image credit: graphics8.nytimes.com
So you go out for a run or a walk. You enjoy the exercise and physical movement. You feel better about yourself and the work you are doing to get healthy. But when you get home you wonder, “I wonder how many calories I just burned.” Well, I am putting this post up so that you can calculate this for yourself anywhere and anytime. It is pretty easy to do and the formula is based on research performed on walkers and runners. The link I am putting at the bottom of the post is from a Runner’s World article that a fellow WW attendee pointed me to. The article is based on the assumption that walking a mile and running a mile burns the same amount of calories. This is not true although they both do burn a good amount of calories. And if you don’t or can’t run, then walking is far superior than doing nothing at all. I personally enjoy walking very much.
During the research the scientists found the running burned 2 times more calories than walking. They noted also that if you can run two miles in the same time it takes to walk one mile than running would burn 4 times more calories over the same time period. They also found that walking would burn more calories than running once you reached a particular pace. Any walking done at a 12:00 minute per mile or faster pace burned more calories than running because it was inefficient. So speed walking is a very good calorie burning exercise. Here are the equations for calculating your calorie burn and the link to the article.
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Running- .63 x body weight= calories burned per mile running. So when I run 5 miles I burn 582 calories.
Walking- .30 x body weight= calories burned per mile walking. So when I walk 5 miles I burn 277 calories.
Here is the original article from Runner’s World as well as the research bibliography.
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