Walking Distance and Calorie Calculators

Walking is a great form of exercise—not only to build strong legs and promote healthy joints, but also to burn calories. Many people who start a walking program like to track their progress as they build mileage and increase their level of fitness.

In doing so, it can be helpful to know how far have you walked and how many calories have you burned. Get your answers with these walking calorie guides and calculators.

How to Track Walking Calories

You can measure your walking calories using different types of data. For example, you might use your distance, your workout duration, or your pace to figure out how many calories you burned and how hard you worked.

Calories Per Mile

If you know how far you have walked and you want to find the calories burned you can either use a calculator or reference a chart. The charts show the calories burned per mile based on your weight and pace. It also links to a calculator where you can enter your weight, approximate pace, and distance walked to calculate how many walking calories you have burned.

Calories Per Minute

Interested in seeing how many calories you burn based on time? The number varies based on factors including your weight and the pace at which you walk.

For example, a 140-pound person burns about four calories per minute walking at a speed of three miles per hour. So, in about 30 minutes she would burn roughly 112 calories. But a 200-pound person burns about 5 calories per minute or about 159 calories per thirty-minute interval.

Use the link below to see how many calories you burn walking for one minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes or two hours depending on your weight and pace. You can also follow the link to a calculator to enter your weight, pace, and minutes to calculate distance walked and walking calories burned.

Keep in mind that these numbers are estimates and do not take into account factors such as gender, incline, or wind resistance.

Calories Based on Step Count

Do you use a pedometer or a fitness on your walking workouts? See how many calories you burn based on your step count. This calculation takes into account your weight and your height (to get an estimate of stride length).

For example, a 160-pound person who is 5' 4" tall would burn about 181 calories walking 5000 steps. But a taller person (5' 10 tall) who weighs the same amount would burn 198 calories walking the same number of steps.

You can follow the link to a set of tables where you can look up your step total, steps per mile, and weight to estimate your walking calories burned.

The results you will see in these first three calorie charts and calculators are based on metabolic equivalents for task (MET) research of various activities.

Walking Pace

Many exercise experts recommend walking at a moderate pace. You might wonder if your walking pace is considered fast, moderate, or easy. There are different ways to measure your pace based on miles or kilometers traveled.

Based on your walking intensity, you can estimate how long it will take for you to walk different distances. This information can help you to plan routes and walking workouts.

Use these charts to convert miles and kilometers and see how long it will take you to walk that distance at three different paces. You can see both conversions from miles to kilometers and from kilometers to miles. You can also follow the link to an online calculator.

How to Manage Total Calories

Once you know how many calories you burned during your walking workout, you can include that number when you estimate your total calorie expenditure and your energy balance (calories in and calories out).

Calories Per Day

Are you trying to lose weight? Perhaps you are trying to maintain a healthy weight. The calories you burn on your walking workout are important, but the calories you burn throughout the day walking in the office, in your home, and simply performing activities of daily living make a big difference as well.

A calorie calculator can help give you an estimate of the amount of energy you expend every day. Energy is measured in calories or units of heat.

Input your gender, age, height, weight, and whether you are sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, or very active. For weight loss, you can try to burn 300–500 more calories per day than the figure you get so you achieve a negative energy balance. Your body then has to burn stored fat.

Weight Loss Calorie Target

Do you know how much should you eat if you want to lose weight? Tracking your calorie intake is one of the most successful ways to achieve a healthy weight. By making small changes to your diet (such as eliminating sugary sodas or reducing portion sizes) you can reach your goal weight without starving yourself or feeling deprived.

Use this calculator to find your calorie target based on your weight loss goals. You'll input your gender, age, height, current weight, goal weight, goal date, and your activity level.

Remember that a healthy rate of weight loss is one to two pounds per week. Trying to lose weight faster often backfires and leads to weight regain.

Calories In and Out

Many fitness bands and pedometers will give you an estimate of your calories burned by exercise as well as your total calories burned per day. If you wear a Fitbit, you will see its reading of your total calorie burn, which includes your basic metabolic rate as well as exercise calories. This enables you to balance the calories you eat against the calories burned.

Diet-friendly fitness trackers such as Fitbit and Garmin include or link to a food log app where you can track what you eat to balance those calories with what you burned.

One common app that links to many fitness trackers is MyFitnessPal.com. The best of these apps allow you to save common foods and meals and analyze recipes for the calories and nutrition per serving. Many allow you to scan barcodes on the food you eat and include items from fast food and chain restaurants.

However, accuracy is always an issue with any calorie figure from fitness trackers. Calories shown on treadmills and other exercise machines may be overestimated or underestimated as well. Be sure to input your correct weight as they often base the burn on that figure.