Offa's Dyke walk

I went for a holiday weekend walk today along a section of the Offa's Dyke trail in north Wales. It was a beautiful day with very warm sunshine and there were loads of people out and about and lots of families out walking. The route followed a well-made path and was generally along a ridge top. There were also some long sections of uphill walking and some steep downhill stretches. There were beautiful views to be had in all directions and it was really enjoyable. I think what made it even more enjoyable for me was that I felt really fit! I stepped out and kept up a pretty fast pace all the way, including on the uphill sections. I actually surprised myself at how fit and healthy I felt. I kept thinking back to pre-surgery times and how a walk like today's would have been really tough - and there's no way on earth I could have kept up the pace I did today.

Back at home now and rested, fed and watered (!), I am conscious that although I have no particular aches in my legs or other muscles, my body as a whole feels, well, sort of empty! A bit drained of energy, I suppose, I guess this is because I am consuming generally less calories. I have attempted to calculate how many calories I have burned today. I went back to the web site I posted about in March (click on the link above to return to my original post) that lists a wide range of activities and their calorie-burning equivalents per hour. This gives a rate of about 520 calories an hour for uphill walking and/or hiking. I did the sums and basically, if you multiply normal steps (i.e. as recorded on a pedometer) by 1.44, you get the equivalent steps if your walking was 'hiking' or uphill. You can then use the equivalent steps figure to determine calories burned - for someone weighing about 200 pounds, one step burns 0.06 calories.

So today, I have walked about 12,500 steps hiking, equivalent to 18,000 normal steps. Multiplying this by 0.06 gives total calories burned of 1080. I will have eaten about 1200 calories by the end of the day, which means that my total effective calorie intake is only 1200-1080 = 120!! Since my basal metabolic rate is about 1650, this means that I have achieved a calorie savings today of about 1530 (1650 - 120) - i.e. nearly half a pound!!! Well, the walk was lovely, but that figure makes it even more enjoyable!