How many calories does walking burn?

Hourly expenditure

Estimated additional burn

What moves the number

This is where the gap between gross and net shows most, precisely because the effort is close to rest: an hour of strolling is only 2.8 MET, one of which you would have spent sitting down. Walking is not judged by the session but by the week — the total is what weighs, not the outing.

Why this number is lower than elsewhere

The MET formula gives TOTAL expenditure during effort, rest included — an hour sitting down is already 1 MET. Most calculators display that gross figure. The problem: your basal metabolism is already counted in your daily calorie needs. Showing the gross number counts it twice.

We subtract the resting MET and report only what the effort cost ON TOP. Thirty minutes of walking gives roughly 100 kcal here, against 140 elsewhere. It is less flattering, and it is the only number that does not contradict itself when you step on the scale a month later.

It is also why these calories are never handed back to your food budget in the app: a workout is not a licence to eat.

Where the number comes from

A MET measures the cost of an activity relative to rest: 8 MET is eight times what a still body burns. The values used here come from the Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al., 2011), the reference table of physical activity research.

Expenditure is then: (MET − 1) × 3.5 × weight in kg × minutes ÷ 200. Weight matters because you have to move it; duration matters more than anything else.

These are population estimates. Two people of the same weight doing the same effort can differ by 10 to 15 %: fitness, technique, temperature. Use these numbers to compare sessions with each other, not to balance a day to the calorie.

See also

• Running

  Minute for minute, running is the most expensive of the sixteen. Here is what it actually costs at your weight and pace.

• Cycling

  Cycling has the widest gap between “a ride” and “an effort” of any activity here: triple, end to end.

• Swimming

  Swimming is expensive, but less than what you read everywhere — for a reason that has nothing to do with effort.

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