The benefit of walking

prayinglifefan
prayinglifefan Posts: 3
in Fitness and Exercise
I just started adding a daily walk of approximately 2 miles of brisk walking so that I could increase my calorie allowance. Surprisingly, I've experienced an:smile: unintended benefit of more energy throughout the day it has been wonderful.
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Replies

  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
    Walking is highly under-rated as exercise but it's something you can do every day (no need for rest or recovery days, we evolved to be able to walk long distance on a regular basis) but I might suggest a bit of caution in calculating the additional calories you consume,

    Runners World suggest the following formula for estimating the net calories burned walking (additional calories burned attributable solely to the exercise)

    .30 x your body weight in lbs x distance in miles

    For me that means about 120 net cal burned for a 2 mile walk.

    But it definitely gives you a mental boost.....keep up the good work.
  • trudijoy
    trudijoy Posts: 1,685 Member
    walking is my main exercise. I rate it highly.
  • Jacson53
    Jacson53 Posts: 62 Member
    Great way to meet and motivate neighbors! :smile:
    And it is Free!!!

    Unless you use a treadmill at a gym.
    Spend lots of money on
    shoes
    socks
    orthotics
    band aids
    iTunes
    Apple Shuffles
    Sunglasses
    Hats
    Clothes
    ( that has been my experience, lol)
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    Walking is highly under-rated as exercise but it's something you can do every day (no need for rest or recovery days, we evolved to be able to walk long distance on a regular basis) but I might suggest a bit of caution in calculating the additional calories you consume,

    Runners World suggest the following formula for estimating the net calories burned walking (additional calories burned attributable solely to the exercise)

    .30 x your body weight in lbs x distance in miles

    For me that means about 120 net cal burned for a 2 mile walk.

    But it definitely gives you a mental boost.....keep up the good work.

    This Runners World article says .57. (I like it better!)

    http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn

    Walking is terrific. Pick up a Fitbit and make it even more fun. And some dogs!
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
    Sadly, they sometimes contradict themselves........ the .57 is gross calorie burn.

    http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning?page=single
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    This Runners World article says .57. (I like it better!)

    It's 0.57 for gross calories, 0.3 for net calories.

    For low intensity exercising like walking, you want net calories if you're eating them back.
  • ilove2boogie
    ilove2boogie Posts: 6 Member
    The calculators I use to find the calorie burn walking all depend on the speed as well as your weight... (also inclination, but unless I'm climbing a cliff I generally ignore that..) I've mapped out some of my most frequent routes on
    http://www.walkjogrun.net/
    to get the distances, and then I time how long I've been out and get the average speed from that. Then I can type e.g. 50 mins @ 3.5mph into an online calculator with my weight (or use the one on here), to get the calories. It's the too-cheap-to-buy-any-gadgets-atm method :)
  • Kevalicious99
    Kevalicious99 Posts: 1,131 Member
    I just did a 30 min walk (20 city blocks) but I have no idea on the distance. What is a good number of calories ? My HRM shows 331 calories burned.

    Any advice would be helpful. I am 48 Male .. and 183 lbs.
  • ktsimons
    ktsimons Posts: 294 Member
    I love walking and have kept my weight loss off for nearly a year walking 3 x a week and doing a fitness class 2 x a week. I agree, I am always in a better mood at the end of a walk then at the beginning!
  • tigerblue
    tigerblue Posts: 1,526 Member
    This Runners World article says .57. (I like it better!)

    It's 0.57 for gross calories, 0.3 for net calories.

    For low intensity exercising like walking, you want net calories if you're eating them back.

    Okay this is depressing! That gives me 73 calories for a 2 mile 30 minute walk. That is just not much!! Yet abother example of how much harder it is when you are small!

    Also, this explains how I re gained 10 lbs--I was figuring around 125 calories. I cant imagine what the formula would be for running. The difference will even be greater!

    Exactly why I am going with TDEE instead of net calories now!
  • quiltchickie
    quiltchickie Posts: 50 Member
    I am guessing the level of intensity of walking makes a difference. I wear a HRM and in 50 minutes while walking on an incline on my treadmill pretty much as fast as one can walk I can burn 500 calories (I am 42 and weigh about 172). Just picked some great (fast) music for my iPodand off I go.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    I am guessing the level of intensity of walking makes a difference. I wear a HRM and in 50 minutes while walking on an incline on my treadmill pretty much as fast as one can walk I can burn 500 calories (I am 42 and weigh about 172). Just picked some great (fast) music for my iPodand off I go.
    That's gross calories, you need to subtract your BMR from that. Also, are you hlding onto the treadmill? If you are you're basically cutting that calorie burn in half.
  • quiltchickie
    quiltchickie Posts: 50 Member
    I am guessing the level of intensity of walking makes a difference. I wear a HRM and in 50 minutes while walking on an incline on my treadmill pretty much as fast as one can walk I can burn 500 calories (I am 42 and weigh about 172). Just picked some great (fast) music for my iPodand off I go.
    That's gross calories, you need to subtract your BMR from that. Also, are you hlding onto the treadmill? If you are you're basically cutting that calorie burn in half.
    Dumb question byt if my heart rate is accurately taken via HRM how can I be burning less calories than what it says I am (when I setit up I had to enter all of my information into the program) and also I know I could burn more if I didn`t hold on during the really intense parts for fear of falling but isn`t the elevated HR all that matters?
  • eileen0515
    eileen0515 Posts: 408 Member
    My fitbit gives me around 400 calories for 6 miles and 67 flights of stairs (I live in the mountains)
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    Dumb question byt if my heart rate is accurately taken via HRM how can I be burning less calories than what it says I am...

