I had this theory about the changes a person would have to make in length or duration of physical activity based on how vigorous the activity is. For this assumption, I am referring to within-person differences - so that age, weight, and other biologic characteristics are stable across the activities. My thought was that to equal calorie expenditure between running, walking and cycling with running as the baseline or reference - a person would need to cycle twice the distance of running and walk twice the time of running. I played around with the MET formula and resources that I shared in this post.
I made a chart that you can see below - I used seven activities (ones that I do). I made every thing even for an hour, so I would for instance figure out the calories that I burn per minute from this math and multiply that by my actual minutes. To be clear, I am physically incapable of swimming for an hour, my weight training is 40 minutes and I do ten minute yoga segments on Netflix.
Remember this chart is not 100% accurate but it is very accurate for ME. If you do similar activities and want to get a ballpark idea for yourself, just replace your weight (in kg) in the formula and compute.
**BTW, my theory is on target - if I walk twice as long -two hours-, I will get close to the same cals as running 6 miles and I will have walked 7 miles. If I ride my bicycle with some intensity and go 12 miles in an hour or ride for about 70 minutes, the cals will be the same. The step aerobics MET is close to the same for an hour - pretty cool that. (I am not swimming for one hour and I am not walking for two, just so you know :))
Oh and another thing ! For optimal health and to help control weight, adults and children are encouraged to engage in physical activity with MET > 6 for 20 minutes several days a week. If you want to lose weight, you must do much more and or eat less.
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