Run vs. walk for calories burned

I heard from a trainer friend not that long ago that it doesn't matter how you achieve the distance on foot the amount of calories that you burn is going to be so close to the same. I didn't believe her at first so I figured I would test it out a bit. Now I'm not going to say that my Strava readout is definitive proof that what the trainer said is true but I have read multiple studies that have shown that what she is saying is in fact true.

Here is a run, well more like a jog with a few walking rest moments built in that I recently did.

That's 586 calories burned over the course of 45 minutes. I recall this run being somewhat difficult for me as have most of my runs been. But now let's compare that to a walk that I did over about the same amount of distance.

When you do walks Strava doesn't even bother to tell you your per km pace but instead reverts to steps. I'm not a huge fan of steps being measured but I guess it is better than nothing. As you can see the amount of calories burned is roughly the same.

Now this could of course simply be Strava being lazy with how they calculate their calorie burns because while I do provide my age, height, and weight, I am not attached to the app with any sort of heart rate monitor. Therefore, even though I have this information, I still wasn't convinced because the way in which they calculate the calories burned could simply be a distance x calories per km computation. I looked up a simple tool that adds a bit more credibility to my claim that distance, not necessarily how hard you push yourself over that distance, is what matters most.

I tried to embed a calories burned java something or other but this site wasn't having that but there is a link to it HERE. This calculator is based on much more extensive research than a simple calculator that I think Strava uses.

The scientific consensus is that the faster that you move the more calories that you are going to burn over a period of time. However, when we spread this out over a certain distance, the caloric differences are so slight, that you may as well just go ahead and do something that doesn't hurt you or make you not want to do it again.

So if you are trying to lose weight or just feel better about how you live your life I say fire up a podcast and just walk around and take some photos or something like that. Exercise really shouldn't be something that people dread and if we turn it into that, we are not going to stick with it. I know that I am quite hesitant to go on a run but have no problem with a walk. If your intention is just to burn calories and you are not training for a race, then walking is just as good as running provided you have enough time to fit it in. It takes me around an hour 20 to walk 5k, but i can run it in 40 mins. I guess it just kind of depends on what sort of mood I am in!

_{I didn't go to school for this you guys and girls, I just look things up like a lot of us do. I also have a bank of information that comes from doing things incorrectly and then realizing my mistakes and correcting them. Hopefully, some people out there can learn from my experiences and not make the mistakes in the first place. It is much easier to remain in shape than it is to get in shape!}