#like you imagine he normally kills 100s of rabbits every week

[kingkatsuki]

One more and then I’ll stop but like seriously imagine this hulking brute of a man preparing to mount his dragon to return home to his Kingdom after successfully pillaging another village. The loot strapped to the sides of the dragons as he stands victorious, covered head to toe in a sheen of drying blood that for the most part isn’t his.

And as he’s preparing to leave he notices something moving in the foliage out of the corner of his eye. Immediately reaching for his axe as he holds it up high, ready to strike— when he sees a small bunny rabbit struggling beneath a wicker basket. The poor animal looks injured, its paw a deep crimson that rivals his eyes and his first thought is to put it out of its misery and take it home as part of the feast.

But then he thinks of you, and the way you tremble in front of him much like the little rabbit in front of him now. Sliding his axe back into his belt as he crouches down to pick up the struggling animal, caging it in large palms as he holds it uncharacteristicly gently to his chest. Walking back to his dragon as his men call out to him.

“That’s barely a snack for a dragon, King.” Sero calls out, grinning from ear to ear as Bakugou shoots him a glare.

“Do you want me to put it with the rest of the food?” Kirishima offers as he reaches out to take the bunny by the ears.

“No,” Bakugou mutters gruffly, opening a sachel at the side of his beast as he places the rabbit gently inside. His men raise their brows but know better than to say anything as they take off, returning back home before nightfall.

The Kingdom is in celebration as the team return, gathering the spoils as a feast is prepared for tonight. And Bakugou decides to clean himself up before seeking you out, worried that if he found you covered in the blood of his enemies you’d never talk to him again. It was much like he looked the first time he found you; and he’ll remember that terrified look for the rest of his days.

Changing into fresh cloth and furs as he makes his way towards your room, and even though he’s trying to be respectful he still doesn’t knock. Stepping inside to see you curled up by a fire with a book that you quickly put down when you notice him, the tension in your body doesn’t go unnoticed by Bakugou who tries to be less intimidating. A difficult feat for a man who’s waged wars on nations, and spilt more blood than the rivers that flow outside the Kingdom.

He’s silent as he crouches, setting his sachel down in front of him as he opens it. Rough hands reach in to take out the quivering bunny rabbit, which you stare at with wide eyes.

“It reminded me of you.” He rasps, holding the animal out to you as you crawl over to him from your position in front of the fire. Gentle hands taking the rabbit from him as you hold him against your chest, soft fingers stroking at its fur.

“You’re not going to cook him after, are you?”

And Bakugou can’t help but smile at your question, it’s the first time you’ve seen him do so and it softens the strong frown lines against his face. His eyes rounder, fierce gaze less intense as he moves to sit on the floor beside you with thick thighs outstretched.

“He looked like he needed someone to look after him.”

[gotmilk5101520]

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia Watch Episode 14 Return of the Trollhunter

Now we begin the second half of season 1 (It’s actually season 2 but we don’t talk about that)

“Holy moly!”

Toby survives that.

“What the heck was-?”

“Huh?” We now return to your daily schedule bizarre adventures.

“Hop on!”

“Adios, fire cat”

“Hey, maybe save the jokes for when we aren’t gonna die” Well it sounded cool in his head.

“I can’t believe you took that stupid rock to your science class!”

“First, it’s not a rock. It’s a volcanic slag”

“And how was i suppose to know there was a flaming monster hiding in it?”

“You bought a magic rock off a troll named “Marvin the Monster Dealer” What did you think would happen, Tobes?” What happened before this moment?

“Um, Master Jim, you said this was a luminaire”

“When that is obviously an infernal hellheeti” Getting away with saying hell.

“Should i punch it?”

“Can i punch it?”

“Yes!” “No!”

“I was going to add, make sure you do not feed the fire by attacking it!”

“Opps” Punching doesn’t solve everything.

Jim uses Water Breathing. Tanjiro would be proud.

“Uh, guys, the fire hydrant-”

“Close enough”

Just keep walking.

Why is the opening still the same, even though Bular is dead now?

“Morning mom”

“Hi”

“Made your favorite breakfast”

“Sorry, kiddo, in a rush”

Should i be glad that Miraculous Ladybug doesn’t have something like this? It would be painful to watch. Fortunately, everyone in Miraculous Ladybug is stupid.

“I mean, it’s been like a month” Wait it’s been a month since last episode? So what have they been doing in a month?

“I don’t know how to fix this unless i tell her the truth”

“But if i do, they’ll send me to the crazy house” Hey, you told Claire, and she didn’t send you to the crazy house. Well she was tempted to do that cause you weren’t making any sense, but she didn’t.

“They fixed your tooth” Why did it take this long for Steve’s tooth to get fixed? I doubt all of the first half happened in a single month.

“I heard he was run out of town by the mob”

“I heard he got a mail-order bride and moved to North Korea”

“As if. Where do you think Mr. Strickler went, Jimmy-Jam. After all, he was dating your mom”

“Why does everyone keep bringing this up?!”

“Guys, this is my brother, and NotEnrique’s driving me nuts”

“You know how many times i have to change him?”

“He knows how to use a toilet”

“He chooses the diaper” “Yeah? Well at least you didn’t have to shove your hand in stinking diapers, and have it still stink to this day” “Ugh. Why does it still still stink? Have you washed your hands?” “Yes! 100 times since i got home with my cold McDonald’s French Fries” “Well excuse me, prince” “It’s well excuse me, princess!” “Are you two gonna kiss right now?” “Shut up Toby!”

“You spend so much time with Lake, you’re practically swimming in him” That’s what she said.

“We’re just friends. End of story” Wait, did- Did Claire just Adrien Agrested Jim? Goddamn it Adrien! Your Just a Friending made it’s way to Arcadia and got Claire. I hope you’re happy.

“Okay, people, who can tell me what happened in the year 1989?”

“No, seriously, i don’t remember. It was a crazy year” Let’s see. What video games came out that year.

“Really, Palchuk? That’s it. I’m dating your mom” “No, no, wait!”

Okay hold on. Why does it take a month for Claire to see Trollmarket? Out-of-Universe reason i can understand. You want to do a one month skip, and we all want to Claire’s reaction to Trollmarket. Could you imagine Claire going to Trollmarket off-screen? We get a few mentions of it here and there, but we never see her full reaction. I can understand the out of universe reason. But what i don’t understand is the In-Universe reason. Like Jim told Claire the truth a month ago. There’s no reason to keep anything a secret with her. Like why? A month to progress all of this? Cause i think it would take Claire a week at most to take it all in. Slower than when J- Never mind.

“Now, you’re gonna want to start drawing a semi-circle”

“Oh! You have it. Okay, never mind” Easier than me drawing an actually circle.

“It’s... It’s lively. Shit that’s Aja’s thing!”

He pets.

“Jim told me you helped him face Draal”

“And slay Bular” Wait Jim explained the entire first half of the season to Claire? Where are the fucking fanfics?

“And that Vespa!”

“Best birthday ever. Except for the part where Jim gets chased by a Stalkling” “That is something i want to forget”

“You’ve read A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore?”

“Volumes 1 through 47 It took me a while to decipher the symbols”

“But once i got past the Fifth Declension, i started to get the hang of it” It’s embarrassing when your (Not yet, almost, but not really, not for another season) girlfriend knows more about Troll Lore than you.

“She read the book!”

“She read the book! Master Jim, i love my daughter in law!” “Wait what?”

“She’s a flower” Mood.

Always have a drink before you continue.

“I accepted a human Trollhunter’

“And allowed the pudgy one to stay for moral support” Toby is the moral support boyfriend. Claire is the moral support girlfriend. See? Two different roles.

“But this? A third?”

“It’s an infestation!” Hey they’re not rabbits where they multiple every 5 seconds. Then again, Jim and Claire- Never mind again.

*Talks in Troll*

“She speaks Troll”

“And Trollmarket is honored to have you as well”

“Oh, Blinkous! If only the amulet had chosen such a learned and delightful fleshbag”

“Hey!” Trollhunter Claire au.

“That was awesome, Claire”

“Vendel loves you and he hates everyone!” I said it once, and i’ll say it again: Vendel is the most relatable character in this series.

Where did this light came from?

“Hopefully, this will give the girl some closure”

“She does understand why we cannot allow the bridge to open?”

“Well, you said it yourself, we’d be fools to open the bridge and risk letting Gunmar out”

“Right, Jim?”

“Oh, of course”

“We’d be crazy to do that“ Yeah... A crazy fool, heheheheh...

“Hey buddy, it’s your sis”

”Don’t you start thinking i’ve forgotten about you”

“We’re gonna get you back. I promise”

“See you soon, little chicharron”

*Cries in Troll*

“I need to share a word with our Trollhunter” That’s what it’‘s like when dad wants to talk to you alone. Then again, i don’t have a dad so...

“Hey, Draal? It’s strange, but i feel like i’ve seen you before. Have we met?” “Uh...”

