Yesterday I stumbled across an old Runners World article that talked about two of my favorite things: running and calories.
The article took on the very popular argument that states running a mile and walking a mile burn roughly the same amount of calories. I actually thought this was true until I read the article. I’ve heard it during many conversations. I’ve read it online and in print. I’ve even spouted it off to others.
But the article cites a study conducted at Syracuse University that actually measured the calorie expenditures during running and walking. The nuts and bolts come down to this:
researchers measured the actual calorie burn of 12 men and 12 women while running and walking 1,600 meters (roughly a mile) on a treadmill. Result: The men burned an average of 124 calories while running, and just 88 while walking; the women
The article attempts to explain that the differences can be explained by the jumping from foot to foot and the raising and lowering of our center of gravity while running. These things burn more energy and don’t occur as much during a walk. I thought it was an interesting explanation. I just wished they would have tested more than 24 people–that’s a pretty small sample size.
But my favorite part of the article dealt with the concept of Net Calorie Burn (NCB) versus Total Calorie Burn (TCB). I’ve been having an ongoing discussion with the folks over at the daily burn regarding the calorie calculations for resting metabolic rates and how they factor in lifestyle and exercise to their equations. And this article reminded me of that conversation.
We almost always talk about Total Calorie Burn (TCB) when we talk about exercise because we want to believe that we worked our asses off and burnt a lot of calories. But what we almost always forget is that we are burning calories just by sitting on our butts AND those calories are also counted by most calorie tracking methods while exercising. To get a better picture of how many calories are exercise sessions are actually burning, we have to subtract the resting metabolic calories that would have burned just by doing nothing. But thanks to the researchers at Syracuse, we now have some idea of how many calories we’re burning while running and walking:
We now know the relative NCB of running a mile in 9:30 versus walking the same mile in 19:00. Their male subjects burned 105 calories running, 52 walking; the women, 91 and 43. That is, running burns twice as many net calories per mile as walking. And since you can run two miles in the time it takes to walk one mile, running burns four times as many net calories per hour as walking.
Basically, about 15% of your Total Calorie Burn during a running workout would have occurred whether or not you went for that run (If you’re a man). I thought this was an interesting take on exercise and calories and thanks to whoever tweeted it to my attention yesterday.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting info … I didn’t know that most equations included the resting numbers. I guess it makes sense given they want the numbers to get as inflated as possible.
I will be honest though, I think this info would be darn bear impossible to explain to most normal people let alone explain what it really means to their workouts. Makes it tough to explain to some why they migh not be losing etc. Sometimes it seems simple to some but weight-loss and being healthy can be quite challenging.
.-= Sean (Learn Fitness)´s last blog ..Relaxing Family Weekend =-.
I really liked this information. When I first started reading i thought that it was going to say the opposite, but when i think running — I think all out running for some reason. I was thinking about the heart rate.
I figured that if you are walking briskly, you would be promoting weight loss more so by reaching a target hr — but why not with running as well? If you are running at a comfortable pace — you’re body is doing a lot to continue that pace…it all makes sense to me.
Everything prior to this sentence may just be jumbled words. To clarify my thoughts, enjoyed the post.
.-= Seth@fitwithapurpose´s last blog ..Noticeably Different. Skinny Man. Comparisons. =-.
That’s very interesting Mac, thanks for sharing. It’s one of those “little details” that you don’t really think about, but makes total sense. But I agree with what Sean said above, that this is something it would probably be difficult to explain to most “normal” people.
.-= Brandon´s last blog ..Running woes =-.
Not to sound like an ass, and maybe the take home point of this article has just gone over my head, but isn’t this completely common sense?
.-= Tony the Pink Panda´s last blog ..Maybe I Should of High-Fived All the Employees at Old Navy! =-.
thanks for the comment tony
You’ve just answered a question I’ve recently been wondering about myself!
I could be wrong but I think that FitDay takes out the RMR calories, and adds back just the workout calories you did for any block of time.
.-= Carla´s last blog ..Outdoor running vs. indoor running =-.
19 minutes to walk a mile? Please! That sounds more like strolling, browsing, or meandering. Seth mentioned heart rate in his post. If you are aware of your target heart rate and maintain a pace or activity level high enough to stay in it you will get more benefit out of walking, an alternative activity in your exercise program and lot less abuse to your body. You only have one (body) make it last.
The main takeaway is that if you see that you burned 200 calories according to some metric/machine, that doesn’t mean you burned 200 more than you would have if you didn’t workout.
It seems obvious to me that running would burn more than walking, but there’s a lot of myths out there about exercise. I know I’m more tired after running than walking, not to mention I sweat more.
Burning calories by sitting is a novel idea!
I too think this is pretty interesting. I had no idea I must say! I think that there should be some kind of follow up article as to how “inefficient” exercising is! I say this because according to the numbers used in their article, a 180 lb man burns about 100 cal per mile. Well it takes 3500 Cals for some to lose a lb (and that’s not even fully composed of fat, when running your using a significant amount LESS fat for energy, compared to walking) that means he would have to run *30* miles to lose one pound from exercise alone!! Smh. I don’t know if it’s worth it! Lol
Eating less is sounding a whole lot better!!!
Yes, I agree, deducting the number of resting calories from estimated caloric burn for an exercise session does make logical sense. HOWEVER – what about the extra calories that I burn AFTER exercise is complete? I’d love to know what happens if I go run a mile,and burn 124 calories, how much more is burnt after the run is complete that is over and above what I would have burnt if I had not exercised.
For that reason, and because i have never seen a study to tell me how to estimate this “after-burn”, I chose to NOT deduct my resting metabolic rate during exercise and to instead just go with the estimated work calories.