Is walking to burn calories worth it?

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  • FitAgainBy55
    FitAgainBy55 Posts: 179 Member
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    As others have pointed out, 27k steps burns more than 300 calories. Having said that, walking is one of the most inefficient calorie burning exercises when you measure it in calories per hour.

    A one hour walk for me burns 271 calories. A one hour run burns 722 calories. A one hour strength training session with low rest periods burns 574 calories.

    When I first started back working out I had to generate most of my calorie burn with walking while I built my fitness. Now that I'm fit, I tend to only walk for relaxation and generate my calorie burn from more intense exercises like running and lifting. BUT, these are workouts I enjoy -- they aren't required to lose weight.

    Most of use don't have enough free time to walk 2+ hours per day -- but even the 1 hour walk is still good for 271 calories (for a person my size). While not as efficient as other forms of exercise, a 271 calories per day deficit is good for .5 lb per week weight loss -- so there is nothing wrong with that.
  • FitAgainBy55
    FitAgainBy55 Posts: 179 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Beverly2Hansen wrote: »
    10,000 steps is 5miles. How many miles did you walk? A lot of step counters are wildly inaccurate tbh. If you something like 17miles that's not feasible daily. I walk 5miles a day, do some lifting(nothing serious) and eat well... it's worth it and sustainable but walking more is not.

    I guess it depends what "feasible" means. If it means something people can do then of course it's feasible, people have been walking since the dawn of time. By coincidence, you need to walk about 18 miles every day for 5 months to do the PCT and that's just one trail. For sure it's sustainable to walk more than five miles a day ... keep in mind people are different and have different situations and limits.

    People who think they can do something and people who think they can't do something are both probably right.

    @NorthCascades Walking 17 miles a day consistently isn't feasible for people that have jobs -- I think that's what feasible means in this context.

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,897 Member
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    overeater1 wrote: »
    Hi all, I’m just wondering if walking is worth it, calorie burning wise? I did 27,000 steps yesterday and MFP imported the data from my iPhone and it was only worth 300 calories. That 27,000 consisted of a 2 hour hill walk and 3 hours of mucking out stables to get that burn. Today I got 15,000 steps and burned 180 calories. I’m 5’ 8 and 149 lbs. Obviously fresh air and mental health wise, walking is great, but in the scheme of things I’m wondering if calorie wise, is it worth it? Am I just better off not eating my mini Kit Kat and saving the time for a relaxing bath, or a good film?

    As others have said, something is wrong somewhere. Could be your activity level was set to Very Active when it should have been much lower, could be iphone and MFP are not talking to each other properly.

    I lost my fitbit and went back to logging manually with a pedometer and a watch. If there's no entry for mucking out stables (which I have done) use something with a calorie burn like "Gardening, general."

    I've created my own custom entry for lighter gardening and just use "Gardening, general" when I am digging or doing something similarly intense.
  • serapel
    serapel Posts: 502 Member
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    When I walk 7,000 steps, I’ve burned about 250 cals.

    Walking IS worth it. Its great for mental health, it’s relaxing and it’s easy to do. I walk everyday for 1 hour and it’s my time to destress.

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    If that calorie burn comes from having MFP and Apple health linked - then yes that is a bogus number.

    Apple sends to MFP a Total Daily Burn figure that is expected to be exactly that - total calories burned, with time stamp.

    Apple only sends their Sedentary burn figure, which happens to be very close to MFP.
    You don't actually get any credit for the daily activity above their sedentary figure.

    They do send workouts, which to avoid double-counting gets subtracted from the daily burn figure it would normally be a part of already.
    So no credit for workouts.

    So that 300 was either a workout you logged, or you don't have accounts linked, but rather just selected to use Apple as a step source.
    Which then relies on MFP to attempt rough estimates of calories from steps (instead of more accurate distance), and if there are any workouts logged or synced in, those are taken off those step calories because MFP has no idea if the steps were part of the workout or not.

  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    FitAgainBy55 wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Beverly2Hansen wrote: »
    10,000 steps is 5miles. How many miles did you walk? A lot of step counters are wildly inaccurate tbh. If you something like 17miles that's not feasible daily. I walk 5miles a day, do some lifting(nothing serious) and eat well... it's worth it and sustainable but walking more is not.

    I guess it depends what "feasible" means. If it means something people can do then of course it's feasible, people have been walking since the dawn of time. By coincidence, you need to walk about 18 miles every day for 5 months to do the PCT and that's just one trail. For sure it's sustainable to walk more than five miles a day ... keep in mind people are different and have different situations and limits.

    People who think they can do something and people who think they can't do something are both probably right.

    @NorthCascades Walking 17 miles a day consistently isn't feasible for people that have jobs -- I think that's what feasible means in this context.

    Except maybe mail carriers. 🙂 I don't know the OP's situation and I don't want to discourage them, or give anybody the impression they can't walk more than I do. I'm here to say yes this is within the realm of human capability because it was implied otherwise, and the OP can decide how to balance everything in their life.

    (I'm saving my pennies and considering taking next year off to walk from Mexico to Canada.)
  • sonyamurawski
    sonyamurawski Posts: 8 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Some people have trouble with the Apple/MFP integration being inaccurate. I'm not an Apple gal, but I've seen it recommended to synch Apple to the Pacer app, then Pacer to MFP, for better results.

    I think this is the issue I’m having. I got some reply from MFP that I really don’t understand. I’m going to see if I can figure out your suggestion.

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