“No. You must’ve mistaken me for someone else”

“Hate to be there when we have to rebuild Jim, right?”

“What a mess”

“Well, i just grossed myself out” We’ll see about that in Wizards.

“You fight in an arena surrounded by the remains of dead Trollhunters?”

“That is...”

“The most heroic thing i’ve ever seen. If their ghosts talked, then it be like Mulan”

“Sometimes, the heart leads you down paths you should not cross”

“How did you-?”

“Figure it out?”

“Your devotion to this girl is as obvious as Marinette’s feelings for Adrien. WHICH IS STILL DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!”

“But you know the danger”

“If you went in alone, you’d be killed”

“Which is why we will answer every call”

“You said i have to answer every call. Now-“

“Wait, did you just say “We”?”

“Aaarrrgghh and i discussed it. We knew you were going in, with or without our approval”

“But... If Claire’s brother is important to you, then he’s important to us”

“For folly or for fraught”

“We are a team”

*Cries in Troll again*

“Is this normal?”

“Nothing’s normal around here”

“Get used to it, sister” Translation: “Welcome to your new life”

“But only a Trollhunter can wield Daylight”

“We are Trollhunters!”

“Oh, man! Now, i’m dead!”

“That stupid Soothscryer killed me in the Forge” He thought Bular would kill him. But nope, instead it’s the fucking Soothscryer.

“What do you mean, he’s in the Void?”

“The Void sounds like a very empty word. A bad word” I hear the Void is very welcoming.

“Yeah. And are these happy ghosts we’re talking about here”

“Or Mulan’s ghost family?”

“He is now under the spiritual guidance of”

“Master Trollhunters”

“Ghost guidance counselors?”

“So, it is like Mulan”

“Wow! So trolls and ghosts exist”

“What’s next? A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

“Fairies?”

“Fairies? Preposterous!”

“Fairies lost the war to the pixies centuries ago” Hate to meet these pixies, right?

“But if we’re going in, they said the only way we’re getting out alive is if we kill Gunmar” Well that’s a bigger lie than any lie Lila can make.

“And with Strickler gone, maybe we have a chance”

Speak of the devil. Or changeling.

If i ever seem dead, be sure to throw rocks at me to be sure.

“Who has awakened me?”

This is me and my sister.

“You know my name”

“A shame i will never know yours”

Angor Rot had to deal with the goblins wrath.

“My ring”

“My flesh”

“Yield to me!”

“For i wear the One Ring”

“You have killed thousands”

“You are chaos incarnate”

“And you”

“are...

“mine”

“Hahahahaha!”

The second half of season 1 (Actually season 2) is off to a great start.

Shit, what do i say that has something to do with next episode? Uh... See you next episode?

[kat-feinated]

My favorite Denver restaurants

How was your week?

My week included being invited to have a threesome with two of my work clients, who are both meth addicts and lost custody of their child due to said meth addiction.

My boss asked me to send the text to her and just replied “FOR GOD SAKE” and I feel like that’s the perfect summary of my year.

Speaking of meth, we finally finished watching “Tiger King” this week. I know I know, that show is so one month ago. But I have a lot of thoughts that I need to share with the world.

1. Did anyone else find Joe really sympathetic and felt bad for him? Yes, I know he’s unstable and probably killed animals and stuff but I found him...endearing!? 

2. Doc Antle is the creepiest ever ever ever. 

3. Jeff Lowe sucks. And his wife is way too young for him. And THE WHOLE THING WITH THE NANNY I JUST CAN’T.

4. The guy with no legs whose name I can’t remember was my favorite character. And just seems so normal. How did he end up there!?

5. I’m proud of Saff for standing up for Joe in the aftershow...everyone else just sold him down the river!

6. Howard Baskin. Howard Baskin singing. Howard Baskin’s wedding photos with Carole Baskin. The show is worth watching just for Howard Baskin.

7. Do I think Carole murdered her husband and fed him to a tiger? Yes. Would I still hang out with her in a heartbeat? ABSOLUTELY.

8. I’m extremely mad that I didn’t come up with “hey all you cool cats and kittens”. And now it’s already over-used.

Do you miss eating at restaurants as much as I do? (Probably not because you’re probably a normal person who has friends and other hobbies). I miss restaurants so much it HURTS. I miss looking up menus and deciding what I’m going to order days before I go. I miss people-watching and commenting on everyone else’s food. I miss kind servers bringing me baskets of bread and drinks that I didn’t make. I MISS RESTAURANTS YOU GUYS.

So, while I’m eagerly waiting for restaurants to start re-opening, I thought it would be fun to share my very favorite places to eat in Denver. Share this list with your favorite Denver local! Or better yet, come visit Denver and try these spots out (and invite me!!). 

Cuba Cuba: This was the first restaurant I tried in Denver, because it’s across the street from our old apartment. It’s located in an adorable blue bungalow but is surprisingly spacious on the inside. For drinks, order their house made mojitos or a pina colada. For appetizers, order the plantain chips with guacamole and garlic sauce (YUM) or the empanadas. Everything I’ve eaten there for dinner has been delicious, but I especially love the coconut shrimp and the chimichurri steak.

Perfect for: a date night or girls’ night where you feel like getting a little dressed up (but you’d be fine going there dressed more casually).

Rioja: This is my mom’s favorite Denver restaurant, and she insists we go every single time she’s in town. It’s located in Larimer Square, the cutest and most charming street in downtown Denver. It’s a bunch of old Victorian buildings that have been converted into restaurants and shops, and the street is decorated with twinkly lights and Colorado state flags so it’s a great spot to get a touristy picture when you visit.

The menu changes constantly, so it’s hard to recommend exactly what to order, but you can’t go wrong with the pasta dishes. They are known for their artichoke tortelloni and it’s honestly the best pasta I’ve ever eaten in my life. Last time we also ordered the tagliatelle and clams which was fantastic. For starters, order the smoked pear and raclette if it’s available-so yummy.

Also, Rioja makes all their bread in house, and it’s probably our favorite part of the restaurant. Waiters literally come around with a giant tray of bread and I always try every single type. The lavender sourdough and rosemary biscuit are life-changing.

Perfect for: when your parents come visit (and pay!) or a special occasion like an anniversary or birthday dinner. It is on the pricey side.

Work & Class: This is probably the Denver restaurant I’ve eaten at the most. Located in the very hip Five Points neighborhood, Work & Class is always busy and does not take reservations, so I would recommend going on a random weeknight vs. a Friday or Saturday. If you do go on the weekend, plan on an hour plus wait-the good news is you’re surrounded by bars and breweries to help pass the time.

Work & Class is a South American/American fusion restaurant, and everything is served tapas (small plates) style, so go with someone you are cool sharing with. They have fabulous in-house cocktails which change seasonally, so definitely order one while you peruse the menu. It’s hard to make food recommendations since I’ve probably tried everything on the menu and have never been disappointed, but some of my favorites include: the lamb, the empanadas, the mac & cheese, and any of their vegetable side dishes.

Perfect for: your group of friends who you’re comfortable sharing with (eating off of each other’s plates!).

Mercantile Dining & Provisions: This is another spot that my mom insists on visiting every time she comes to Denver. It’s located in Union Station in downtown Denver, which is itself a great spot to visit. It’s an old train station (that is still a working train station) but also home to a hotel, an ice cream parlor, a bookshop, a florist, and every other small adorable business you can imagine.

Mercantile serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner (I’ve had all 3 there), but my mom and I have created what we believe is the perfect system for dining there. We always go on the day she is leaving town, since she can take the train from Union Station to the Denver Airport after our meal. We try to go around 11am, and we order a raspberry muffin. My mom doesn’t even like muffins, but these are no ordinary muffins-not too sweet, perfectly fluffy, moist (I’M SORRY) -just sheer perfection. After sitting and people watching for about an hour, we then order a short rib sandwich around noon, as soon as they start serving their lunch menu (it gets quite busy at this time). SO GOOD. SO TASTY. Plus, the restaurant itself is so cute-it looks like Joanna Gaines designed the perfect black-and-white chic modern farmhouse.

Perfect for: brunch/lunch after a morning exploring downtown Denver, or a quick bite before catching the train to the airport.

Lowdown Brewery: Is it cheating that this is actually a brewery and not a restaurant? I say it counts because they make all their food in house. I don’t always love going to the popular breweries around Denver because they’re usually packed. I’ve never seen Lowdown packed and in my opinion it’s the best brewery in Denver in terms of food and ambience-and the beer is good too!

Not only do they make and sell their own beers, but their menu always features a seasonally rotating list of Colorado beers as well. They have a lot of IPA’s (which I despise but everyone else seems to love). I’ve tried their blood orange wheat, selfish (pale ale), and their blackberry sour and have enjoyed all three. In terms of food, you can’t go wrong with any of their pizzas, salads, or sandwiches, but I personally can’t get enough of their beer cheese dip (served with broccoli, apple slices, and soft pretzel bites-I’M DROOLING).

