Short answer: On flat ground, walking burns about 2.8–4.8 kcal per kilogram of body weight per hour, depending on pace. For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult that is about 200 kcal an hour at a slow pace and 340 kcal at a brisk one, including the energy you burn at rest anyway. 10,000 steps come to roughly 400 kcal. Hills and loads add more.
Charts, watches and treadmills rarely agree on walking calories. All of them estimate from the same inputs: weight, pace, slope and time. Here are tables based on the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the formula behind them, and how many steps a day are linked with better health.
If you have a heart, lung or joint condition, are pregnant, or haven’t been active for a while, check with your doctor before you step up your walking, especially before adding hills, a heavy pack or a much faster pace.
How many calories does walking burn?
The Compendium of Physical Activities is the reference researchers use for the energy cost of activities. It rates each one in METs (metabolic equivalents), where 1 MET is the energy you use sitting at rest. Level walking ranges from 2.8 METs at a slow pace to 4.8 at a brisk one and 5.5 at a very brisk 6.4–7.1 km/h (4.0–4.4 mph). Multiply METs by weight and time and you get the table below: calculated estimates, including resting energy.
| Body weight | Slow, 3.2–3.9 km/h (2.0–2.4 mph), 2.8 METs | Moderate, 4.5–5.5 km/h (2.8–3.4 mph), 3.8 METs | Brisk, 5.6–6.3 km/h (3.5–3.9 mph), 4.8 METs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 kg (132 lb) | 84 / 168 | 114 / 228 | 144 / 288 |
| 70 kg (154 lb) | 98 / 196 | 133 / 266 | 168 / 336 |
| 80 kg (176 lb) | 112 / 224 | 152 / 304 | 192 / 384 |
| 90 kg (198 lb) | 126 / 252 | 171 / 342 | 216 / 432 |
A heavier body uses more energy for the same walk. Pace matters a lot per minute but little per kilometre: per distance, every pace above comes to roughly 0.75–0.8 kcal per kilogram per kilometre, about 55 kcal per km (90 kcal per mile) at 70 kg. Walking faster mainly gets the distance done sooner.
How to calculate calories burned walking: the MET formula
One MET equals an oxygen uptake of 3.5 ml per kilogram per minute, approximately 1 kcal per kilogram per hour. That gives a simple formula:
kcal = MET × body weight in kg × hours
This is a gross figure: it includes the 1 MET you would burn sitting still. The net figure, what the walk itself adds, is (MET − 1) × kg × hours. The gap is about 1 kcal per kilogram per hour, so 70 kcal an hour at 70 kg.
Worked example: a 45-minute brisk walk at 70 kg
Brisk walking is 4.8 METs, and 45 minutes is 0.75 hours. Gross: 4.8 × 70 × 0.75 = 252 kcal. Net: 3.8 × 70 × 0.75 ≈ 200 kcal. About 50 kcal would have been used anyway, and your maintenance estimate already covers it, so the net figure is the one to compare with your calorie target.
The Compendium counts 1.6–2.9 METs as light, 3.0–5.9 as moderate and 6.0 or more as vigorous. Level walking at 4 km/h (2.5 mph) is rated 3.0 METs, so from about that pace up, walking is moderate-intensity activity. The adult values cover ages 19–59; a separate Older Adult Compendium covers people aged 60 and over.
How many calories do 1,000 and 10,000 steps burn?
Steps have no fixed calorie value: how many you take per kilometre depends on your stride and pace. In the laboratory studies collected by Tudor-Locke and colleagues in 2011, adults walking at 4.8 km/h (3 mph) took 108–115 steps a minute, about 1,350–1,430 steps per km (2,170–2,300 per mile). At 6.4 km/h (4 mph) they took 127–129 steps a minute, about 1,200 per km (1,900–1,950 per mile).