    Turn the question around - why do you think your heart rate should be an indicator of how many calories you are burning?
  • Ideabaker
    Ideabaker Posts: 531 Member
    Bump for more replies to the HRM question... if the HRM is strapped to your chest, monitoring how fast your heart is beating for your weight, height, age and gender, wouldn't it be the most accurate estimate of caloric burn available to the average person?

    My HRM shows different caloric burns depending on how fast and far I'm walking as well as the amount of hills (intensity) I encounter.
  • aprilslusher
    aprilslusher Posts: 127 Member
    For those using your HRM when walking/jogging, use those calories it shows that you burned. I have used mine and I have lost right at 47lbs. I'm 29 and 5'3 (Starting weight 167.4 lbs and my current weight is 120.6lbs) Your HRM, with a chest strap is set up to your height, weight, age and gender.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    Net calories burned walking = 0.3 * body weight in pounds * miles walked

    Heart rate has nothing to do with it, and for most people, most of the time, will significantly over-estimate.
  • quiltchickie
    quiltchickie Posts: 50 Member
    For those using your HRM when walking/jogging, use those calories it shows that you burned. I have used mine and I have lost right at 47lbs. I'm 29 and 5'3 (Starting weight 167.4 lbs and my current weight is 120.6lbs) Your HRM, with a chest strap is set up to your height, weight, age and gender.

    Thanks for confirming this. It does make me feel better. :)
  • quiltchickie
    quiltchickie Posts: 50 Member
    Net calories burned walking = 0.3 * body weight in pounds * miles walked

    Heart rate has nothing to do with it, and for most people, most of the time, will significantly over-estimate.

    How can you expect to burn the same calories walking the same distance, if one day you take a leisurely walk and the other you "speed walk" with hand weights, even if it's the same distance. This just doesn't make sense to me. Obviously if I pick up speed, walk up hill and not flat ground, or even climb a mountain I would sweat my rear off and raise my heart rate by using more muscle and burn more calories than strolling around the boardwalk shopping for a few hours.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    Obviously if I pick up speed...
    There's nothing "obviously" about it - changing walking speed makes very little difference.

    Running does...but running is not walking.
    ...walk up hill and not flat ground...
    Going up and down hills changes the distance travelled, and therefore increases the calories burned.
    ...or even climb a mountain...
    "Climb a mountain" does not fit with the general usage of "going for a walk".

    The universe doesn't care how "hard" you work. It only cares how much mass you're moving, how far.
  • quiltchickie
    quiltchickie Posts: 50 Member
    Obviously if I pick up speed...
    There's nothing "obviously" about it - changing walking speed makes very little difference.

    Running does...but running is not walking.
    ...walk up hill and not flat ground...
    Going up and down hills changes the distance travelled, and therefore increases the calories burned.
    ...or even climb a mountain...
    "Climb a mountain" does not fit with the general usage of "going for a walk".

    The universe doesn't care how "hard" you work. It only cares how much mass you're moving, how far.

    So I might as well just take a leisurely stroll instead of a brisk walk that causes my shirt to be soaking wet from sweat if it doesn't matter how hard I work as long as I go the same distance, right? Not trying to be smart here, just curious.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    Net calories burned walking = 0.3 * body weight in pounds * miles walked

    Heart rate has nothing to do with it, and for most people, most of the time, will significantly over-estimate.

    How can you expect to burn the same calories walking the same distance, if one day you take a leisurely walk and the other you "speed walk" with hand weights, even if it's the same distance. This just doesn't make sense to me. Obviously if I pick up speed, walk up hill and not flat ground, or even climb a mountain I would sweat my rear off and raise my heart rate by using more muscle and burn more calories than strolling around the boardwalk shopping for a few hours.
    1. Hand weights would change the weight part of the equation.

    The 0.3 part of the equation pertains to the effort involved, aka speed. The part that people leave out is that speed makes a difference. Moving x weight y distance in z time is the whole formula.

    You will always burn about the same amount of calories to walk 1 mile. The difference is how long it takes to walk that mile. If I walk one mile in 20 minutes, and then walk 2 miles in 20 minutes the next time, the second walk burns more calories, because the distance traveled was greater, even though the time was the same. If I walked 1 mile in 20 minutes, but later walked 1 mile in 15 minutes, the calorie burn would be exactly the same, it would just take less time to burn them.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    Obviously if I pick up speed...
    There's nothing "obviously" about it - changing walking speed makes very little difference.