Perfect for: sitting out on their patio with friends in the warm weather. Bring your dog!

El Five: El Five has one of the coolest views of downtown Denver, not to mention delicious food and drinks and great service. Their sangria is the best I’ve ever tasted, but they have tons of great cocktail, beer and wine choices if that’s not your thing (but also what is wrong with you). For appetizers, try the spreads of the med-a platter of house made pita, hummus, and veggies. For their traditional tapas, I’ve tried and enjoyed the patatas bravas, the shrimp & calamari, and the goat cheese croquettes. Then, of course, you must try their paella. I’ve tried both the Valencian (made with rabbit confit!) and the seafood and would recommend either. Be prepared to log roll out of the restaurant when you’re finished because you will have gained 100 pounds.

Perfect for: a festive date night, dinner with your parents, drinks with your girlfriends-just be prepared for an expensive bill.

Stowaway: I’ve only been to Stowaway once, right before the shelter in place order started, but I’ve been dreaming about it ever since. First of all, it is tucked into the cutest former warehouse-turned-hipster-coffee shop/brunch spot, complete with exposed pipes and red brick walls. I AM HERE FOR IT.

We went on a Sunday morning with some friends who warned us to expect a bit of a wait. Fortunately, the Denver Central Market is just a few blocks away so we were able to enjoy some cocktails and/or coffee while we waited.

When we finally got in, I ordered the Colorful Colorado (an egg dish) because of the 8 million reviews I’d read ahead of time that told me I must order this dish or live a life of unending misery and regret (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration but it was something along those lines). I also split the fruit toast with Joshua because I have to order something sweet and something savory when I go to brunch (I know I have a problem, just leave me alone). Both were so freaking good. I can’t wait to go back soon and try everything on their menu (or more likely, order the same two dishes over and over again).

Perfect for: brunch with your favorite hipster friend.

Linger: This is the one restaurant on my list that I love more for the location/ambience than for the food, though the food is certainly tasty. Linger is located in my favorite neighborhood in Denver (LoHi or Lower Highlands) and the building it’s in USED TO BE A MORTUARY. Like, WHERE DEAD PEOPLE WOULD BE SENT AFTER THEY DIED. I personally find this so cool, and if this freaks you out, you would never know except that I just told you (sorry). It’s very airy inside with cozy mood lighting and exposed brick walls. This is another place that does small plates and they’re all globally-inspired street food dishes-the menu is literally divided by continent (i.e. Asia, Africa). For drinks, order the turmeric mule. For eating, you really can’t go wrong, but some dishes I’ve enjoyed include: the bao buns, the impossible burger persian sliders, the tuna tostadas, and the potato masala dosa. Skip dessert because right around the corner you’ll find Little Man Ice Cream-one of my favorite ice cream spots in the city.

Perfect for: a first date/date night, a girls’ night, or a summer brunch on their rooftop bar.

Snooze: Full disclosure-Snooze is a chain and is not just located in Denver; they have locations across Colorado and in a few other states including Texas and California. That being said, I just have to include it on my list because I believe it is completely worth the hype.

Because there is always a long wait (I’m talking 2 hours sometimes), we always go on a Monday morning when there’s a federal holiday that other people don’t get off, such as Columbus Day. Don’t kid yourself-there will still be a wait, but it will hopefully be closer to one hour. Plus, they give out free coffee while you wait!

I don’t even like pancakes, but I always order the pancakes here. ORDER THE DAMN PANCAKES PEOPLE. You can even get a pancake flight where you can sample three different types of pancakes (I highly recommend the blueberry danish pancakes and the sweet potato pancakes). If I’m in a savory mood, I’ll order the breakfast tacos with a side of one pancake.

Perfect for: brunch with your friend, brunch with family or anyone with kids, brunch with your arch nemesis, brunch with anyone.

Hopefully this list made you excited to go back to restaurants again in the future, instead of depressed! And please send me your best restaurant recommendations! These conversations are what I live for.

[thesportssoundoff]

Sometimes Good Enough Just Ain’t Good Enough: 10 Challenges For The Yankees Going Forward

Joey

October 21st

At the end of the year, 29 teams will head into the latter stages of the Fall simply saying they weren't good enough. On Saturday night, it was the Yankees turn to stand up, look in the mirror and say "Not good enough" as they bowed out of the ALCS in the deciding sixth game of the series. When you win 100 games, survive countless injuries, win with a sweep in the ALDS and lose on a walk off in game 6 of the ALCS it's normally a successful season but this is New York where expectations aren't the same as Milwaukee, Oakland, St. Louis or any of the teams who played into October before finally saying "Not good enough!" as they hung up their hats. The Yankees expect championships and it's sometimes mutant fanbase (of which I am firmly a member of) are now going on 10 years of no ticker tape parades. Still let's not lose ourselves to delirium and point out that this is a damn good team with a deep core and plenty of organizational depth to take the next step. The Yankees aren't falling off or in a rebuild; they have a team that guarantees every October, they'll be talking about the chase for 28 in earnest. With the season in the rear view mirror, let's chit chat about ten things the Yankees have to do or figure out as they continue that chase for 28.

1. Fire the training staff

Easy enough! Injuries can sometimes be fluky but good lord, the Yankees were besieged with them. All three starting outfielders (Judge, Stanton, Hicks) saw IL time, their back up OFs saw IL time, their starting catcher saw IL time, starting 1B saw IL time, pitchers both high on the totem pole and in the jabroni ranks went on the IL. Clean house!

2. The same ol' same ol' scramble for a lead starter

Since the end of 2016 when the rebuild was officially over, this team has been chasing  the #1 starter you normally need in the post season. At the end of the day, it's just easier to win in the playoffs when you have a game 1 starter you have endless confidence in. While Boston got away with it in 2018, they also had Chris Sale who maybe didn't pitch like an ace but was clearly one of the top 5 starters in the AL that year.  The big myth is that the Yankees don't have good starting pitching and that is for the most part a lie. The Yankees pitching after the All Star break was pretty solid and in the playoffs they got quality enough from guys like Severino, Paxton and Tanaka on an inconsistent basis. The Yankees pitching rotation is NOT awful and plenty of teams would kill for a 1-2-3 of a healthy Louis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka in big games and James Paxton after the All Star Break where he went 10-3 with a 3.59 ERA and an 11 K/9. In the playoffs, Paxton was more good than bad and Tanaka shoved in two of the three games he pitched in. That said those three have all battled injuries (Paxton admittedly pitched with a knee he never quite felt great about) and all three of them weren't good enough in the playoffs. Maybe that changes with Severino healthy, Paxton more comfortable and Tanaka staying his usual course but it would be difficult to return with the same rotation in tact and say you feel confident about your chances against the Astros. This has been a chase that has spanned three years now as the Yankees tried with James Paxton, Sonny Gray and J.A Happ, were outbit on the likes of Carlos Quintana, Yu Darvish and Gerritt Cole and allegedly never tried for the likes of Marcus Stroman, Patrick Corbin, Justin Verlander and countless others. 2019 will be yet another year where they'll enter Christmas hoping to have a starter locked up.

The two obvious names will play next week when Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg take the bump for Houston and Washington respectively. In the Yankees of old, George Steinbrenner would hand Brian Cashman a blank check and tell him to pay for one IF not both. Time's have changed for better and/or worse with the Yankees. Brian Cashman is a man of due diligence and a man with the longest leash in sports. The Yankees didn't spend on Corbin, didn't try on Harper and made a modicum of effort for Manny Machado last year. In the free agent market, they're likely to not play heavily unless Hal Steinbrenner pretty much demands it.  Paying for Cole and Strasburg is the easier fix but it's an avenue they've shied away from recently plus there are teams who "need" those guys more. The Yankees probably aren't as desperate as, say, the Angels are to win in the Mike Trout era and they've got money to play with so why not? The solution may be the trade market where the Yankees can make some hay in their search for a #1. Brian Cashman has parlayed his farm system (which is still plenty deep) into the opportunity to trade for arms in the past which figures to once again be the case. Conversely in the trade market, the farm is thinner than it's been in recent years AND Cashman prides himself on not losing trades. Also there's not much TO trade out there. Obviously it's his job as a GM to go out and find a potential solution that maybe the public hasn't heard is available but right now who is the best starter knowing that the Mets and the Yankees won't trade? It's not a robust market.

So your solutions are to pull a rabbit out of your hat or pay or hope Severino becomes an ace again after an injury plagued season. I suppose the only potential opt out route would be to sign a Hyun Jin-Ryu or a Jake Odorizzi and hope you can just build a deep rotation of names and faces that will give you quantity (while not high end quality) at the end of it.

3. Figure out Luke Voit

Let's play a game.

