[90s_dev]

> I once tried to burn 3,000+ calories per day using just walking.

You'll generally burn about ~2k cals per day just being alive. An intense workout for an hour can burn maybe 500 on top of this. I think your math might be off somewhere if you walked a lot and figured that you spent a whole 1k.

[bryanlarsen]

Fat dudes burn significantly more than ~2k per day just being alive, or at least I did when I was younger. I lost significant weight on a 2300 calorie/day diet. So maybe the OP was 2500 for "being alive" and 500 for the workout?

[90s_dev]

Possible, and I considered that, which is why I put 500 cals for an intense hour-long workout, to imply that walking for a few hours will not even come close to 500 cals.

[bryanlarsen]

> walking for a few hours will not even come close to 500 cals.

No, not even close. I would expect 4-5 hours of walking to burn significantly more than that.

[90s_dev]

I could be wrong, but from my research and understanding, walking is one of the easiest things for us to do, only slightly more expensive than sitting up straight or standing.

On top of this, it doesn't "stack" well because of the low heart rate usage, meaning it logarithmically increases calorie costs (our bodies essentially amortize it), whereas lifting and carrying a heavy object for 20 seconds exponentially increases it.

[sn9]

In general cardio will always use more energy than lifting because you can simply do much more of it.

Cardio is continuous work while lifting is work done a few seconds at a time.

Walking in particular is still moving your body horizontally through space. That horizontal displacement is the biggest determinant of energy cost for any given body, all things being equal.

Running only burns slightly more per unit distance because there's slightly more vertical displacement as you're literally leaving the ground between steps.

[bryanlarsen]

For a normal person, it's about 100 calories / hr for sitting vs 200 for walking.

For a fat dude, it's about 150 calories / hr for sitting vs 350 for walking.

Source: google. Use appropriate doses of salt.

[burnt-resistor]

Fat dude doing 5 hours of walking a day would have no more knees within a month. It's good to aim to be less overweight, mostly because of the cancer and CHD risks, but also because it wears the body out faster mechanically and takes more relative effort to do everything.

[crabbone]

Yeah, I too thought this number was unrealistic. I run, and I know that it takes about 60 calories per km (I run 10 km usually). To burn 3000 I'd have to... run more than a marathon (50 km, marathon is 42 km). Running marathon every day is... I won't say impossible, but is highly impractical (and actually impossible for most people who can run marathon). For an average runner, it takes 4-5 hours. So, I think that to burn 3k calories by walking one would need to walk way, way longer than 5 hours a day. Not sure even if it's possible to squeeze that much walking in a day.

[defrost]

For interest:

William Goodge smashes record after running across Australia in 35 days

  British athlete four days quicker than previous record holder who completed 3,800km feat in 39 days

  Spurred on by his mother’s battle with cancer, and with his father by his side, William Goodge crossed the finish line in Sydney just after 4pm on Monday.

  It brought an end to 35 days of pounding the pavement, striding the equivalent of two-and-a-half marathons a day.

May 19th, 2025: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/may/19/william-goodge...

[morepork]

Or

> Shannon-Leigh Litt has run 500 ultra marathons in 500 Days

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360690060/northlander-runs-her...

Out of reach for most of us though.

[psb217]

The best way to hit 3000 is cycling. A reasonably fit (70kg-100kg) cyclist should burn 600-800 cal/hr riding at a moderate pace, so 3000 is a 4-5hr ride. It wouldn't be unusual for an enthusiastic amateur cyclist to hit that 1-2x/week.

[ndsipa_pomu]

However, if you assume that 2000 calories is pretty much maintenance and you'll burn that anyway, then you only need somewhere around an hour and a half or two hours cycling. Also if you can replace a medium commute with cycling, then it's not that difficult to hit that target just through active travel. (I used to regularly cycle commute approx 37kms each way and I could easily hit 1000 calories on just one of the journeys).

[psb217]

Yeah. It's easy to get over 3000 total daily calories if you have, eg, an hour of cycle commute per day and then add some purposeful gym or running on top.

[burnt-resistor]

Could do it far more biomechanically efficient on an elliptical, but overdoing cardio risks less type IIb (wiry appearance) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Or incorporate more strength training that increases type IIb adaptations and greater BMR.

[burnt-resistor]

BMR. Cut food by 1000 kcal, that's 1000 kcal that don't need to be metabolized.