    Running does...but running is not walking.
    ...walk up hill and not flat ground...
    Going up and down hills changes the distance travelled, and therefore increases the calories burned.
    ...or even climb a mountain...
    "Climb a mountain" does not fit with the general usage of "going for a walk".

    The universe doesn't care how "hard" you work. It only cares how much mass you're moving, how far.

    So I might as well just take a leisurely stroll instead of a brisk walk that causes my shirt to be soaking wet from sweat if it doesn't matter how hard I work as long as I go the same distance, right? Not trying to be smart here, just curious.
    It's all about distance. If you travel the same distance, you burn the same number of calories. The variable that changes is the time it takes.

    Now that only works when comparing walking to walking, or running to running, as the mechanics for both are completely different and have different energy requirements.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    It's kind of sad if you used to believe the 'roughly 100 calories per mile, regardless of speed' thing. At that Runners World net calories formula I only burn about 48 per mile and if I add my BMR/min. est, it only goes up to 67 or so. But in their estimator for gross calories, it suggests I'd burn like 91 per mile. I guess the estimates were made around a larger BMR assumption.

    It doesn't really matter, I burn what I burn. I'm not getting into the "poor little old me who can't eat more" because a deficit is a deficit. I don't need to 'eat more', I need less food overall and that's ok. It's convenient and cheaper, that's for sure.
  • coccodrillo72
    coccodrillo72 Posts: 94 Member
    Obviously if I pick up speed...
    There's nothing "obviously" about it - changing walking speed makes very little difference.
    The universe doesn't care how "hard" you work. It only cares how much mass you're moving, how far.

    My understanding is that this is true only for slower paces, or am I wrong? In the runner's world articles I read: "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."

    And again: "In fact, I had read years ago that fast walking burns more calories than running at the same speed. Now was the time to test this hypothesis. Wearing a heart-rate monitor, I ran on a treadmill for two minutes at 3.0 mph (20 minutes per mile), and at 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, and 5.5 mph (10:55 per mile). After a 10-minute rest to allow my heart rate to return to normal, I repeated the same thing walking. Here's my running vs. walking heart rate at the end of each two-minute stint: 3.0 (99/81), 3.5 (104/85), 4.0 (109/94), 4.5 (114/107), 5.0 (120/126), 5.5 (122/145). My conclusion: Running is harder than walking at paces slower than 12-minutes-per-mile. At faster paces, walking is harder than running." And: "The walking formulas apply to speeds of 3 to 4 mph. At 5 mph and faster, walking burns more calories than running."

    I sure can't walk a mile in 12:30, but if I get close won't it affect the .30 x your weight formula?
  • Briargrey
    Briargrey Posts: 498 Member
    So I might as well just take a leisurely stroll instead of a brisk walk that causes my shirt to be soaking wet from sweat if it doesn't matter how hard I work as long as I go the same distance, right? Not trying to be smart here, just curious.

    Depends. Is calorie burn your only goal? Is distance your only measure? In other words - if all you care about is burning calories and you only want to walk 1 mile, then yep, go whatever pace you want.

    If your goal is increasing fitness and in doing so increasing the amount of distance you can do in a set time period (i.e. 1 mile, then 1.1, 1.3 etc), then I would suggest that getting your heart rate up and working cardiovascular systems is in order.

    I do not know if the info is accurate that the calories burned is roughly the same regardless of intensity (1 mile easy, 1 mile hard = same general calorie burn), but if it is, then there ya go. {from the brief research I did, it appears to be reasonably accurate - everything is looking at intensity over a set time period, which means you are walking more distance not getting more calories per distance unit}
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
    I just did a 30 min walk (20 city blocks) but I have no idea on the distance. What is a good number of calories ? My HRM shows 331 calories burned.

    Any advice would be helpful. I am 48 Male .. and 183 lbs.

    Probably not that high
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
    I am guessing the level of intensity of walking makes a difference. I wear a HRM and in 50 minutes while walking on an incline on my treadmill pretty much as fast as one can walk I can burn 500 calories (I am 42 and weigh about 172). Just picked some great (fast) music for my iPodand off I go.

    That sounds really high for walking!!
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
    Net calories burned walking = 0.3 * body weight in pounds * miles walked

    Heart rate has nothing to do with it, and for most people, most of the time, will significantly over-estimate.

    How can you expect to burn the same calories walking the same distance, if one day you take a leisurely walk and the other you "speed walk" with hand weights, even if it's the same distance. This just doesn't make sense to me. Obviously if I pick up speed, walk up hill and not flat ground, or even climb a mountain I would sweat my rear off and raise my heart rate by using more muscle and burn more calories than strolling around the boardwalk shopping for a few hours.

    Because if you are speed walking you will be done a lot faster. A longer walk of the same distance, you will be exercising longer. If I run 3 miles I can do it in about 30 min. If I walk, it takes 45-50 min. Both burn similar cals because I'm moving the same distance.

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