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I once tried to burn 3,000+ calories per day using just walking. I had heart issues and couldn't do intense workouts, so I set a goal of 20,000 steps a day. To

by kotyk 1y ago

I once tried to burn 3,000+ calories per day using just walking. I had heart issues and couldn't do intense workouts, so I set a goal of 20,000 steps a day. To hit that consistently, I ended up walking 4–5 hours daily. It worked — I was burning massive energy — but it was hugely time-consuming. When I later recovered, I realized the same burn could be done in 40 minutes of gym effort. Walking is absolutely underrated, especially for recovery and mental clarity. But in raw efficiency... it’s humbling how long it takes to match even moderate training.

bob1029 1y ago
This is what is kicking in when you do anaerobic exercises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_co... > Anaerobic exercise in the form of high-intensity interval training was also found in one study to result in greater loss of subcutaneous fat, even though the subjects expended fewer than half as many calories during exercise. Walking essentially does nothing to your EPOC levels. A one rep maximum deadlift can elevate it substantially for hours. 10 seconds of suffering can trigger responses that hours of walking cannot.
- ChrisRR 1y ago
  My weight loss shows a huge difference in cycling vs. burning the same number of calories walking
  - lm28469 1y ago
    > the same number of calories How do you measure the calories burned ? Get 10 different devices you'll get 10 different measures.
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      Maybe they put their daily food intake and feces both into a bomb calorimeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter and measure the difference?
      - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
        > Maybe they put their daily food intake and feces both into a bomb calorimeter Not at the same time, I would hope
- davisoneee 1y ago
  EPOC only accounts for something like 60 additional calories burned in the next 24 hours...unless there is something unexplained going on, it's _greatly_ overblown how significant this actually is ...but it sounds sciencey and sexy so it's often repeated.
  - crabbone 1y ago
    60 calories is what you burn when running 1 km. It's not insignificant :)
redeux 1y ago
As endurance hunters our bodies are tuned for efficient use of energy during low/medium paced exercise. Walking is awesome, and I try to get out there and do an hour a day, but I agree - you get much better results from the gym because our bodies aren’t specifically tuned for those types of workouts. Lifting weights also has a lot of tangible benefits for both men and women in the short and long term.
- p_ing 1y ago
  > As endurance hunters There's no evidence for this. But everyone should walk a little bit if only for the mental health benefits.
  - redeux 1y ago
    There’s actually a good amount of evidence for this. Here’s a basic look but you can dig in to other sources that will expand on how we know this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
  - chneu 1y ago
    Lol yes there is. You can find people alive today who still do it. We used to do it as children on the ranch. Running down sheep and cows is easy. Deer just take more time.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  One of those being not being an otherwise healthy middle aged person constantly complaining about their back, general body pain, etc. I see people in their 70s even at the gym who look and seemingly feel great because they’ve been doing some resistance training their whole adult lives. Better than some software devs I know who never move and are in their 30s.
- tzs 1y ago
  To get some idea of how efficient we can be look at studies of the Hadza, a tribe of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, described here [1]. The men spend the day walking around hunting, or if they can't find game climbing trees to get honey, yet burn about the same amount of calories as sedentary men in western industrialized societies. The women spend all day moving around foraging and the results are similar. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_paradox
90s_dev 1y ago
> I once tried to burn 3,000+ calories per day using just walking. You'll generally burn about ~2k cals per day just being alive. An intense workout for an hour can burn maybe 500 on top of this. I think your math might be off somewhere if you walked a lot and figured that you spent a whole 1k.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- crabbone 1y ago
  Yeah, I too thought this number was unrealistic. I run, and I know that it takes about 60 calories per km (I run 10 km usually). To burn 3000 I'd have to... run more than a marathon (50 km, marathon is 42 km). Running marathon every day is... I won't say impossible, but is highly impractical (and actually impossible for most people who can run marathon). For an average runner, it takes 4-5 hours. So, I think that to burn 3k calories by walking one would need to walk way, way longer than 5 hours a day. Not sure even if it's possible to squeeze that much walking in a day.