Player A- .333/.405/.689 195 wRC+ 14 HR 26.4% K rate Player B- .280/.393/.509 140 wRC+ 19 HR 25.8% K rate Player C- .238/.348/.368 95 wRC+ 4 HR 32.3% K rate

Player A is Luke Voit during his 2018 run with the Yankees Player B is Luke Voit up until he got hurt in the London Series Player C is Luke Voit from July 12th to the end of the year

Voit will never be the guy who took over the MLB in 2018. The sample size was bound to even itself out over time and Voit was bound to cool off when pitchers got to know him better. Player B though is a borderline All Star level first basemen. A power hitter who could hit for average, got on base at a solid clip and play a somewhat manageable first base is an asset for any team but especially a Yankees squad that has been hungry for competent first base play since injuries robbed Mark Texeira of his ability. Then? Voit got hurt. Back issues limited down the stretch and as you can tell by the numbers, Player C was awful. He just looked timid and afraid like he had been sapped of his confidence entirely. Luke Voit got left off the ALCS roster and had to watch as the offense struggled without him. Imagine a confident and healthy Luke Voit at the DH spot instead of Edwin Encarnacion when he went ice cold in the ALCS and maybe the series is a bit different. The Yankees are saddled with determining which half of the Luke Voit story is the real one. The Yankees are a better team when DJ LeMahieu is freed up to play 2B where he's an insanely elite defender and Luke Voit could help in that regard. At the same time? The Yankees have been burnt in the past by gambling at 1B (like when they kept thinking Greg Bird would finally put it together) and options would help. Even if he ran out of gas, Edwin Encarnacion did some good work when he was healthy and few dudes hit dingers the way he does when he's locked in. There's also Greg Bird I guess? Which reminds me....

4. MAYBE chase better balance

I don't believe a team gets better by marrying itself to letters next to names ie: we have to have x amount of leties in our pen. I do think that the Yankees righty heavy lineup could use some better balance. The team was batting Gardner 3rd in the playoffs despite his inability to do much of anything for stretches because they felt like they needed someone to break up the righties at the top of the bill. With two lefties about to hit free agency, maybe the Yankees need to flirt a bit with shaking things up in their lineup. Getting back a healthy Hicks would help of course but in general, this team could benefit from having maybe one more competent lefty bat especially if Did is out of here. It's not the sexiest name alive but given Voit's struggles down the stretch and the fact that they could probably use a more competent 1B defensively, maybe Mitch Moreland (former Red Sox 1B) as a back up/defensive replacement could make sense. Coming off an injury plagued season where he was still pretty damn productive vs righties. Maybe this is even where Mike Ford (who caught on late) fits as a future part of the team.

5. Figure out your free agents

Dellin Betances- There's some serious rebound value in bringing Betances back at fair market value. The Yankees just never had a replacement for what Betances could do as a pseudo fireman; a guy with low contact rates who can K a side and come in the middle of an inning to calm things down. Betances at a multi year deal would be a fair and modest investment.

Brett Gardner- There's a group of mutant Yankee fans who hate Brett Gardner and I feel like people forget Gardner was supposed to be at the very most a part time 4th OF. Injuries forced Gardner to continually play and he answered the bell quite well every time. He'll likely take a step back next year BUT he'll also be asked to play less.

Edwin Encarnacion- Was absolutely brutal in the ALCS but hits for power and usually has composed at bats. Was always a hired gun who the Yankees were probably gonna buy out when the time was right.

Didi Gregorios- Ugh. Didi went from being one of Brian Cashman's biggest steals and a potential cornerstone to a guy who will probably be allowed to test the open market. Didi's strengths are his defense, his clubhouse presence and his better than advertised bat but the Yankees have been waiting on him to take a firm step into top 10 SS for about two years now and it's not coming. He deserves a lot of credit for battling back from injury but he was brutal outside of games vs the Twins. I also sort of feel like his approach is all wrong for the Yankees as its constructed. For a team that preaches patience at the place and commanding the strike zone, Didi's approach often gets worse the more pitches he takes so he often swings at the first pitch and often does so when it's the wrong time. Defensively it looked like he took a step back as well although that may have been due to injury. The Yankees are better with DJ at 2nd and Gleyber at short and a competent 1B manning that spot but they love Didi so much (and he's so valuable when he's right) that they kept forcing him into the spot.

Austin Romine- Catching across the league is bad and Romine, noodle arm aside, is a solid back up catcher. Those tend to get signed for decent coin and normally for multi year deals. As such the Yankees need to maybe consider their options at the BUC spot because they won't have Romine.

Cameron Maybin- I'm not entirely sure Maybin's got a real fit here now. If Stanton, Judge and Hicks are healthy then it's probably him vs Gardner because Mike Tauchman has a long term future here. I wish Cameron Maybin well, he was a breath of fresh of air in the locker room and he deserves to have a good spot on a team somewhere.

6. Figure your outfield situation out

We know Judge, Stanton and Hicks are going to be here. Mike Tauchman was a star and a half for a month and change before injuries finally sapped him of his super powers. Gardner is a free agent but I'm betting the Yankees will bring him back comfortably so. Beyond them you have Estevan Florial (a former Yankees top prospect on a slide), Clint Frazier (a borderline toxic fit for the Yankees) as well as pseudo OFs Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada. The Yankees OF depth tends to get tested throughout the year but is Clint Frazier better suited to be a trade piece for some team in desperate need of an outfielder?

7. Settle the 'pen out a bit.

Yankees have four tremendous bullpen arms tied up with Britton, Ottavino, Green and Kahnle comfortably under wraps. Aroldis Chapman will probably opt out in a so-so closer's market and the Yankees will probably re-sign him (they took the PR smear after trading for him and then brought him back so clearly they value him). If not? Britton was an ace closer but in general the bullpen needs more arms. Remember the CLOSEST they got for a trade in July was for Bluejays closer Ken Giles so I'd imagine they'll poke around there too. If you can't find a starter of high quality and won't trade for one then you need one more big arm in the pen. It'd be pretty cool to both a) get a stud reliever and b) hurt your primary rivalries by signing either Joe Smith or Will Harris from under Houston.

8. Find a role for whatever J.A. Happ is.

The Yankees got ace level production of J.A. Happ when they had him in 2018 and even including his playoff bust vs Boston, bringing him back in some form or fashion seemed like a can't miss concept. Well it done missed. Pick whatever metric you want and Happ was genuinely bad for a Yankees team that desperately needed him to ONLY be a competent arm. He did improve as the season went along (imagine how awful he had to be that his last five starts with a 2.33 ERA that it managed to ONLY finish at a sub 5 ERA) and a lot of his game felt like it was just blitzed by the juiced ball and a lack of adapting to that. Happ is still under contract for 2020 and it's going to be hard to shake his deal so you're stuck with him. Figure out I guess if he's a long man, a 5th starter or a really overly expensive LOOGY type.

9. Battle royal the 5th spot

Keeping with that, the Yankees were roasted for their lack of SP depth and it showed up big last year. The fact that this team turned to an opener and wound up riding the likes of Chance Adams and Nestor Cortes as long men suggests they got got by the lack of options in the rotation. Turn the 5th spot into a battle royal position. Jordan Montgomery, J.A. Happ, Johnny Lasagna, a few retreads on other teams who are a tinkered arm angle away from being a competent 5th starter etc etc etc. Don't go into the year just figuring your minor league depth options are going to be enough because it probably won't be.

Unless you want to sign Zack Wheeler or Jake Odorizzi and be done with it.

10. Accept Gary Sanchez

I guess this is more for Yankees fans than anybody else. Gary Sanchez is a good catcher. Offensively when he's healthy, he's among the game's best and defensively? He's actually improving really well to be one of the better catches in the AL. He has a crazy throwing arm and while stolen bases are becoming less frequent, he's still got the ability to further mitigate that.  Sanchez is a good player who plays the most physically demanding position in baseball and does a good job at it. His playoff numbers were abysmal this year but I still have faith.

[fitnetpro]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

  “Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

If you’re somebody who has been interested – or is getting interested – in walking, you’re probably familiar with step-tracking devices that are oh-so-popular these days:

Fitbit (I wear a simple Fitbit Flex 2).

Nike Fuelbands.

Apple Watch

Personally, I’m a huge fan of fitness wearables, but not for the reasons you’d think.

For starters, you’re wearing a constant reminder that you are prioritizing movement, which can only be positive. You can even trigger it to remind you to get up and move every hour. It can also allow you to see how many steps you normally take, and thus allow you to prioritize moving MORE.

Although Fitbit was involved in a lawsuit for the inaccurate heart-monitor portion of its devices, I’m less concerned about heart rates and 100% accuracy of step distance, and instead think in terms of personal improvement.

Just like with tracking your bodyfat percentage or your weight, “that which gets measured gets improved,” and that carries over to your total steps. The fact that you’re tracking it means you’re going to be more aware of it, which means you’re going to be more likely to be able to improve it.

