Hiking slow = more calories?

Hi Matthew

My only question is to wonder whether the figures from your ABC/HR watch have any real meaning for a single individual. I have my doubts: it’s a watch after all.

But yes, nearly doubling the duration of the walk must make a difference: only a portion of your fuel consumption (calories) goes into actually walking. A lot has to go into just keeping your body alive and warm.

All in a day’s fun.

Cheers

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22446673/

Walking uses 70-80% as much energy as running.

If you’re trying to burn calories, being out of breath is counter productive if you can’t sustain it. Much better to just walk slowly enough to not raise your heart rate, then you can keep going.

All those weight loss TV shows where they force fat people to do high intensity exercise are propagating the audiences’ perception of health and fitness, not actually showing people realistic or kinesiological reinforced ways to be healthy.

Running uses more energy for the same distance is true, but I think Roger must be right and that they are counting calories other than those used for walking. They must have a factor in their calculation for the passage of time and the calories being used even if you don’t move. Because even at the lower of the calorie count Matt gives, that’s 223 calories per mile, which seems impossibly high unless you are carrying small piece of furniture or something. For example, take the numbers from the article above for the 1 mile run (471.03 ± 100.67 kilojoules) and that’s only 137 calories.