In the June 11 Healthy Eating Tip I mentioned that the weight-loss equation is a matter of balancing the amount of energy coming in with the energy going out. To put it simply: if you have more energy or food coming into your body than going out, you gain weight. If you have more energy going out in terms of exercise than you have coming in as food, you lose weight.
Most of what I write about is concerned with reducing the calories-in side of the equation, but to experience real weight loss, you need to address both sides of the weight-loss equation. If you don’t work both sides of the equation, you are not firing on all cylinders. I am a strong advocate of keeping everything as simple as possible with food, and I feel the same way about exercise. There are many forms of exercise and exercise toys, but I always return to just plain old walking. You don’t need any sexy equipment to walk, and you can do it pretty much anywhere at any time. You can stop what you are doing right now and walk in the clothes you are wearing!
Humans are not designed to expend calories if reproduction or survival are not involved. That is just a fact that there is no way around. Read the Healthy Eating Tip “Exercise Will Kill You” for more detailed information on that. It’s all about the environmental context our bodies developed in and the environmental context in which we now live. The exercise that in past years was part of our daily struggle to survive, thrive, and reproduce now has to be grafted onto our lives. It is possible now to go through an entire day living a meaningful life and get no actual exercise. Starting to think about exercise as working the calories-out side of the weight-loss equation can help with stepping into the world of exercise.
When I took off a substantial amount of weight in 2003, I looked around at all forms of exercise. I finally found the National Weight Control Registry, a 30-year-old study of more than 10,000 people who have lost 30 pounds or more and kept it off for at least one year. 94% of study participants report walking as the most frequent form of exercise! A 10,000-person study is not huge, but the fact that 94% of study participants agree on walking is significant. Walking is where I started, and I suggest it for everyone that is trying to lose weight.
So, what kind of benefit can we expect from walking? Well, there are a lot of variables. How fast you walk affects the calories burned. There is a huge difference between walking 2 miles an hour, an average leisurely hallway pace, and walking 4 miles an hour, which would look like a jog in the Smith County Memorial Hospital hallways. Few people can sustain a 4 mile an hour pace for very long. Maintaining 3.5 miles an hour for a full hour is a decent workout for most people. People that are heavier burn more calories walking than lighter people do and the incline you walk makes a difference as well. After you get going and can walk at 3.5 miles an hour for 60 minutes it’s a good thing to take a look at all of the variables and try to maximize the calories you burn but at the start just try and make it through 60 minutes at 2 miles an hour!
Many websites will help you calculate the number of calories you burn while walking. I went to runnerspace.com and punched in my weight at 4 miles an hour and came up with 415 calories burned per hour or 6.91 calories a minute. I’m just using that speed as a reference. In reality, if I tried to maintain 4 miles an hour for 60 minutes right now, I would be on my knees gasping, begging for oxygen! But at that rate, let’s take a look at what that will burn off. There’s a list of some food items below. All of these foods are what are called “empty calories.” In terms of caloric density, these foods are calorically dense and nutritionally deficient. They add no real food value except calories. I am not picking on any food item here. I love all of these items myself and would eat them every day if I could! Cherry Garcia should be a food group, and McD’s makes the bestest (yes, that’s a word) fries in the world!
2 Reese’s peanut butter cups – 210 Calories (30 minutes)
1 pint Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream – 1010 Calories (2 hours 26 minutes)
1 pint Halo Top Peach ice cream – 330 Calories (47 minutes)
12-oz can of soda – 200 calories (28 minutes)
1 small bag Ruffles potato chips – 160 calories (23 minutes)
½ large bag Ruffles potato chips – 720 calories (1 hour 44 minutes)
McDonald’s large fries – 490 calories (1 hour 10 minutes)
McDonald’s medium vanilla shake – 610 calories (1 hour 28 minutes)
Dairy Queen large dipped cone – 650 calories (1 hour 34 minutes)
To burn off the empty calories in two Reese’s peanut butter cups takes me 30 minutes walking 4 miles an hour on level ground. Remember, we are just using that as a reference. I might be able to maintain 4 miles an hour for 30 minutes, but that would be it. For me 1 pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream is a portion. That’s true for a lot of people. To burn those calories off it takes me 2 hours and 26 minutes on the treadmill. If you are serious about losing weight, that will make you think twice about buying that pint of ice cream! Gene’s sells the Halo Top low-calorie ice cream that is quite good. I eat that as a treat every once in a while. Even that will take me a full 47 minutes of walking at 4 miles an hour to burn off! Yes, a pint is one portion here too!
One small bag of chips only costs 23 minutes walking, but a more realistic portion of half a family-sized bag takes 15 minutes shy of 2 hours!
You can eat at McDonald’s, but if you have a large fry and medium shake, it would take 2 hours and 38 minutes walking to burn off empty calories that gave you little nutritional value!
Go to Runnerspace and enter your weight to see how many calories you burn an hour. Many of you will have to double the amount of walking time I have calculated here. The next time you decide to overeat, think about the time it will take walking to burn those calories off!
Here are the references for today’s healthy eating tip.
The National Weight Control Registry. http://www.nwcr.ws. (Accessed 07/02/2021)
Runnerspace.com. Calorie Calculator. https://tools.runnerspace.com/gprofile.php?do=title&title_id=802&mgroup_id=45577. (Accessed 07/02/2021)