  - psb217 1y ago
    The best way to hit 3000 is cycling. A reasonably fit (70kg-100kg) cyclist should burn 600-800 cal/hr riding at a moderate pace, so 3000 is a 4-5hr ride. It wouldn't be unusual for an enthusiastic amateur cyclist to hit that 1-2x/week.
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      However, if you assume that 2000 calories is pretty much maintenance and you'll burn that anyway, then you only need somewhere around an hour and a half or two hours cycling. Also if you can replace a medium commute with cycling, then it's not that difficult to hit that target just through active travel. (I used to regularly cycle commute approx 37kms each way and I could easily hit 1000 calories on just one of the journeys).
      - 1y ago
2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
4-5 hours for 20k steps? Because of your heart issues? I just checked my current stats. I have 15k steps recently from walking to and from my job. And that’s not counting the steps at the gym. I take off my watch since it’s often a hindrance during work outs.
gedy 1y ago
Another thing about walking is - while everyone's different, long walks really increased my appetite. While walking 4 miles daily (with some hills) was great in many ways, I slowly gained 20+ pounds over 2 years. Running didn't have same effect on me.
meindnoch 1y ago
>But in raw efficiency... it’s humbling how long it takes to match even moderate training. Bipedal walking on mostly flat ground can only be matched by kangaroos' hopping in terms of energy efficiency.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  laughs in cycling
ChrisRR 1y ago
Presumably by 3000 you mean 1000 over the ~2000 from your basal rate? 1000kcal per day from walking alone is about 3-4 hours of walking per day depending on weight.
bluecalm 1y ago
You will not burn 3000 kcal in 40 minutes of gym effort. Even burning 1000kcal in an hour requires serious fitness and burning 1200 is elite athlete level max effort for a full hour. Calories burnt by walking, assuming flat surface are decently approximated by (distance_in_km x weight) formula so it is possible to burn a lot in 4-5 hours of walking but quite unlikely to hit 3000 unless you're very fit.
- the_snooze 1y ago
  Going by my fitness tracker, a 1-hour 900kcal gym session is absolutely intense. On the few times I've hit that mark, I'm laid out on the ground and probably need to take it easy the next day. More realistically, I hit 600-700kcal per session.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  I think they mean all day calorie burn, not active burn.
  - bluecalm 1y ago
    Yeah but then they will not get close to what they can burn with 4 hours of walking by doing a 40 minutes gym session.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      The delta is pretty close. Walking is ~200 calories / hour, but sitting is ~100/hr, so the delta is 100/hr. So 4 hours of walking might be as little as an excess of 400. cf a gym workout of 500/hr is also an excess of 400. IOW, the total calorie burn in a day that includes 4 hours of walking is likely relatively comparable to the total calorie burn in a day that includes an hour of gym time.
      - bluecalm 1y ago
        Walking 5km/h at 70kg is 350kcal/hour. If you are heavy and unfit then it will maybe be 3km/h at 90kg 270kcal/hour but then someone that unfit is not going to be able to burn 500kcal in an hour in a gym anyway. >>IOW, the total calorie burn in a day that includes 4 hours of walking is likely relatively comparable to the total calorie burn in a day that includes an hour of gym time. It's a good point about the delta (the estimations are for a total burnt during activity not extra) but I don't think you can get the numbers close. People greatly overestimate how much you burn during gym session as well unless they are already very fit and move constantly during that session.
p_ing 1y ago
I have a recorded 'hike' (on very steep logging roads) of 7 hours with a total expenditure of 1800 cal active/2500 cal total with an elevation gain of 3000' (the decent was way harder). Are you walking for work?
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
Depends on incline.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
Tell me how to burn 3000 calories in 40 minutes and I will be in perfect shape. It's a struggle to burn 400 in 30 minutes (hiit training, very challenging)
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Dangerous, inefficient, and time-consuming compared to moderate exercise and eating less. Caloric restriction is, by far, more effective than exercise for net deficit. Thunderf00t did a video on this. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTABw0EyIWY https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTABw0EyIWY