And that’s why, in a weird way, I’m not very concerned about the total accuracy of these devices. Even if your scale is off by 5 pounds, or your body fat caliper is inaccurate by 1%, as long as you use the same device and measure in the same way under the same conditions, you can track trends and paint the picture of your health and whether or not it’s improving!

And that’s what these fitness trackers should be used for: a reminder and a trend tracker!

What you SHOULDN’T do: take your fitness tracker as gospel, and use that to calculate down to the calorie and macro how much food exactly you can consume.

What you SHOULD do: track your trend over time, and see if you can improve your average. Use the technology to aid your fitness quest. Use the community portion of the band to compare your stats against friends and get some positive friendly peer pressure to get you off your ass.

Okay, if nerdy fitness technology isn’t nerdy enough for you, let’s go full-nerd.

How to Actually Walk to Mordor

Did you know it’s 1779 miles between Hobbiton to Mount Doom? [3][[Thanks to EowynChallenge.net for this crazy amount of work[[3]]. We can actually determine how far Sam and Frodo walked, and then set out on the journey ourselves! It’s one thing to go for a stroll around your neighborhood. It’s another to know that, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”

So let’s take a look at how far we need to walk first:

458 miles: Go from Hobbiton to Rivendell.

462 miles: Set out with the Fellowship from Rivendell, through Moria, to Lothlorien.

389 miles: From Lothlorien, down the Anduin, to Rauros Falls.

470 miles: Follow Frodo and Sam on the quest from Rauros to Mt. Doom.

535 miles: From Minas Tirith to Isengard

693 miles: From Isengard to Rivendell.

397 miles: From Rivendell to Bag End.

467 miles: (bonus!) Follow Frodo to the Grey Havens and return home with Sam.

Following this path, you need to walk a total of 1779 miles to get from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. Then it’s time to destroy the ring and get carried to Minas Tirith by the Great Eagles. Then you’ll walk 1625 miles back to Bag End (and an additional 467 miles if you’re interested in doing a round trip to the Grey Havens).

Obviously, you don’t need to move at the same speed as the hobbits (18 miles in the first day is no joke! Damn, those hobbits covered some ground!), but it’s still fun to track your walks and your total miles to see where you’d be on your journey.

However, like Frodo and Sam, it starts with the first step.

I’ve created a google doc that you can copy for yourself to track your distances to follow Frodo and Sam on your journey to destroy the One Ring.

Here’s how to do it:

Open the document, and then click on “file,” “save a copy,” and then you can edit your own copy of the document.  

Track your distances with a pedometer, FitBit, your iPhone or Android phone.

Input your distances and work towards completing each section of the journey over months. As you input your distances, it will automatically let you know when you reach each destination so you can get you started on the next one. 5 miles a day on average will have you destroying the Ring within one year.

Oh, and if you’re curious, according to my rough gorilla math, Frodo burned at least an additional 61,0000+ calories (100,000+ gross calories) by walking “there and back again” – you’re welcome[*].

What questions do you have about walking? 

How have you incorporated it into your daily routine?

And have you walked to Mordor?

-Steve 

Photo source: fourbrickstall Hiking in Candelario, Lego Frodo, Stewart Baird: Stay on the Path, lothlorien tree, new zealand mountains, Simonds Footprint@PierCove, endless fields, Thad Zajdowicz Keep walking! HMM!, waterfall, Frodo and Sam, 

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

ACSM predictor, if you’re curious!

Study shared here.

You can see Tim’s full story and interview here

You’re probably wondering the math on this one. I followed this thread down a rabbit hole and estimated a hobbit at 3.5 feet tall would weigh 60 pounds. I then put that into the calculator to determine calories walked. Again – this is just an estimation, and probably could be even more accurate if we had the topography of middle earth to determine elevation climbed too! Feel free to get me more accurate numbers in the comments and I’ll update this!

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking? published first on http://ift.tt/2kRppy7

[ruthellisneda]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl

[neilmillerne]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl

[albertcaldwellne]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl

[joshuabradleyn]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl

[johnclapperne]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl

[almajonesnjna]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl

[kiaradnoblesus]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

  “Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

If you’re somebody who has been interested – or is getting interested – in walking, you’re probably familiar with step-tracking devices that are oh-so-popular these days:

Fitbit (I wear a simple Fitbit Flex 2).

Nike Fuelbands.

Apple Watch

Personally, I’m a huge fan of fitness wearables, but not for the reasons you’d think.

For starters, you’re wearing a constant reminder that you are prioritizing movement, which can only be positive. You can even trigger it to remind you to get up and move every hour. It can also allow you to see how many steps you normally take, and thus allow you to prioritize moving MORE.

Although Fitbit was involved in a lawsuit for the inaccurate heart-monitor portion of its devices, I’m less concerned about heart rates and 100% accuracy of step distance, and instead think in terms of personal improvement.

Just like with tracking your bodyfat percentage or your weight, “that which gets measured gets improved,” and that carries over to your total steps. The fact that you’re tracking it means you’re going to be more aware of it, which means you’re going to be more likely to be able to improve it.

And that’s why, in a weird way, I’m not very concerned about the total accuracy of these devices. Even if your scale is off by 5 pounds, or your body fat caliper is inaccurate by 1%, as long as you use the same device and measure in the same way under the same conditions, you can track trends and paint the picture of your health and whether or not it’s improving!

And that’s what these fitness trackers should be used for: a reminder and a trend tracker!

What you SHOULDN’T do: take your fitness tracker as gospel, and use that to calculate down to the calorie and macro how much food exactly you can consume.

What you SHOULD do: track your trend over time, and see if you can improve your average. Use the technology to aid your fitness quest. Use the community portion of the band to compare your stats against friends and get some positive friendly peer pressure to get you off your ass.

Okay, if nerdy fitness technology isn’t nerdy enough for you, let’s go full-nerd.

How to Actually Walk to Mordor

Did you know it’s 1779 miles between Hobbiton to Mount Doom? [3][[Thanks to EowynChallenge.net for this crazy amount of work[[3]]. We can actually determine how far Sam and Frodo walked, and then set out on the journey ourselves! It’s one thing to go for a stroll around your neighborhood. It’s another to know that, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”

So let’s take a look at how far we need to walk first:

458 miles: Go from Hobbiton to Rivendell.

462 miles: Set out with the Fellowship from Rivendell, through Moria, to Lothlorien.

389 miles: From Lothlorien, down the Anduin, to Rauros Falls.

470 miles: Follow Frodo and Sam on the quest from Rauros to Mt. Doom.

535 miles: From Minas Tirith to Isengard

693 miles: From Isengard to Rivendell.

397 miles: From Rivendell to Bag End.

467 miles: (bonus!) Follow Frodo to the Grey Havens and return home with Sam.

Following this path, you need to walk a total of 1779 miles to get from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. Then it’s time to destroy the ring and get carried to Minas Tirith by the Great Eagles. Then you’ll walk 1625 miles back to Bag End (and an additional 467 miles if you’re interested in doing a round trip to the Grey Havens).

Obviously, you don’t need to move at the same speed as the hobbits (18 miles in the first day is no joke! Damn, those hobbits covered some ground!), but it’s still fun to track your walks and your total miles to see where you’d be on your journey.

However, like Frodo and Sam, it starts with the first step.

I’ve created a google doc that you can copy for yourself to track your distances to follow Frodo and Sam on your journey to destroy the One Ring.

Here’s how to do it:

Open the document, and then click on “file,” “save a copy,” and then you can edit your own copy of the document.  

Track your distances with a pedometer, FitBit, your iPhone or Android phone.

Input your distances and work towards completing each section of the journey over months. As you input your distances, it will automatically let you know when you reach each destination so you can get you started on the next one. 5 miles a day on average will have you destroying the Ring within one year.

Oh, and if you’re curious, according to my rough gorilla math, Frodo burned at least an additional 61,0000+ calories (100,000+ gross calories) by walking “there and back again” – you’re welcome[*].

What questions do you have about walking? 

How have you incorporated it into your daily routine?

And have you walked to Mordor?

-Steve 

Photo source: fourbrickstall Hiking in Candelario, Lego Frodo, Stewart Baird: Stay on the Path, lothlorien tree, new zealand mountains, Simonds Footprint@PierCove, endless fields, Thad Zajdowicz Keep walking! HMM!, waterfall, Frodo and Sam, 

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

ACSM predictor, if you’re curious!

Study shared here.

You can see Tim’s full story and interview here

You’re probably wondering the math on this one. I followed this thread down a rabbit hole and estimated a hobbit at 3.5 feet tall would weigh 60 pounds. I then put that into the calculator to determine calories walked. Again – this is just an estimation, and probably could be even more accurate if we had the topography of middle earth to determine elevation climbed too! Feel free to get me more accurate numbers in the comments and I’ll update this!

from Fitness News By James https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/walking/

[denisalvney]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

  “Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

If you’re somebody who has been interested – or is getting interested – in walking, you’re probably familiar with step-tracking devices that are oh-so-popular these days:

Fitbit (I wear a simple Fitbit Flex 2).

