stops, slower speed, opposite direction (and inclines/declines), police diversion due to traffic accident and finishing in Hyde Park instead of Marble Arch Station (bit more distance), different time spent crossing roads, different body weight, and different weight in my backpack (and different fluid consumption making backpack change weight at different pace): http://connect.garmin.com/activity/306280971

There are many more factors than just sex, weight, speed and time/distance to estimate calories burned from walking, but they are OK for a rough estimate. Quite a few people seem to have fallen into the trap of believing that everyone burns the same calories doing the same activities - IIRC if you were to increase your weight by 100% you will burn around 100% more calories doing the same activity (something "exercise equivalent food labels" completely ignore).

phjorg1

while I agree that it's pretty LOL people are logging calorie burn rates that are higher than TDF cyclists, you have to acknowledge that the average TDF rider is what 155 lbs? A 205 athlete (not sure - mma or hockey?) will probably exceed your 16 cal/min upper limit

Bit more than that maybe? I don't know the average weight, but I know Lance competed at 160-170lbs. And very probable you're correct. But then being that heavy and not trained specifically for cardio, they won't be able to exercise at near the intensity of those trained for it. So their calorie burn will be lower in that regards. Thats the part that people don't seem to realize. So it could also be a wash. More calories burned per step, but less steps per time.

And again, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm fairly certain it is. I'm just saying I have yet to see it in regards to tested is all. Take a big guy in good shape and bust him up for an hour going all out, ya sure I bet you could get over that. And I'm using tour de france riders as a upper level baseline of what humans can calorie burn. Thats my point. If you know a tour de france rider going at their top end intensity is burning 16cal/min give or take, how can you think you're burning similar numbers at a fraction of that intensity? Thats all I'm trying to say.

pcastagner

I also have to disagree with some of his logic, mainly because I would assume an elite athlete burns less in an hour of exercise than an out of shape person, based on my own experiences getting more and more fit and now struggling to burn as many calories in exercise.

Yes and no. the energy required to do x amount of exercise at Y amount of weight will be not too different regardless of your fitness level. This is where heart rate monitors fall flat. It's an estimation of calories burned based upon Z amount of O2 per beat. Problem is, the more trained you are, the more O2 per beat you get. thus lower heartrate, even though calorie burn is the same.

Granted there are some things that can fluctuate this so it's not a direct corolation. an elite athlete will have better technique and strength. so even at same work they will burn less calories. I will grant this. But the difference I would assume to be rather overstated. The key is they make it up by having more top end output. Their average run is faster than a lot of peoples on here full out sprint.

Point still remains, I have yet to see anyone tested at more than 16cal/min going full out cardio. Beginner or otherwise. Trying to claim similar burns from walking, regardless of your shape is laughable. If you're losing weight, then grats, keep at it. But don't assume you're the burning machine you think you are.

Meh, Idk man, my heart rate monitor seems to be adjusting nicely to my changing fitness.

Today I went looking for mushrooms which involved an 8.5 hour bike ride/walk. Total burned, 2586. On low intensity exercise I subtract 90 cals per hour (my bmr divided by 24). So 1820 in 8.5 hours. Before I started jump rope and bike riding on these hills, I was getting much higher heart rates, and much higher burns per hour. Changing to an exercise I'm not as good at seems to give me higher burns, which is consistent with what we know about specificity resulting in more efficient movement when performing an athletic activity. Nt changing my activities gets me lower numbers on the hrm, and also slower fat loss.

So it actually makes a lot of sense for someone out of shape to burn more than an elite athlete. It actually is conceivable for someone very out of shape and overweight to exert a lot while walking. Maybe even 900 cals in two hours, now that I think about it.