Wet Nose Guide Blog

(photo source: publicenergy)

The World Health Organization recommends that adults exercise for 30 minutes at least 5 days per week. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh showed that breaking this 30 minutes into several shorter segments results in greater weight loss and health benefits than trying to one long exercise session each day. And what better way to get in two 15-minute exercise segments or three 10-minute sessions than taking Fido for several walks each day!

How many calories will I burn just walking the dog?

Most people estimate that walking the dog will burn about 150-250 calories per hour. If you decide not to walk and simply sit in front of the television for an hour, you’ll be burning only about 85 calories. So you can almost triple your calorie-burning power by getting off the couch and walking Fido!

Online resources can help you estimate how many calories you’ll burn with exercise – including exercising with Fido:

• http://caloriecount.about.com lists calories burned with a wide range of activities. Click the exercise link and the search for your desired exercise – including dog walking!

• http://www.fitday.com/webfit/burned/calories_burned.html allows you to estimate how many calories YOU will burn with a specific exercise, based on your age, gender, height, and weight. And yes – dog walking IS one of the available options! When I did the calculation for myself, it was estimated that I’d lose about 146 calories per hour of dog walking. And if you walk at a brisker pace and add hills, you’ll boost the amount of calories you’ll lose.

So just how much is 200 calories?

You eat 200 calories when you have any of the following foods:

• Two bananas
• Two pears
• Two cups of cooked corn or peas
• One cup of cooked rice
• Two tablespoons of butter or mayonnaise
• One cup of cottage cheese
• Two cups of milk
• One bagel
• Two muffins
• One croissant
• Five-six slices of bacon
• Two breakfast sausage patties
• One hot dog
• A can of cola
•Hershey’s chocolate bar

A milkshake has nearly 500 calories or two and a half extra dog-walking hours. And if you’re thinking about a Big Mac with cheese — that’s over 700 calories! Or over three hours of dog walking!

So make smart meal and snack choices to avoid extra calories you don’t need. And when you treat yourself to that extra sweet, just add in an extra jaunt with Fido to walk it off!

At first, I was losing weight walking Fido, but now I’m stuck!

As you get into better shape and start losing weight, the amount of calories you’ll burn for any given exercise will decrease. For example, a 25 year old woman who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighing 185 pounds will burn about 175 calories per hour of dog walking. When she loses 10 pounds, she’ll burn only 170 calories for the same hour of dog walking and at 165 pounds, she’s down to 165 calories per hour.

So, as you start to lose weight, remember you’ll need to pick up the intensity or duration of your exercise if you want to lose more weight:

• Add an extra walk to your routine
• Add minutes to your walks
• Walk a bit faster or add in some skips and jogs during the walk to pick up the pace
• Pump your arms as you walk
• Choose a route with hills

Let’s recap the facts about calorie burning with dog walking:

• Expect to burn about 150-250 calories per hour when walking Fido.
• You’ll burn about 3 times more calories walking Fido compared to watching television.
• You’ll burn fewer calories as you start dropping your weight — so increase your pace, add hills, or include extra walks to keep the weight loss going.

Visit Fit As Fido for a dog walking exercise diary you can download to help you log your progress. This diary will help make sure you’re getting in the recommended 150 minutes of exercise each week. So grab a leash, whistle for Fido, and start walking your way to a trimmer, healthier you!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.