Nike Fuelbands.

Apple Watch

Personally, I’m a huge fan of fitness wearables, but not for the reasons you’d think.

For starters, you’re wearing a constant reminder that you are prioritizing movement, which can only be positive. You can even trigger it to remind you to get up and move every hour. It can also allow you to see how many steps you normally take, and thus allow you to prioritize moving MORE.

Although Fitbit was involved in a lawsuit for the inaccurate heart-monitor portion of its devices, I’m less concerned about heart rates and 100% accuracy of step distance, and instead think in terms of personal improvement.

Just like with tracking your bodyfat percentage or your weight, “that which gets measured gets improved,” and that carries over to your total steps. The fact that you’re tracking it means you’re going to be more aware of it, which means you’re going to be more likely to be able to improve it.

And that’s why, in a weird way, I’m not very concerned about the total accuracy of these devices. Even if your scale is off by 5 pounds, or your body fat caliper is inaccurate by 1%, as long as you use the same device and measure in the same way under the same conditions, you can track trends and paint the picture of your health and whether or not it’s improving!

And that’s what these fitness trackers should be used for: a reminder and a trend tracker!

What you SHOULDN’T do: take your fitness tracker as gospel, and use that to calculate down to the calorie and macro how much food exactly you can consume.

What you SHOULD do: track your trend over time, and see if you can improve your average. Use the technology to aid your fitness quest. Use the community portion of the band to compare your stats against friends and get some positive friendly peer pressure to get you off your ass.

Okay, if nerdy fitness technology isn’t nerdy enough for you, let’s go full-nerd.

How to Actually Walk to Mordor

Did you know it’s 1779 miles between Hobbiton to Mount Doom? [3][[Thanks to EowynChallenge.net for this crazy amount of work[[3]]. We can actually determine how far Sam and Frodo walked, and then set out on the journey ourselves! It’s one thing to go for a stroll around your neighborhood. It’s another to know that, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”

So let’s take a look at how far we need to walk first:

458 miles: Go from Hobbiton to Rivendell.

462 miles: Set out with the Fellowship from Rivendell, through Moria, to Lothlorien.

389 miles: From Lothlorien, down the Anduin, to Rauros Falls.

470 miles: Follow Frodo and Sam on the quest from Rauros to Mt. Doom.

535 miles: From Minas Tirith to Isengard

693 miles: From Isengard to Rivendell.

397 miles: From Rivendell to Bag End.

467 miles: (bonus!) Follow Frodo to the Grey Havens and return home with Sam.

Following this path, you need to walk a total of 1779 miles to get from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. Then it’s time to destroy the ring and get carried to Minas Tirith by the Great Eagles. Then you’ll walk 1625 miles back to Bag End (and an additional 467 miles if you’re interested in doing a round trip to the Grey Havens).

Obviously, you don’t need to move at the same speed as the hobbits (18 miles in the first day is no joke! Damn, those hobbits covered some ground!), but it’s still fun to track your walks and your total miles to see where you’d be on your journey.

However, like Frodo and Sam, it starts with the first step.

I’ve created a google doc that you can copy for yourself to track your distances to follow Frodo and Sam on your journey to destroy the One Ring.

Here’s how to do it:

Open the document, and then click on “file,” “save a copy,” and then you can edit your own copy of the document.  

Track your distances with a pedometer, FitBit, your iPhone or Android phone.

Input your distances and work towards completing each section of the journey over months. As you input your distances, it will automatically let you know when you reach each destination so you can get you started on the next one. 5 miles a day on average will have you destroying the Ring within one year.

Oh, and if you’re curious, according to my rough gorilla math, Frodo burned at least an additional 61,0000+ calories (100,000+ gross calories) by walking “there and back again” – you’re welcome[*].

What questions do you have about walking? 

How have you incorporated it into your daily routine?

And have you walked to Mordor?

-Steve 

Photo source: fourbrickstall Hiking in Candelario, Lego Frodo, Stewart Baird: Stay on the Path, lothlorien tree, new zealand mountains, Simonds Footprint@PierCove, endless fields, Thad Zajdowicz Keep walking! HMM!, waterfall, Frodo and Sam, 

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

ACSM predictor, if you’re curious!

Study shared here.

You can see Tim’s full story and interview here

You’re probably wondering the math on this one. I followed this thread down a rabbit hole and estimated a hobbit at 3.5 feet tall would weigh 60 pounds. I then put that into the calculator to determine calories walked. Again – this is just an estimation, and probably could be even more accurate if we had the topography of middle earth to determine elevation climbed too! Feel free to get me more accurate numbers in the comments and I’ll update this!

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking? published first on https://www.nerdfitness.com

[foursprouthealth-blog]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/health/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-while-walking/

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

  “Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

If you’re somebody who has been interested – or is getting interested – in walking, you’re probably familiar with step-tracking devices that are oh-so-popular these days:

Fitbit (I wear a simple Fitbit Flex 2).

Nike Fuelbands.

Apple Watch

Personally, I’m a huge fan of fitness wearables, but not for the reasons you’d think.

For starters, you’re wearing a constant reminder that you are prioritizing movement, which can only be positive. You can even trigger it to remind you to get up and move every hour. It can also allow you to see how many steps you normally take, and thus allow you to prioritize moving MORE.

Although Fitbit was involved in a lawsuit for the inaccurate heart-monitor portion of its devices, I’m less concerned about heart rates and 100% accuracy of step distance, and instead think in terms of personal improvement.

Just like with tracking your bodyfat percentage or your weight, “that which gets measured gets improved,” and that carries over to your total steps. The fact that you’re tracking it means you’re going to be more aware of it, which means you’re going to be more likely to be able to improve it.

And that’s why, in a weird way, I’m not very concerned about the total accuracy of these devices. Even if your scale is off by 5 pounds, or your body fat caliper is inaccurate by 1%, as long as you use the same device and measure in the same way under the same conditions, you can track trends and paint the picture of your health and whether or not it’s improving!

And that’s what these fitness trackers should be used for: a reminder and a trend tracker!

What you SHOULDN’T do: take your fitness tracker as gospel, and use that to calculate down to the calorie and macro how much food exactly you can consume.

What you SHOULD do: track your trend over time, and see if you can improve your average. Use the technology to aid your fitness quest. Use the community portion of the band to compare your stats against friends and get some positive friendly peer pressure to get you off your ass.

Okay, if nerdy fitness technology isn’t nerdy enough for you, let’s go full-nerd.

How to Actually Walk to Mordor

Did you know it’s 1779 miles between Hobbiton to Mount Doom? [3]. We can actually determine how far Sam and Frodo walked, and then set out on the journey ourselves! It’s one thing to go for a stroll around your neighborhood. It’s another to know that, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”

So let’s take a look at how far we need to walk first:

458 miles: Go from Hobbiton to Rivendell.

462 miles: Set out with the Fellowship from Rivendell, through Moria, to Lothlorien.

389 miles: From Lothlorien, down the Anduin, to Rauros Falls.

470 miles: Follow Frodo and Sam on the quest from Rauros to Mt. Doom.

535 miles: From Minas Tirith to Isengard

693 miles: From Isengard to Rivendell.

397 miles: From Rivendell to Bag End.

467 miles: (bonus!) Follow Frodo to the Grey Havens and return home with Sam.

Following this path, you need to walk a total of 1779 miles to get from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. Then it’s time to destroy the ring and get carried to Minas Tirith by the Great Eagles. Then you’ll walk 1625 miles back to Bag End (and an additional 467 miles if you’re interested in doing a round trip to the Grey Havens).

Obviously, you don’t need to move at the same speed as the hobbits (18 miles in the first day is no joke! Damn, those hobbits covered some ground!), but it’s still fun to track your walks and your total miles to see where you’d be on your journey.

However, like Frodo and Sam, it starts with the first step.

I’ve created a google doc that you can copy for yourself to track your distances to follow Frodo and Sam on your journey to destroy the One Ring.

Here’s how to do it:

Open the document, and then click on “file,” “save a copy,” and then you can edit your own copy of the document.  

Track your distances with a pedometer, FitBit, your iPhone or Android phone.

Input your distances and work towards completing each section of the journey over months. As you input your distances, it will automatically let you know when you reach each destination so you can get you started on the next one. 5 miles a day on average will have you destroying the Ring within one year.

Oh, and if you’re curious, according to my rough gorilla math, Frodo burned at least an additional 61,0000+ calories (100,000+ gross calories) by walking “there and back again” – you’re welcome[5].

What questions do you have about walking? 

How have you incorporated it into your daily routine?

And have you walked to Mordor?

-Steve 

Photo source: fourbrickstall Hiking in Candelario, Lego Frodo, Stewart Baird: Stay on the Path, lothlorien tree, new zealand mountains, Simonds Footprint@PierCove, endless fields, Thad Zajdowicz Keep walking! HMM!, waterfall, Frodo and Sam, 

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

ACSM predictor, if you’re curious!

