Log those walks! You might be burning more than you think!

I realize that the results from a smartwatch are not going to be perfectly accurate but I did a bit of research and the results are based on thousands of case studies for people across all age groups and weight classes, so to speak, and the results that you are going to get from your device are an average based on real information.

The real reason why you should go ahead and trust this output is because the company that made your smartwatch or even your phone, likely doesn't have any reason to lie to you or "blow smoke up your butt" as they say. They aren't selling you anything in any smartwatch situation that I have seen and with my Garmin, I am never redirected towards some sort of product. I feel a little bit ill thinking of that because I can guarantee that in the future these devices definitely will incorporate advertising into their business models and then the lies will come. For now though, there is no reason to believe that these things are being disingenuous.

The other day, like most days, I had to go somewhere that was a bit away from my house. It was brutally cold yesterday but since I am hyper-dedicated (kidding) I decided to walk there instead of take the train. Yeah, it was cold, yeah it was uncomfortable at the start, but by the time I got to where I was going I had kind of gotten used to it and well, I didn't sweat at all, that's for sure.

When I got there, it was clearly just a walk and I had to stop frequently at intersections waiting to cross so my per kilometer time was very high - about 10 minutes slower than my jogging pace - but it was still kind of neat to see how much calories you can burn simply by walking at a normal pace.

There is nothing particularly special about these stats but I do like the fact that at one point at least, I reached the end of my stage 2 heart rate zone that was determined by the information I put into my profile at the beginning. I don't recall who it was (sorry), but someone out there told me that there is a new method of training where you never enter the cardiovascular heart rate zone unless you are training. I don't know if there is anything to that but since I wasn't really trying to exercise in this particular walk since I had to be presentable on the other side, I figured I would give it a try.

Almost all of my time during this walk was not really getting an elevated heart rate and I never entered the aerobic area of my BPM's. At the end of this walk, which I had to do anyway, I burned 220 calories and this got me thinking about how easy this was compared to other things that I would normally do for exercise. If I had the time, there would be nothing stopping me from doing 4 times this amount of walking and provided that I had good shoes on, it wouldn't even be uncomfortable.

Now 220 calories isn't a lot, but there are many times that I put in a lot of work to intentionally get my heart rate up really high and I will only burn about twice that many and I also need a shower and since I am older, there is a good chance there is potential soreness because of it. With something like this, there is virtually zero chance for injury and well, there was a purpose in the walk other than getting some exercise. For most people, a walk like this won't even feel like exercise.

So in the future I am going to start to record any walking that I do that is longer than say 1km. 1km is not very far folks and this adds a lot of credibility to the statements that I and many others say that if you have the time and are going somewhere anyway, why not just walk it? For most people and hour of this sort of exercise every day would be more than enough. Fitness doesn't have to be super difficult is what I am trying to say and everyday situations burn more than you might be thinking.