Which Burns More? Walking or Running A Mile?

"Do you burn more calories if you walk or run a mile?" Same distance, different pace. I get asked this question quite often, so I have taken a considerable amount of time to figure it out. It seems as if the answer would be that you burn the same amount of calories whether you walk a mile or run a mile (and you will find many sources telling you that it is true). However, in my investigations I found this to not be true. The truth is that you actually do burn more calories when you run vs when you walk.

Look at the table above. The average woman is 164 pounds in the US and the average man is 191 pounds. If the person is walking, they burn right around 5oo calories (woman) or 600 calories (man). If they are running, they are burning significantly more: between 600-700 (woman) or 700-800 (man). This data was obtained by calculating the number of minutes it takes to walk or run 5 miles at each of these paces multiplied by the MET(metabolic equivalent) value, which is the energy the research says it takes to do a certain activity. I found a user-friendly website that allows you to put in your weight and the number of minutes you may do a certain activity. Check out Healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

Tune in tomorrow to learn WHY you burn more calories running and what you can do to maximize your calorie burn during your workout (even if you don't want to run).

Chart courtesy of Sushi Suzuki.

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