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.

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.

No, not even close. I would expect 4-5 hours of walking to burn significantly more than that.

On top of this, it doesn't "stack" well because of the low heart rate usage, meaning it logarithmically increases calorie costs (our bodies essentially amortize it), whereas lifting and carrying a heavy object for 20 seconds exponentially increases it.

For a fat dude, it's about 150 calories / hr for sitting vs 350 for walking.

Source: google. Use appropriate doses of salt.

Cardio is continuous work while lifting is work done a few seconds at a time.

Walking in particular is still moving your body horizontally through space. That horizontal displacement is the biggest determinant of energy cost for any given body, all things being equal.

Running only burns slightly more per unit distance because there's slightly more vertical displacement as you're literally leaving the ground between steps.

Or incorporate more strength training that increases type IIb adaptations and greater BMR.

William Goodge smashes record after running across Australia in 35 days

  British athlete four days quicker than previous record holder who completed 3,800km feat in 39 days

  Spurred on by his mother’s battle with cancer, and with his father by his side, William Goodge crossed the finish line in Sydney just after 4pm on Monday.

  It brought an end to 35 days of pounding the pavement, striding the equivalent of two-and-a-half marathons a day.

> Shannon-Leigh Litt has run 500 ultra marathons in 500 Days

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360690060/northlander-runs-her...

Out of reach for most of us though.

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.

How do you measure the calories burned ? Get 10 different devices you'll get 10 different measures.

Not at the same time, I would hope

...but it sounds sciencey and sexy so it's often repeated.

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.

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.

>>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.

More realistically, I hit 600-700kcal per session.

https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/blog/2018/06/how-does-your-...

There's no evidence for this.

But everyone should walk a little bit if only for the mental health benefits.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

We used to do it as children on the ranch. Running down sheep and cows is easy. Deer just take more time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_paradox

Bipedal walking on mostly flat ground can only be matched by kangaroos' hopping in terms of energy efficiency.

Are you walking for work?

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.

The problem is that most people don't do anything physical at all and walking is one of the easiest way to get started. Any type of activity is beneficial, you need to move for your lymphatic system to work properly and walking is perfect for that, your feet/lower legs basically are lymph pumps: https://www.mdpi.com/2813-3307/2/2/4

"This can't be good for your body" is a bullshit excuse most of the time, I have 1 in a million chance to pulling a muscle while deadlifting, but someone who sits all day and don't exercise has 1 in 1 chance of slowly rotting away day by day, pick your poison. Unless you morbidly obese I don't think a 10kg backpack will be the straw that breaks the camel's back

Most people got it backwards, your knees and back don't hurt because you overused them, they hurt because they're grossly underused.

My question was how much weight is necessary. Also curious whether that applies on the flat or only on incline, and whether a similar training load could be accomplished with lower joint stress by doing unloaded runs and weight room stuff.

If you want to really invest, there is the GoRuck brand. https://www.goruck.com/

I've seen many people around me with knee replacements, and I do not want that for myself.

I walk two miles per day. I would not run for this reason.

Studies increasingly show that running is not bad for your knees and runners in fact have some of the strongest healthiest knees around. User proper form, replace your shoes regularly, don’t train for the olympics, and running will be just fine for your joints.

> Studies have shown that recreational runners have a knee and hip osteoarthritis (OA) prevalence that is three times lower than that of sedentary non-runners. Competitive runners showed an even more impressive four-fold reduction in knee and hip OA prevalence. These results are due to the fact that regular running strengthens the muscles around the knee joint and supports overall joint health. Running also plays a vital role in maintaining healthy cartilage and bone density, which are crucial for knee function.

https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2023/08/29/is-runni...

No. Every exercise regime must include a ramp up period. If I started training like an olympian tomorrow I'd be in the hospital by next week. Same thing if a couch potato tried to insta jump into my workout routine.

My contention is with people who don't even try running because they're worried about a hypothetical injury 30 years later.

You can also adjust your training volume if it becomes a problem. For example I got an achilles injury because it turns out 3 marathons in 1 year was too many and I needed to put more focus on recovery.

Caused by running too much ?

Every sport is detrimental at _very high_ level but I think you have a faaaat margin before running becomes an issue, most people are much closer to "undertraining" than "overtraining"

If you learn to run without heel striking (I don't even know how people can run like that but I see it all the time, no wonder it hurts your knees) and don't run on hard surfaces you can run a marathon a week and I doubt you'd ever develop any issues

https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/will-continuing-to...

“Adding an incline is a great way to increase the challenge for your cardiovascular system and get the same kind of benefits that you can get from jogging or running without the same amount of wear and tear on your knees,” says Tyler Spraul, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and the Head Trainer at Exercise.com.

There was even a period of history where extreme volumes of walking were used in marathon training.

I think I may agree with you that "healthy" should include basic levels of fitness and not simply !(ill)

88 hours of walking.

The biggest change was when I made it show steps on the main screen.

Context matters and in terms of good means of exercise it does not take much for walking to fall pretty far down the list.

Personally, I hate running, but love cycling. If I'm in two minds about whether to go for a cycle, I think to myself "I'll just start off and if I don't feel in the mood I can just come back after 5 minutes".

Yes walking is great, it clears your mind and is rather little impacting on joints compared to say running. Is this surprising to anybody understanding basic physiology? No mention of ie swimming which is even much better for such case.

Yes, it will never supplant more intense workouts like running, no need to explain that everybody who ever done both can see and feel it clearly. No mention of hiking which is more intense and weight loaded variant of such, on rougher terrain.

Its not underrated, it sits right where it should, and tons of folks are doing it, also me (as recovery after some nasty paragliding accident last year which included some wheelchair time, plus its a great way to clear my mind after an intense day... but for proper workout I go to gym for free weights or HIIT if goal is cardio, with corresponding results).

Walking is a low calorie burn which is sometimes more beneficial when you're out of shape. One theory is that your body doesn't go into fight-or-flight. Running might be too stressful, which might cause an excess cortisol response, which can increase fat storage (especially belly fat), suppress recovery, cause muscle breakdown, so overdoing running when out of shape can backfire metabolically. Not because it's ineffective, but because the body is overwhelmed by the perceived "emergency."

Anecdata, simply walking more was the magic solution for me.

He said treadmill, because in his experience walking on a treadmill is the only indoor exercise that he's seen a good fraction of people actually stick with long enough to do any good. With all the others people do it for a while and then stop.