by kotyk 1y ago

bob1029 1y ago

This is what is kicking in when you do anaerobic exercises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_co... > Anaerobic exercise in the form of high-intensity interval training was also found in one study to result in greater loss of subcutaneous fat, even though the subjects expended fewer than half as many calories during exercise. Walking essentially does nothing to your EPOC levels. A one rep maximum deadlift can elevate it substantially for hours. 10 seconds of suffering can trigger responses that hours of walking cannot.

ChrisRR 1y ago
My weight loss shows a huge difference in cycling vs. burning the same number of calories walking
- lm28469 1y ago
  > the same number of calories How do you measure the calories burned ? Get 10 different devices you'll get 10 different measures.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    Maybe they put their daily food intake and feces both into a bomb calorimeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter and measure the difference?
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      > Maybe they put their daily food intake and feces both into a bomb calorimeter Not at the same time, I would hope
davisoneee 1y ago
EPOC only accounts for something like 60 additional calories burned in the next 24 hours...unless there is something unexplained going on, it's _greatly_ overblown how significant this actually is ...but it sounds sciencey and sexy so it's often repeated.
- crabbone 1y ago
  60 calories is what you burn when running 1 km. It's not insignificant :)

redeux 1y ago

As endurance hunters our bodies are tuned for efficient use of energy during low/medium paced exercise. Walking is awesome, and I try to get out there and do an hour a day, but I agree - you get much better results from the gym because our bodies aren’t specifically tuned for those types of workouts. Lifting weights also has a lot of tangible benefits for both men and women in the short and long term.

p_ing 1y ago
> As endurance hunters There's no evidence for this. But everyone should walk a little bit if only for the mental health benefits.
- redeux 1y ago
  There’s actually a good amount of evidence for this. Here’s a basic look but you can dig in to other sources that will expand on how we know this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
- chneu 1y ago
  Lol yes there is. You can find people alive today who still do it. We used to do it as children on the ranch. Running down sheep and cows is easy. Deer just take more time.
spacemadness 1y ago
One of those being not being an otherwise healthy middle aged person constantly complaining about their back, general body pain, etc. I see people in their 70s even at the gym who look and seemingly feel great because they’ve been doing some resistance training their whole adult lives. Better than some software devs I know who never move and are in their 30s.
tzs 1y ago
To get some idea of how efficient we can be look at studies of the Hadza, a tribe of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, described here [1]. The men spend the day walking around hunting, or if they can't find game climbing trees to get honey, yet burn about the same amount of calories as sedentary men in western industrialized societies. The women spend all day moving around foraging and the results are similar. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_paradox

90s_dev 1y ago

> I once tried to burn 3,000+ calories per day using just walking. You'll generally burn about ~2k cals per day just being alive. An intense workout for an hour can burn maybe 500 on top of this. I think your math might be off somewhere if you walked a lot and figured that you spent a whole 1k.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
crabbone 1y ago
Yeah, I too thought this number was unrealistic. I run, and I know that it takes about 60 calories per km (I run 10 km usually). To burn 3000 I'd have to... run more than a marathon (50 km, marathon is 42 km). Running marathon every day is... I won't say impossible, but is highly impractical (and actually impossible for most people who can run marathon). For an average runner, it takes 4-5 hours. So, I think that to burn 3k calories by walking one would need to walk way, way longer than 5 hours a day. Not sure even if it's possible to squeeze that much walking in a day.
- psb217 1y ago
  The best way to hit 3000 is cycling. A reasonably fit (70kg-100kg) cyclist should burn 600-800 cal/hr riding at a moderate pace, so 3000 is a 4-5hr ride. It wouldn't be unusual for an enthusiastic amateur cyclist to hit that 1-2x/week.
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    However, if you assume that 2000 calories is pretty much maintenance and you'll burn that anyway, then you only need somewhere around an hour and a half or two hours cycling. Also if you can replace a medium commute with cycling, then it's not that difficult to hit that target just through active travel. (I used to regularly cycle commute approx 37kms each way and I could easily hit 1000 calories on just one of the journeys).
    - 1y ago

