Walking Calorie Calculator

A 70 kg person walking briskly, about 3.5 mph or 5.6 km/h, burns roughly 176 kcal in 30 minutes and 353 in an hour. Slow that to a stroll and the hour drops to about 206. The calculator above runs the same sum for any weight and any duration, and the tables below give the common cases without typing.

Walking calorie calculator: calories per hour by pace

The same figures by session length, brisk pace, 70 kg:

Per distance it comes out close to 1.4 kcal per kilogram per mile at brisk pace: about 100 kcal a mile for a 70 kg walker, 63 per kilometre. Body weight is the biggest lever in the table. A 90 kg person walking slowly out-burns a 60 kg person walking fast, per hour, by a small margin.

The formula

kcal per minute = MET x 3.5 x body weight in kg / 200

MET values come from the Compendium of Physical Activities, where brisk level walking is 4.8 (code 17200). For 70 kg: 4.8 x 3.5 x 70 / 200 = 5.88 kcal per minute. Thirty minutes, 176 kcal. The full activity list below the calculator carries the code next to every value.

What moves the number

Speed is the obvious one, the table covers it, and two other things move walking cost as much or more while staying invisible to any flat-ground table, because the table has no column for them. Hills, and weight on your back.

Gradient first. The Compendium's own values go from 3.8 MET for a moderate level walk to 5.3 on a 1 to 5 percent grade and 7.0 on 6 to 10 percent, so a steady hill of 8 percent nearly doubles the hourly burn of the same walk on the flat. Per metre covered the jump is bigger, because you also slow down. Downhill returns some of it, most evidence putting the cheapest walking at a gentle descent of a few percent, after which the braking cost climbs again and a steep descent can cost as much as the flat.

Then load. For moderate loads carried close to the trunk, the energy cost of walking rises roughly in proportion to total mass, body plus pack, which is the assumption behind the load-carriage equations used by the military. A 10 kg pack on a 70 kg walker is a 14 percent heavier system and about a 14 percent higher bill. Past about a quarter of body weight the cost climbs faster than the mass does. The hiking calorie calculator works through both effects together.

The number is an average, and it is gross

A MET value is the average oxygen cost measured across a group of people at that pace, and you may be economical or you may not, because fitter walkers spend less at the same speed, heavier and older people often have a resting rate below the 3.5 ml/kg/min the formula assumes, and heat, wind and surface all move the result on top of that. Plus or minus 20 percent, roughly. Your watch and the treadmill display are estimates too, from heart rate and belt speed, and in independent tests wrist devices have missed energy expenditure by a quarter or more.

The figure is also gross. It includes the 1 MET you would spend sitting for the same 30 minutes, about 37 kcal at 70 kg. Subtract 1 from the MET before you run the sum if you want the exercise on its own. The calories burned calculator explains the gross and net split in more detail.

Putting walking to work in a deficit

Walking is the cheapest fat-loss cardio there is in recovery terms, which is why it shows up in most cutting plans for people who also lift or run. An hour a day at brisk pace is 350 kcal at 70 kg, roughly a third of a sensible daily deficit, with almost no cost to tomorrow's session. Size the gap with the calorie deficit calculator, check it against your TDEE, and split the food with the macro calculator. For a treadmill session use the treadmill calorie calculator, which has its own speed rows.

How Movement Rebels fits

If you walk with a Garmin watch or an iPhone, the coach in Movement Rebels reads the activity when it syncs, with duration, distance and average heart rate. That is what your walk cost you, not what an average 70 kg person's walk would have. The coach also plans your week around those walks, so a long one the day before a hard run shows up as load rather than as a blank day.

The coach cannot see your food. Rebel Fuel is your own log and none of it reaches the coach, so it does not compare what you ate with what you walked off. If you are in a deficit, write that in the notes for your coach and it will read a creeping resting heart rate or a dropping HRV as under-fuelling rather than lost fitness. For the full approach to losing weight while keeping your engine, read Fat Loss for Endurance Athletes.

MET values used here

Every value below is quoted from the Compendium of Physical Activities with its activity code, so you can look up the entry yourself. One MET is the oxygen cost of sitting quietly, about 3.5 ml of oxygen per kg per minute.

Walking and hiking

Treadmill walking

Running

Curved (non-motorised) treadmill running

Cycling

Stationary cycling

Rowing machine

Swimming

Strength and gym

Source: Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al.), pacompendium.com. Codes are the Compendium's own.

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