How to Calculate Calories Burned when Walking

There is many calorie burning calculators widely available on the Internet today and while I find them quite funny and entertaining there is no way they can be reliable or accurate.

There is so many things to consider before the calculation like your accurate weight and how fast you are walking and so on.

But I did take a look at some websites which let you calculate the calories burned based on different factors:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/fitness/too ls/walking

Yes, weather.com! You choose the duration (time) and your weight. Under select a speed is "walking a dog" which I assume is the slow speed. Then there is below 2 mph, 2 1/2 mph, 2 1/2 mph downhill, and after that increased walk speed for up to 5 mph. There is also 3 1/2 mph uphill on the list. So if you are going faster downhill and slower uphill you are out of luck!

Then there is about.com. You can choose from two calculators, one if you know your distance, the other if you know the time and how fast you were walking. Quite confusing if you ask me! Minus is that the weight is 20 lb from 100-200, pace from 2-7 mph, no downhill or uphill options. You can count kilometers or miles.

To make it more fun they tell you what you can eat after, my answer after 2 miles in 3.5 mph was a half cup of potato salad. About.com also gives you the option to count from the steps on your pedometer.

http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/cal calculators.htm

Maybe the best calculator by options can be found on the nutritiondata.com. It asks if you are a male or a female, how tall you are, how old you are and how much you weigh. It also asks if you are active or not. There is tons of different activities including different walk speed and level or not:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/calories-burne d

If you really want to go scientific there is a BMR (BASAL METABOLIC RATE)

You can read more about it in here:

http://www.essortment.com/lifestyle/dietingcalcul at_tqxx.htm

But how ever you will slice it the more you walk and with more speed, more calories you will burn. So what are you waiting for, sitting in front of the computer screen will not get those calories burning!