Study shared here.

You can see Tim’s full story and interview here

Thanks to EowynChallenge.net for this crazy amount of work

You’re probably wondering the math on this one. I followed this thread down a rabbit hole and estimated a hobbit at 3.5 feet tall would weigh 60 pounds. I then put that into the calculator to determine calories walked. Again – this is just an estimation, and probably could be even more accurate if we had the topography of middle earth to determine elevation climbed too! Feel free to get me more accurate numbers in the comments and I’ll update this!

[foursprout-blog]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/health/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-while-walking/

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

  “Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

If you’re somebody who has been interested – or is getting interested – in walking, you’re probably familiar with step-tracking devices that are oh-so-popular these days:

Fitbit (I wear a simple Fitbit Flex 2).

Nike Fuelbands.

Apple Watch

Personally, I’m a huge fan of fitness wearables, but not for the reasons you’d think.

For starters, you’re wearing a constant reminder that you are prioritizing movement, which can only be positive. You can even trigger it to remind you to get up and move every hour. It can also allow you to see how many steps you normally take, and thus allow you to prioritize moving MORE.

Although Fitbit was involved in a lawsuit for the inaccurate heart-monitor portion of its devices, I’m less concerned about heart rates and 100% accuracy of step distance, and instead think in terms of personal improvement.

Just like with tracking your bodyfat percentage or your weight, “that which gets measured gets improved,” and that carries over to your total steps. The fact that you’re tracking it means you’re going to be more aware of it, which means you’re going to be more likely to be able to improve it.

And that’s why, in a weird way, I’m not very concerned about the total accuracy of these devices. Even if your scale is off by 5 pounds, or your body fat caliper is inaccurate by 1%, as long as you use the same device and measure in the same way under the same conditions, you can track trends and paint the picture of your health and whether or not it’s improving!

And that’s what these fitness trackers should be used for: a reminder and a trend tracker!

What you SHOULDN’T do: take your fitness tracker as gospel, and use that to calculate down to the calorie and macro how much food exactly you can consume.

What you SHOULD do: track your trend over time, and see if you can improve your average. Use the technology to aid your fitness quest. Use the community portion of the band to compare your stats against friends and get some positive friendly peer pressure to get you off your ass.

Okay, if nerdy fitness technology isn’t nerdy enough for you, let’s go full-nerd.

How to Actually Walk to Mordor

Did you know it’s 1779 miles between Hobbiton to Mount Doom? [3]. We can actually determine how far Sam and Frodo walked, and then set out on the journey ourselves! It’s one thing to go for a stroll around your neighborhood. It’s another to know that, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”

So let’s take a look at how far we need to walk first:

458 miles: Go from Hobbiton to Rivendell.

462 miles: Set out with the Fellowship from Rivendell, through Moria, to Lothlorien.

389 miles: From Lothlorien, down the Anduin, to Rauros Falls.

470 miles: Follow Frodo and Sam on the quest from Rauros to Mt. Doom.

535 miles: From Minas Tirith to Isengard

693 miles: From Isengard to Rivendell.

397 miles: From Rivendell to Bag End.

467 miles: (bonus!) Follow Frodo to the Grey Havens and return home with Sam.

Following this path, you need to walk a total of 1779 miles to get from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom. Then it’s time to destroy the ring and get carried to Minas Tirith by the Great Eagles. Then you’ll walk 1625 miles back to Bag End (and an additional 467 miles if you’re interested in doing a round trip to the Grey Havens).

Obviously, you don’t need to move at the same speed as the hobbits (18 miles in the first day is no joke! Damn, those hobbits covered some ground!), but it’s still fun to track your walks and your total miles to see where you’d be on your journey.

However, like Frodo and Sam, it starts with the first step.

I’ve created a google doc that you can copy for yourself to track your distances to follow Frodo and Sam on your journey to destroy the One Ring.

Here’s how to do it:

Open the document, and then click on “file,” “save a copy,” and then you can edit your own copy of the document.  

Track your distances with a pedometer, FitBit, your iPhone or Android phone.

Input your distances and work towards completing each section of the journey over months. As you input your distances, it will automatically let you know when you reach each destination so you can get you started on the next one. 5 miles a day on average will have you destroying the Ring within one year.

Oh, and if you’re curious, according to my rough gorilla math, Frodo burned at least an additional 61,0000+ calories (100,000+ gross calories) by walking “there and back again” – you’re welcome[5].

What questions do you have about walking? 

How have you incorporated it into your daily routine?

And have you walked to Mordor?

-Steve 

Photo source: fourbrickstall Hiking in Candelario, Lego Frodo, Stewart Baird: Stay on the Path, lothlorien tree, new zealand mountains, Simonds Footprint@PierCove, endless fields, Thad Zajdowicz Keep walking! HMM!, waterfall, Frodo and Sam, 

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

ACSM predictor, if you’re curious!

Study shared here.

You can see Tim’s full story and interview here

Thanks to EowynChallenge.net for this crazy amount of work

You’re probably wondering the math on this one. I followed this thread down a rabbit hole and estimated a hobbit at 3.5 feet tall would weigh 60 pounds. I then put that into the calculator to determine calories walked. Again – this is just an estimation, and probably could be even more accurate if we had the topography of middle earth to determine elevation climbed too! Feel free to get me more accurate numbers in the comments and I’ll update this!

[ruthellisneda]

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Walking?

How many calories do you burn while walking? 

It’s a simple question, but it inevitably leads to a series of other questions too:

Can I lose weight just by walking?

Is there a right way to walk? How about a wrong way?

How many calories do you burn walking a mile? A marathon?

Can one simply walk into Mordor?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t ask that last question, but as a guy that runs Nerd Fitness, I certainly wanted to know the answer to that (spoiler: you can).

I’ll be addressing each of the above questions in this monster article about walking, including everything you need to know about the most natural activity we can do as human beings.

Walking is not only a great way to burn calories and stay active, but it’s an incredible stress reliever and gives you a chance to explore your surroundings in much more detail than through a car window.

For starters, YES, you absolutely can lose weight just by walking! Here’s a Nerd Fitness success story from Tim, who got hurt and could only walk for exercise.

50 pounds later (and another big change I’ll get to below), I’d say he succeeded!

But I’ll get to Tim’s story shortly. Instead, Let’s talk about the second question…

HOW MANY CALORIES Burned Walking?

In true Nerd Fitness fashion, we scienced the crap out of this, and even created a handy calculator for you – simply put your stats in the calculator here, and you can determine how effective walking can be when it comes to burning calories and losing weight!

What I thought would be a simple equation led me down a rabbit hole of labyrinthine proportions, but I feel we’ve found the best estimation as a starting point for discussion. [*].

So feel free to mess around with this calculator, and then keep reading so I can get you the information that will be helpful in your quest for health:

Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator Calculate Calories Burned While Walking Calculator

Your Weight (lbs)

Enter your weight in pounds.

Distance Walked (miles)

Enter the distance walked in miles. Partial miles is fine (e.g. 1.5)

Gross Calories Burned

Net Calories Burned

We used the formulas and information found on this page for this calculator

A few things to remember about the above equation:

There’s a difference between gross calories (total calories) expended and net calories (additional calories) expended! Your body burns most of its calories every day JUST by existing.

Gross calories: calories burned while walking PLUS the calories burned just existing

Net calories: ADDITIONAL calories you burned thanks to exercise.

You’re a unique snowflake, and no box or formula can capture your awesomeness/uniqueness. Fortunately this equation below is JUST a starting point!

ANY exercise pales in comparison to a much more important part of the weight loss equation. It’s what Tim did above, and what I’ll explain below!

If you’ve come this far, and you want to learn more about why walking is so amazing, continue reading. I’ll also tell you just how Tim had the dramatic success he had above.

And you’re damn right, I’ll show you exactly how to walk to Mordor too.

The Benefits of Walking

We are designed to walk. It’s in our DNA, and it’s a huge part of our emergence as the dominant species on this planet (along with opposable thumbs, big brains, and Nintendo).

Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way:

Every day, it’s recommended by the CDC that we walk around five miles, or 10,000 steps. Hence the reason why your Fitbit – which I’ll get to shortly – has that 10k step goal as its default number.

Unfortunately, we Americans tend to average HALF that: 2.5 miles or 5,000 steps. And I’d imagine that people who work outdoors or have more physically active jobs drag that average wayyyy up.

Which leaves us desk jockeys, who don’t walk nearly enough.

We use our feet to get us from the front door, to our car, to our desk, to the vending machine, to our car, to our front door, to our couch… where we put them up while watching four hours of TV before going to bed.

Not walking enough can be a big factor in the creep-up of weight gain over the years, and it’s probably why you’re here reading this article!

“Can I walk more to lose weight? Is walking REALLY good for me, or do I need to do more intense exercise?”

