The benefit of walking

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  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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
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    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.
  • nklp
    nklp Posts: 62 Member
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    I love walking so much! I don't go far enough at the moment - I think because it can be quite time-consuming - but I plan to do lots more! Ditching the bus pass is a massive goal of mine - then it'd be a 3 hour walk to and from Uni over the day! But it means early mornings :noway:
  • FancyPantsFran
    FancyPantsFran Posts: 3,687 Member
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    Walking is one of my favorite things to do, especially outside. I'm lucky to live near nice walking and nature trails and lately have gotten into hiking. Walking is one of the best under-rated exercise you can do. I think it does my body as well as my soul good to walk
  • coccodrillo72
    coccodrillo72 Posts: 94 Member
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    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.

    At slower walking speeds there is not much difference in calorie burn per mile (apparently this changes with really fast paces) but you cannot compare walking with running: at "normal" walking paces running burns twice as many net calories per mile as walking.
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
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    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.

    At slower walking speeds there is not much difference in calorie burn per mile (apparently this changes with really fast paces) but you cannot compare walking with running: at "normal" walking paces running burns twice as many net calories per mile as walking.
    Where do you get this information from?
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    I think the second Runners World article on p. 1 here says some (or all) of that, but I didn't go back and check.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    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?
    Without actual science to look at, it's just anecdotal. And that second article quote is useless. n=1 is not valid science, plus the constant changing of speeds turned it into interval training; unless the person stopped for 10 minutes between each speed change (which they didn't) then an HRM will give inaccurate calorie estimates. That means none of the calorie estimates (except for the slowest ones) mean anything.
  • coccodrillo72
    coccodrillo72 Posts: 94 Member
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    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.

    At slower walking speeds there is not much difference in calorie burn per mile (apparently this changes with really fast paces) but you cannot compare walking with running: at "normal" walking paces running burns twice as many net calories per mile as walking.
    Where do you get this information from?

    The runner's world article cited before, which is in turn based on these papers:

    Energy expenditure of walking and running: comparison with prediction equations. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15570150

    Energy expenditure comparison between walking and running in average fitness individuals.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22446673

    This data shows clearly that running requires more energy than walking.

    As far as the comment about speed walking though I think is a conclusion drawn by the author and not based on those papers.
  • coccodrillo72
    coccodrillo72 Posts: 94 Member
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    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?
    Without actual science to look at, it's just anecdotal. And that second article quote is useless. n=1 is not valid science, plus the constant changing of speeds turned it into interval training; unless the person stopped for 10 minutes between each speed change (which they didn't) then an HRM will give inaccurate calorie estimates. That means none of the calorie estimates (except for the slowest ones) mean anything.

    You are right, of course. I think it deserves further study though, so if you know about any research on this matter I would be grateful if you posted it here.
  • gina_nz_
    gina_nz_ Posts: 74 Member
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    Walking is great. Do what works for you and ignore all this stuff about running being better. Any movement is better than none a nd we all need to start somewhere :-)
  • arrseegee
    arrseegee Posts: 575 Member
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    Walking is also quite useful for getting yourself from one place to another, I have found.

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