Calories Out

Runner’s World has an intriguing Peak Performance blog entry up which discusses the amount of calories burned by various exercises like running, biking, walking and swimming. I was always under the impression that whether you ran or walked a mile, the energy expenditure was the same-roughly 100 calories. Apparently that isn’t the case. Running actually burns about 30 percent more calories per mile than walking, because running involves a completely different form of locomotion than walking. Runners "hop" or "bounce" across the ground, while walkers skim along without raising their center of gravity. All that hopping burns a lot of extra calories. There is a handy chart in the article that compares the exercises. For simplicity sake, in running, your gross calorie burn per mile = .75 x wt in lbs. For walking, it = .57 x wt in lbs. So a 175 pound runner burns approximately 130 calories per mile. Hand me another granola bar.