2muchcoffeeman 1y ago

4-5 hours for 20k steps? Because of your heart issues? I just checked my current stats. I have 15k steps recently from walking to and from my job. And that’s not counting the steps at the gym. I take off my watch since it’s often a hindrance during work outs.

gedy 1y ago

Another thing about walking is - while everyone's different, long walks really increased my appetite. While walking 4 miles daily (with some hills) was great in many ways, I slowly gained 20+ pounds over 2 years. Running didn't have same effect on me.

meindnoch 1y ago

>But in raw efficiency... it’s humbling how long it takes to match even moderate training. Bipedal walking on mostly flat ground can only be matched by kangaroos' hopping in terms of energy efficiency.

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
laughs in cycling

ChrisRR 1y ago

Presumably by 3000 you mean 1000 over the ~2000 from your basal rate? 1000kcal per day from walking alone is about 3-4 hours of walking per day depending on weight.

bluecalm 1y ago

You will not burn 3000 kcal in 40 minutes of gym effort. Even burning 1000kcal in an hour requires serious fitness and burning 1200 is elite athlete level max effort for a full hour. Calories burnt by walking, assuming flat surface are decently approximated by (distance_in_km x weight) formula so it is possible to burn a lot in 4-5 hours of walking but quite unlikely to hit 3000 unless you're very fit.

the_snooze 1y ago
Going by my fitness tracker, a 1-hour 900kcal gym session is absolutely intense. On the few times I've hit that mark, I'm laid out on the ground and probably need to take it easy the next day. More realistically, I hit 600-700kcal per session.
spacemadness 1y ago
I think they mean all day calorie burn, not active burn.
- bluecalm 1y ago
  Yeah but then they will not get close to what they can burn with 4 hours of walking by doing a 40 minutes gym session.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    The delta is pretty close. Walking is ~200 calories / hour, but sitting is ~100/hr, so the delta is 100/hr. So 4 hours of walking might be as little as an excess of 400. cf a gym workout of 500/hr is also an excess of 400. IOW, the total calorie burn in a day that includes 4 hours of walking is likely relatively comparable to the total calorie burn in a day that includes an hour of gym time.
    - bluecalm 1y ago
      Walking 5km/h at 70kg is 350kcal/hour. If you are heavy and unfit then it will maybe be 3km/h at 90kg 270kcal/hour but then someone that unfit is not going to be able to burn 500kcal in an hour in a gym anyway. >>IOW, the total calorie burn in a day that includes 4 hours of walking is likely relatively comparable to the total calorie burn in a day that includes an hour of gym time. It's a good point about the delta (the estimations are for a total burnt during activity not extra) but I don't think you can get the numbers close. People greatly overestimate how much you burn during gym session as well unless they are already very fit and move constantly during that session.

p_ing 1y ago

I have a recorded 'hike' (on very steep logging roads) of 7 hours with a total expenditure of 1800 cal active/2500 cal total with an elevation gain of 3000' (the decent was way harder). Are you walking for work?

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

Depends on incline.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago

Tell me how to burn 3000 calories in 40 minutes and I will be in perfect shape. It's a struggle to burn 400 in 30 minutes (hiit training, very challenging)

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Dangerous, inefficient, and time-consuming compared to moderate exercise and eating less. Caloric restriction is, by far, more effective than exercise for net deficit. Thunderf00t did a video on this. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTABw0EyIWY https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTABw0EyIWY