How Many Calories Do You Burn Walking for an Hour?

Walking has seemingly endless benefits for your health and wellness. But when it comes to weight loss, you might wonder exactly how many calories you burn walking for an hour.

Short answer: The number of calories you burn walking depends on how strenuous your walk is and how much you weigh.

Walking at a brisk, moderate pace is a great way to get your heart pumping and shed calories. After an hour, you can expect to burn somewhere between 240 and 723 calories walking.

Why so big of a range? Because your caloric burn walking depends on your body weight and walking pace or intensity, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

Here are some examples of how many calories different people burn in an hour of walking:

As you can see, pumping up the intensity of your walk increases the number of calories you expend walking. Here are a few ways to do just that:

Add inclines to your walks to bump your workout to the next level. Walking on an incline increases your walk intensity and your heart rate, according to the ACE Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Institute. As a result, you burn more calories than flat-ground strolling.

Incline walking also activates more muscles in your lower body, which means this type of walking is better at building strength, too.

Interval training — alternating between bouts of faster and slower walking — can help you burn more calories and lose weight.

‌Beginner Intervals‌

1. Walk at a quick pace for about 30 seconds. Your quick pace should feel challenging.
2. Slow down to a moderate pace for 2 minutes, 30 seconds. This pace should feel like a recovery, but not your slowest pace.
3. Repeat for 5 total intervals.

‌Intermediate Intervals‌

1. Walk at a quick pace for 1 minute. Your quick pace should feel challenging.
2. Slow down to a moderate pace for 2 minutes. This pace should feel like a recovery, but not your slowest pace.
3. Repeat for 5 total intervals.

‌Advanced Intervals‌

1. Walk at a quick pace for 2 minute. Your quick pace should feel challenging.
2. Slow down to a moderate pace for 1 minute. This pace should feel like a recovery, but not your slowest pace.
3. Repeat for 5 total intervals.

Walking with some extra resistance, like a weighted vest, is a safe way to increase your walking intensity and build some strength, according to the ACE.

You can also add incorporate body-weight strength exercises into your walking routine. In general, resistance training is a great supplement for your walking workouts to help build strength across your body. The more muscle on your body, the stronger your metabolism and the more calories you burn during day-to-day activities.

Building strength can also help improve your posture, promote good joint and bone health and stave off age-related bone loss.

Try squats, lunges or push-ups to increase your caloric output and build muscle. For every 5 minutes of walking, try to stop and do 1 minute of strength exercises.

For a more exact estimate of how many calories you burn walking, the MET formula or an online calorie calculator can help, according to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

The MET formula uses so-called metabolic equivalents, or numbers that estimate how hard your body's working at any one time, according to the ACE.

‌Here's how to use it:‌

1. Find the MET value for your activity online, like in this table from the ACE.
2. Convert your weight into kilograms by dividing the number in pounds by 2.2.
3. Multiply 0.0175 times that MET value times your weight in kilograms.
4. Finally, multiply the result by 60 to get an hour's worth of calorie burn.

Another way to track your average calories burned a day while walking is by wearing a fitness watch or using a calorie-tracking app. Fitness watches are a great option for those who don't want to carry a whole phone on their walk. Generally, these use a built-in heart rate monitor and GPS system to track your amount of steps, how many calories burned in a day and distance covered, but make sure you choose a watch that has these features, because some don't.

It's worth noting that fitness trackers might not be 100 percent accurate, as noted in an August 2016 study in ‌Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise ‌and a June 2019 study in the ‌Journal of Medical Internet Research‌, but these devices are still good for keeping you accountable and tracking progress.

Walking apps are a more cost-friendly option that you can download (usually for free) on your cell phone. These apps generally take your age, gender, weight and activity level and track your walk progress and calorie burn using this data.