Please help out a vertically challenged walker

[TornadoSiren]

I have a question that I am having a problem finding a real answer to. Any help would be appreciated.

I am vertically challenged (read short). Now understand, I am not speaking of your normal 5'3" short here. I top the tape measure at 4'9". Needless to say my stride is significantly shorter than "average". When I walk with other more normal sized persons, I can see that for every 2 step they take, I take at least 3, and sometimes 4. As I have had 42 years to grow accustomed to being short, it is not something I had really spent a lot of time thinking about in the past. I am used to having to take many more steps than other people to keep up, and it does not strain me, but it has started me thinking about the actual calories I burn when I walk.

Walking is my normal form of exercise. 2 months ago, I was 194 pounds, and while I honestly didnt seem to recall getting fat, it certainly had happened.As my husband is fond of saying, I was "ready for hibernation". Good thing I love him so much. It was when I realised that just walking to the corner store made my feet and hips hurt that I was forced to look at myself and finally take control back. So here I am now 17 pounds lighter and starting to feel almost human again. I still have over 40 lbs to go, but I already feel so much better, I am sure I wil be able to keep myself on track. Anyway..long story short. The sites I have looked at all talk about how many calories one burns per mile of walking, and that the average mile is 2000 steps. They also state that 152 steps per minute is walking approx 4 MPH. Since faster steps is my usual walking speed, I easily hit, and usually exceed, 152 steps per minute over my 45 minute daily walk, yet I know that if I walked for a full hour, I would not have covered 4 miles.

So the question is..Am I burning calories at a 4MPH rate even though my distance traveled is NOT 4 miles? Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Harold14370]

I would say no, if you want to burn 4 miles worth of calories, you would have to walk 4 miles. OTOH, those tables are just averages anyway, and if you are losing weight at a reasonable rate, don't worry about it.

 

[TornadoSiren]

I understand about the average thing..its not that I am so concerned about the weight loss, I feel good about that. But I do still prefer to keep at least a mostly accurate count. Charts, graphs, etc help me to keep my mind focused on the process, you see, and prevents me from sliding off track.

But I cant help but think..that if you can do a mile in 2000 steps, and I need to take 3000 steps to make that same mile, it simply stands to reason, that assuming all other things are equal, I will be exerting more energy, and thus burning more calories, than yourself, even though we have walked the same distance. In the same way that a man who is 7 foot tall, would take less steps for that mile, and thus would burn less calories. Once again..simplifying, as obviously that 7 ft tall man is probably going to weigh a hell of a lot more. But if a 5 foot tall man who weighted 300 lbs, walked a mile with a 7 foot tall man, also weighing 300 lbs..both of them walking side by side..the 5 foot tall man is going to be taking many more steps than the 7 ft tall one..Wouldnt he almost HAVE to be burning more calories for the muscle expenditure being used?

I suppose now this has become a scientific question for me, more than a practical one.

 

[Harold14370]

Well, look at it this way. The reason why we burn calories at all, walking on the level, is because it is inefficient. If we have not gained any altitude, then we have not acquired any potential energy for our troubles. So what happens is that we are bouncing up and down as we walk, gaining a little bit of altitude, then sacrificing the potential energy acquired when we land and absorb the energy. A taller person with his longer stride would actually be moving a bit higher with each step, so losing more of that potential energy on the way down.

 

[Iain1974]

But if a 5 foot tall man who weighted 300 lbs, walked a mile with a 7 foot tall man, also weighing 300 lbs..both of them walking side by side..the 5 foot tall man is going to be taking many more steps than the 7 ft tall one..Wouldnt he almost HAVE to be burning more calories for the muscle expenditure being used?

Calories are energy. Both men are expending enough energy to carry their 300lbs frames 1 mile. I'm sure there is more to it but I doubt there's enough of a difference to get excited about.