Walk or Run? Which Is Better? - Help Me Lose Weight Quickly

The debate continues. Should you walk or run? Which will burn more calories? What helps my cardiovascular base better? All these questions, so many opinions. To fully answer these questions, one must be able to discern and pick apart the arguments piece by piece, and then have a better cumulative answer. There is no easy way of answering this mind you. This will hopefully provide you a better idea about what is best for you right now, and what may be better for you in the long run.

The first piece of the puzzle I will be dissecting is how your body actually burns calories. Burning calories, or simply put: your metabolism, when you break it all down is the process by which your body changes what you consume into energy. This part is easy. You eat and drink, then your body naturally changes these into the usable energy your body needs. So during this biochemical process, calories are combined with oxygen to release this usable energy your body needs. Now it's pretty easy to understand that you burn calories or use up this energy while you exercise or perform physical activities. Your body has many natural always occurring processes that include breathing, blood circulation, hormone level regulation, and finally cell repair.

Now that you understand how calories are burned, we can go into more detail on the topic at hand. Walk or Run? Which is better? Most everyone can agree that running will undoubtedly burn much more calories than regular walking. But is this always true? Now we can't compare walking and running when it comes with high-level athletes or sedative couch potatoes. I'll be using the regular guy scenario. A typical jog (slow run) is what people generally run at. The speeds are on average anywhere from 5.5mph to 6.5mph. This speed of running will burn calories, but often times, it is not a sufficient amount of calories when you compare it to a faster walk. The average walking speed (at the mall) is around 3mph to 3.5 mph. This is far too slow for any actual cardiovascular strain on your body. What I'm getting at is this: if you are at a slower run (or jog) you may not burn as many calories as a faster walk.Let me explain a bit further.

Your body is a lot like a machine. It was designed to perform multiple different tasks. When the human body needs to move, it is designed to walk. When the human body needs to move faster, it is designed to run. That is why if you get on a treadmill and slowly increase the speed, you will begin to naturally jog after a certain speed. You don't do it because you can't walk at that speed. You do it because your body naturally is built to perform this task more efficiently while jogging, not walking. That's really neat, but what all does this have to do with calories, walking and running? Simple addition, that's what.

Recall back when I said that your body naturally burns calories during breathing and blood circulation. Circulating oxygen is an important part of your body's natural resting metabolism, and with burning calories while exercising. Take this fact and put it inside your pocket for now. Having your body performing an unnatural or irregular act will cause stress on your natural system. Take the walking fast and add this in. Starting to catch on? If you are walking fast (and when I said fast I am referring to speeds of 4.2-5.0), or otherwise known as power walking, you are putting your body is an unnatural state when you do not begin to jog. This causes your circulatory system to go into overdrive, so to speak. This is the biggest argument walk-advocates have over run-advocates.

By adding these elements together, you can presumably burn more calories walking fast (4.2mph