Walking for approximately an hour every day will help you burn fat, as well as gain muscle to help increase your metabolism. Aside from this, walking an hour daily, as proven by research, decreases the risk of a person having breast cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, colon cancer, or suffering from stroke.

So when trying to determine the calories burned in walking, you will eventually discover the many hidden benefits of walking. So why not try to fit in walking into your schedule of daily activities?

Calories Burned In Walking: What is a “calorie”?

Before trying to determine the average amount of calories burned in walking, we must first decipher what calories are. Indeed, what are calories?

Simply put, a calorie is an amount of energy. Technically speaking, one calorie is the amount of energy required to increase the temperature of a gram of water by 1°C.With foods, calories indicate how much energy you can get from consuming a particular item. For example, if you purchase a biscuit from a grocery store and it is indicated that it contains 200 calories, then eating the biscuit would give you 200 more calories. When in excess, calories that are not metabolized will later turn into fat accumulating in various parts of a human body.

With this, it is essential that you burn the calories that you take in, and one good way of burning them would be by walking. And in here, the topic of concern would be the total amount of calories burned in walking.

Calories Burned In Walking

In order to lose weight, you need to keep a balance on the amount of food you eat and the number of calories that you burn. So it is but sensible that when you want to lose weight, it’s either that you should burn more calories through physical activities, or eat less.

It should be noted that one pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. Common sense is going to tell you that when you eat for several days that amount to 3500 calories, you are going to gain a pound (considering that you do not burn this amount of calories). Furthermore, when you want to lose a pound within a week, then it is imperative to burn 3500 calories within the said time frame. Aiming for a loss of a pound or two within a week is a sensible and attainable goal.

One way to keep up with your food consumption is through physical activities like walking.

The calories burned in walking depends on a person’s weight and the distance covered in walking (weight x distance = calories burned in walking). Time does not really play a role in the equation. If you speed up your walk to a mile for 15 minutes or less, then you are going to burn more calories per mile. In terms of counting the calories burned in walking, a simple rule of thumb would be: For a 180 lb person, 100 calories are burned per mile covered.

The following chart presents the average number of calories burned in walking, taking into consideration a person’s weight and the distance covered:

The chart above is an approximation of the calories burned in walking. As shown above, what matters is your weight and the distance covered, and not so much with the time spent in walking.

Calories Burned In Walking: How to increase the number of calories burned

When you aim for weight loss by walking, then you need to focus on increasing the distance you cover, as well as increasing the activities you do as you are walking. Here are some effective ways to increase the number of calories burned every time you walk:

1. Walk farther. Obviously.
2. Racewalk. Learn to walk faster. Walking faster means that you’ll be able to cover more distance in a given length of time. So the next time you go out for a walk, walk briskly. This will increase the length of the area covered, which can be converted into an increase in the number of calories burned in walking.
3. Add on extra weights and baggage as you walk. However, make sure that the baggage does not exceed ten pounds. You do not want to risk having a bad posture as you walk due to a heavy baggage. Put your “props” in a bag, or in a belt bag around your waist so as not to interfere with your proper posture.
4. Stretch as you go along. Move and sway your arms. Stretch your hands or wiggle your wrists. Move your hips from one side to the other. Also consider tilting your neck from left to right. As you walk, make sure that you do not only move your legs and feet, but other parts of the body as well in order to increase the number of calories burned in walking.

Calories Burned In Walking

When walking, make sure to enjoy the walk itself. This is an important aspect so that you’ll stick to the regimen for a longer period of time. So the next time you go out and walk, focus not on the calories consumed and burned, but on the sceneries, the people passing by, and the trip itself. Enjoy the walk, and you are more likely to stick to it for life.