Long story short, you should walk more and it can help you lose weight and be healthier.  

Short story long, here’s why walking is important:

Walking burns calories without exhausting you. If you walked the recommended mileage each day (5 miles instead of just 2.5), it can lead to a tremendous amount of weight loss over time. You’ll burn an extra 100 calories walking just ONE more mile each day than normal: When that’s multiplied out, it’s an extra 700 calories burned per week, which results in approximately a pound of fat lost every five weeks, or 10 pounds in a year.  You can scale up your distances to get your desired results!

Walking doesn’t add to training stress. If you are strength training regularly, adding in more weight training or running can lead to burnout, breakdowns, and injuries. If you are trying to look like a super hero, extra cardio sessions (or long distance cardio sessions) will kill your gains. But you can just walk. You can walk great distances, provided you’ve built up your body’s physical ability, and not get tired or sore – walking (especially outside while soaking in some sunlight) can make you feel better, not worse.

Walking is low impact. Unlike running, which can wreak havoc on people’s joints if they run improperly or are severely overweight, walking doesn’t have those impact issues. If you go for a walk and your feet or joints hurt, you’re doing it wrong – read the next section!

Walking can burn fat. Because walking is low impact and low intensity, your body doesn’t need to pull from its glycogen and glucose stores to fuel itself, which happens when you strength train or push yourself into “aerobic training” with higher intensity cardio. Proponents of intermittent fasting suggest walking in a fasted state in the morning before eating anything in order to help burn extra fat. This will have to be something you attempt and measure for yourself.

Walking relieves stress. Seriously! When you put on your iPod with your favorite playlist, and can go for a pleasant walk around your neighborhood or through the woods as the sun is going down, you have a recipe to forget the worries of your day.

Walking improves mental health (especially in older hobbits). Walking can improve mental health, increase brain size, improve memory, and is correlated with improved, longer lifespans.[1]

How walking can change your life

If you are severely overweight and can’t run or strength train, walk on.

If you are building muscle and bulking up, walk on.  

If you are trying to lose weight, walk on.

If you struggle with following a routine, or have failed in the past with weight loss, walk on. 

Why? I’m a HUGE fan of small habit change and tiny victories – walking is the PERFECT habit builder. If you’re brand new and starting out, go for a walk TODAY and begin your journey to Mordor.

This afternoon, go for five-minute walk. Tomorrow morning before work, before breakfast, as SOON as you wake up, put on your shoes, and go outside for a five-minute walk. No snoozing, no lying in bed, no checking email or Twitter. Put on your headphones, pick your favorite song, go outside, and start walking.

Here’s why:

Walking for just five minutes a day is the start of a new habit.  Every morning for a few weeks, you’ll have to force yourself to walk. Initially, it will take effort and willpower to walk instead of snoozing. However, with each passing day of success, you’ll need to use less effort and willpower to get out the door. After all, it’s only five minutes, right? Once it’s something you do automatically without thinking, you can add on to it by increasing your walk time.

Walking briskly outdoors in the fresh morning air can be a great caffeine-free wake up call! If you make walking the FIRST thing you do in the morning, especially if you’re doing it before anybody else is awake, there will be zero distractions and no reason to say “sorry, I didn’t have time.” Of course, we like caffeine too (in moderation).

Walking will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and clear your head before the day begins. We’re constantly distracted at home: TV, iPads, smartphones, etc. Walking is so primal – no gadgets, just walking. Many people cite walking as the impetus for their creative or intelligent breakthroughs.   

Walking and successfully building a habit will give you a habit blueprint to follow for anything else you’d like to accomplish: “Hey, I was able to make walking a habit, what else can I tackle in the same way?” Slow and steady wins. One foot in front of the other, my friend.

How to walk properly

“Uhhh, Steve, I know how to walk. I do it every day!”

Welp, if you’re starting from only walking from your car to the office, we need to make sure you’re walking the right way for when you push that mileage up.

Let’s start with your feet, provided you’re not gonna glue hair to your feet and go barefoot to become a hobbit.

I recommend walking in shoes that have a a wide toe box and minimal drop (height at the heel vs height at the toes), as we discuss in our monster post on healthy feet and footwear:

Low profile shoes like those from Vivo barefoot.

I trained in Vibrams for years.

Now I train in Merrell Vapor Glove 3s.

You might not be used to walking with minimal cushioning under your heels, so walk slowly and land softly. Walking on softer surfaces to start isn’t a bad idea either.

What about those “tone up shoes?” Will they make your booty pop like it says in the ad? This won’t be a surprise to you, but those shoes are about as likely to improve your health as Gimli shaving his beard (not likely).

We were designed before the invention of big clunky shoes… thus, we should be able to walk without big clunky shoes. If you are interested in going barefoot as a runner, get started by walking short distances first. Your feet will toughen up (though they probably won’t grow hair quite like Frodo and Sam), your joints and muscles around your feet and ankles will strengthen, and your knees will deal with less stress.

When going for a lazy stroll, focus on landing softly, which is much easier when you don’t have thick soled shoes to cushion your stride: land softly with your heel barely touching before rolling onto the middle (ball) of your foot, and then push off. You might need to take shorter strides than you’re used to if you were a big heel striker with a long stride.

If you’re aiming to walk quickly and up the intensity, shorten your stride and aim to land in the middle of your foot while pumping your arms. This is more easily done when walking uphill (which is also a great way to burn extra calories).

Walking To Lose Weight

Meet Tim, a regular nerd like you who found Nerd Fitness a few years back and walked his way healthy. 

Case closed? Of course not!

There’s more to that story – although it makes for a great headline, we need to set the record straight on walking and exercise in general when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months [2]:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

So what happened?

Before he could really get started on his weight loss journey, he managed to injure himself and was told by his doctor that he couldn’t do any strenuous exercise or strength training for at least 6 months.

Tim also joined our comprehensive flagship digital course, The Nerd Fitness Academy, and following the mindset and nutrition modules. Tim took the MOST important step one can take when it comes to walking your way healthy:

He went for walks, he fixed his mentality, and he fixed his nutrition!

One of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is that we know “you can’t outrun your fork.” No amount of exercise can counter a bad diet, as your nutrition will be responsible for 90% (not an exaggeration) of your success or failure.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go for a 5-mile walk, which takes you 90+ minutes. If you then consume a 20 oz Gatorade and a small bag of Fritos (a typical snack for many here in America), you will have already undone all of the calories burned while walking.

Depending on your nutrition and love/hatred for exercise, this is either great news or bad news!

The BAD news: you can’t eat very badly in mass quantities and then expect to lose weight with a bit of exercise every week, even if it’s strenuous.

The GOOD news: Even if you dislike exercise, you can avoid exercise and still lose weight (like Tim)! Instead, put ALL of your focus instead on fixing your nutrition, and then go for a walk every once in awhile.

I’d also consider reading the following:

The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating

Everything You Need to Know About Sugar

If your nutrition is in serious need of an overhaul, I hear ya! It can be overwhelming. In addition to the Academy, we created a free PDF and a whole 10-level nutrition system to make the process of fixing your diet more like a video game:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Walking tips and tricks

Focus on posture! Head up! Shoulders back! Walk with a confident stroll – practice this one in the morning if you’re not used to walking like this. It’s also a great way to appear instantly more confident; we nerds and hobbits need all the confidence we can get! Look around at your surroundings with your head up, arms swinging in rhythm.

Walk uphill to burn more fat. If you are walking on a treadmill, set it to an incline to increase the intensity and thus increase the amount of fat burned. Just don’t be that person who sets the incline way up, then holds onto both sides and leans their body back to be perpendicular with the incline. Keep good posture, lean forward into the incline, shorten your stride, and pump your legs.

Hiking is a great way to practice walking, enjoy the scenery, and play Lord of the Rings in the woods with plastic swords and capes. Not that you should do that (you totally should). Here’s a beginner’s guide to hiking!

When walking downhill, especially while barefoot (or wearing minimalist shoes), keep that stride short and be careful on how you are walking. Make sure your knee is bent when you land and absorb the impact rather than jamming the impact through your heel, knee, leg, hips, and lower back.

Consider going for fasted walks in the morning. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your body has burned through most of the carb-fueled energy stores during the night. Which means when you go for a walk first thing in the morning, your body is more likely to have to pull from the only fuel source available to it: fat! This is the entire philosophy behind things like Intermittent Fasting or really low-carb diets like the Ketogenic diet.

Get yourself a sturdy walking stick, if only so you can use it to battle imaginary ogres, goblins, cavetrolls, etc. It can also make you feel far more adventurous than if you’re just walking, and help you get up hills and land softly when going back down.

Try Temptation Bundling. Load up an audiobook or your favorite podcast, and tell yourself that you can ONLY listen to the book or podcast while walking.

What about Fitbits and Nike FuelBands and Apple Watches?

http://ift.tt/2i1XrPl