Forums » General Training

1. balbert
   Member

   So when I first started to get back into training, it was mainly to loose weight for my upcoming trip to Hawaii. Saw pictures of myself from a previous trip and didn't want to look like a beached white whale.

   Having not done any real physical activity in a while I, started by walking and actually found in the end that i lost most of my weight from that, only starting to run towards the end my training.

   I once asked a PT what was better for loosing weight, walking or running. She said that walking can help you loose more weight because at the lower heart rates your body can more easily convert the fat to energy. Were when running and at a higher heart rate, your body basically converts the sugars already in your blood instead of actually burning the fat.

   Is this basically the deal? I know that diet and such is a big part of it, but could I loose more weight if I was to walk for an hour or longer 3 days a week as apposed to running for say 20 minutes 3 days a week?

   Posted 5 years ago #

2. Brad Hefta-Gaub
   Administrator

   Hopefully others on the forum jump in on this as well, but I have to say I think it's really unfortunate that this PT gave you this advice and continued the spreading of what I like to call the myth of 'fat burning zone'.

   There are aspects of what this PT told you that are true. Namely that at a lower heartrate a greater PERCENTAGE of the calories being burned will come from fat.

   But there is information missing in the statement, that leads to the myth that you'll burn more fat at a lower heart rate. Namely, at a lower heart rate much fewer calories are being burned than at a higher heart rate. So at a low heart rate less total fat calories and less total calories from blood sugars are being burned.

   Walking is a great activity... and it certainly is much better than no activity. But there is no question, minute for minute, mile for mile, running will burn more total calories and more total calories from fat than walking will.

   There is an article in our library section that discusses heart rate zones. And although it wasn't written specifically to discuss weight loss, it does speak to this very common question. You may want to check that article out.

   In your question you ask about 3 hour of walking a week vs. 1 hour of running a week. Now of course, this is a more complicated question because you've changed the amount of time you're committing to walking vs. running.

   So, let's look at one technique to estimate the differences in calories burned by these two activities.

   The typically accepted value of METs for "Walking for exercise, 3.5mph, brisk pace" is 3.8 METs. Running at a 10min/mile is listed as 10.0 METs. (For more information on METs and how they related to calories, check out the article Burned by Calories Burned in our library.)

   If you accept these MET values, and using the formula cal=MET*Hours*Kg then walking 3.5mph for 3hours would burn slightly more calories (11.4 calories per kg) than running 6mph for 1hour (10 calories per kg). But if you ran for 30 minutes each day, you'd easily burn more calories at (15 calories per kg).

   Posted 5 years ago #

3. Phil Sabin
   

   I am a huge advocate of mixing in lots of different exercises.

   Running is a great exercise for losing weight, but most people can't do it every day. Walking is a great exercise for your off days and can be done everyday by most people.

   Then you don't have to worry about which is the best, because you end up doing both. :-)

   Posted 5 years ago #

4. Brad Hefta-Gaub
   Administrator

   That's an idea I can get behind!

   Posted 5 years ago #

5. adarian
   Member

   The old saying goes if you walk a mile and run a mile you would burn the same amount of calories because of the time involved.
   No matter what to continue losing weight without altering calorie intake, the level of intensity or the durations of the exercise must increase.
   Because as your level of fitness increases you will burn less calories doing the same exercise at the same level of intensity or duration.

   Posted 5 years ago #

6. Lisa Sabin
   Administrator

   Adarian is correct. Your body adapts to the training, so it's best to keep changing your program and challenging yourself. Remember the 10% rule though, don't increase mileage by more than 10% per week.

   Posted 5 years ago #

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