Walking costs you somewhere around 100 calories a mile, and how much of you there is to move matters more than how fast you move it. A 160 pound person walking at a moderate pace burns roughly 314 calories an hour. A 200 pound person burns around 391 doing exactly the same walk.
The number depends mostly on how much of you there is
Moving a body over ground takes work proportional to the mass being moved. Heavier walker, more calories, same route.
That has an awkward implication for anyone using walking to lose weight: as you get lighter, the same walk costs less. It is a small effect week to week and a real one over months, and it is one reason progress slows without anything going wrong.
Thirty minutes at a moderate pace lands most people between 150 and 200 calories. Useful, and roughly one biscuit and a coffee.
Pace matters more here than in running
With running, distance drives the total and pace barely moves it. Walking is different, because a stroll and a brisk walk are genuinely different intensities. Picking up the pace can burn up to 50% more than an amble over the same time.
Speed is also what turns walking into cardiovascular training rather than just transport. If you are walking for your heart rather than your calorie ledger, walk fast enough that talking gets slightly awkward.
Hills do the heavy lifting
Uphill walking raises the cost sharply, and it is the single most effective change you can make to a walking route. Gradient adds vertical work that flat ground never asks for.
Soft or uneven surfaces add their own tax. Sand, gravel and rough trails all cost more than pavement, because your feet slip and your stabilising muscles work continuously. Grass sits somewhere in between. Downhill feels easy and is harder on your knees than the effort suggests.
Ways to get more out of the same walk
Add intervals. Two minutes fast, two minutes easy, repeated, will lift the average without turning the walk into a workout you dread.
Find a hill and use it more than once.
Carry something. A loaded rucksack raises the effective body weight, which raises the cost. Start lighter than you think.
Walk before breakfast or after dinner if that is what gets it done. Timing does very little for the burn and a lot for whether the walk actually happens.
Why walking is worth more than its calorie count
Here is the thing the arithmetic hides. Walking barely registers as exercise on a calorie chart, and it may still be the most valuable thing you do for your daily total.
All the small movement in your day, walking to the shops, standing, pacing, taking stairs, adds up to a large and highly variable slice of energy expenditure. It differs between people by hundreds of calories a day. And unlike a hard training session, it does not make you especially hungry afterwards or need a recovery day.
The 10,000 step target is a marketing number rather than a scientific one, but the direction is right. More steps across the whole day beats one heroic walk on Sunday.
Fitting it into a real week
Take the stairs. Get off a stop early. Walk during phone calls. Half an hour at lunch.
None of that is exciting, and all of it stacks. If you want to know how much difference it makes to your own numbers, compare the sedentary and lightly active activity factors in the calculator. The gap between them is what daily walking is worth.
One caution on tracking. Wrist devices tend to be generous about walking, and they will count arm movement as steps if you let them. Our piece on why trackers overestimate calorie burn explains where the error comes from. Walk for the walking. Do not eat it back twice.