Does walking count as exercise!

I walk each morning with my dog and carry a large (20kg) pack. At the end of the walk, I am hot and sweaty and have no doubt that I have burned a good number of calories. I use MapMyHike and it tells me I have burned over 500 calories in what is a 40 minute walk over flat ground.

My wife and I went for a 6 hour cycle the other day along a river and over some lovely hills in the UK. Again, according to MyMapRide it suggested we burned over 6000 calories.

Unfortunately, I don't believe these stats.

If Tour de France riders burn 3500 to 4500 calories per stage, then frankly there is no way that my little pootle with my wife on our bikes go anyway near 6k calories. Yes, they are fitter, but even so I have driven parts of their routes and my goodness me...

That said, ordinary mortals like me only have tools like MapMyX to go by and also a (sturdy) pair of bathroom scales.

I am continuing to lose weight, so there is a calorie intake deficit which is having an impact.

While this is happening, I am content.

I am not that fussed about working out exactly how many calories i am actually burning (and I suspect it is a far more complex exercise than the mobile apps are capable of) or even how many calories I am consuming. To use a popular (and apposite) phrase we employ in the UK, 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'.

Not having entirely accurate information is not really a problem because the ultimate goal - a slimmer me - is moving forward.

I walked over 37km today. It counts.

Yes, it does count as exercise, although I believe that is shouldn't be your only exercise - but combined with strength and some cardio work it's a great way to burn some extra calories.

Oh, and before some smart *kitten* comes back with their dismissive comments (yes, I DO mean you!), I've used an HRM in the past to work out my burns AND eaten ALL the calories I burned. I now use my pedometer or Endomondo to record my walking, and so far this year I've walked 655 miles. I've also eaten every last calorie that I've earned doing that AND I'm still losing, so *blows raspberry* to you!

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

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.

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:

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!

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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.

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

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.

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."

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

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).

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.