The table assumes 4.8 km/h and 1,400 steps per km. Then 1,000 steps take about 9 minutes, and 10,000 steps cover about 7.1 km (4.4 miles) in roughly 90 minutes.
| Body weight | 1,000 steps, total | 1,000 steps, extra | 10,000 steps, total | 10,000 steps, extra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 kg (132 lb) | 34 kcal | 25 kcal | 340 kcal | 250 kcal |
| 70 kg (154 lb) | 40 kcal | 29 kcal | 400 kcal | 290 kcal |
| 80 kg (176 lb) | 45 kcal | 33 kcal | 450 kcal | 330 kcal |
| 90 kg (198 lb) | 51 kcal | 38 kcal | 510 kcal | 380 kcal |
- Not every step is brisk. Slower, shorter steps around the house are worth less.
- Only extra steps are extra. Your maintenance calories already include your usual day. If you normally take 5,000 steps and a walk gets you to 10,000, it adds the extra for 5,000 steps: about 145 kcal at 70 kg, not 400.
Walking uphill, on stairs or with a load
The American College of Sports Medicine walking equation, shown on the Compendium website, puts the oxygen cost of lifting your body 1 metre at 18 times that of moving it 1 metre on the flat. A light load adds little on level ground; the slope drives the cost up.
| Activity (Compendium code) | METs | 30 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat, moderate pace, 4.5–5.5 km/h (17190) | 3.8 | 133 | 266 |
| Flat, carrying 2.3–6.4 kg (5–14 lb), moderate pace (17016) | 4.0 | 140 | 280 |
| Uphill, 1–5% grade, moderate to brisk pace (17034) | 5.3 | 186 | 371 |
| Stair climbing, general (17131) | 6.8 | 238 | 476 |
| Uphill, 6–10% grade, moderate to brisk pace (17035) | 7.0 | 245 | 490 |
| Uphill, 3–10% grade, with a 9.5–18 kg (21–40 lb) load (17050) | 7.5 | 263 | 525 |
| Hiking with a daypack (17012) | 7.8 | 273 | 546 |
| Uphill, 11–20% grade, slow to moderate pace (17036) | 8.8 | 308 | 616 |
From 6% up at a moderate to brisk pace, walking becomes vigorous. Build up gradually, and on long or hot hikes plan your fluids too: see how much water you need a day.
Why your watch, treadmill and app show different numbers
Devices use different methods: MET tables, equations from speed and slope, or motion sensors plus heart rate. Some show total calories, others only active calories above rest; at 70 kg that alone is about 70 kcal per hour.
A 2026 living systematic review of 82 Apple Watch validation studies found moderate accuracy for step counts, but calorie error that was “inconsistent and frequently large”: average error ranged from about 10% in running to over 150% in one walking test, with most studies testing older models.
MET tables have limits too. Their authors call the Compendium a starting point, not a precise individual measure: in one study they cite, women with obesity used about 8–15% more energy than women without obesity at the same treadmill speeds. So pick one method, use it consistently, and judge it by your weight trend.
How many steps a day do you need?
The 10,000-step goal is widely promoted, but with little evidence behind it, noted a 2022 meta-analysis in The Lancet Public Health. Pooling 15 cohorts with 47,471 adults, Paluch and colleagues found that the risk of death fell as daily steps rose, levelling off at about 6,000–8,000 steps a day for adults aged 60 and over and 8,000–10,000 for younger adults.
A 2025 review in the same journal by Ding and colleagues covered more outcomes. Compared with 2,000 steps a day, 7,000 steps were associated with a 47% lower risk of death from any cause, a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, a 38% lower risk of dementia and a 22% lower risk of depressive symptoms. For several outcomes the curve flattened at around 5,000–7,000 steps. The authors see 10,000 as still a good target for active people and 7,000 as more realistic for others. These are associations from observational studies.
The World Health Organization counts minutes, not steps: at least 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity a week, or a mix, plus muscle-strengthening on 2 or more days (see progressive overload). Bouts of any length count, and some activity is better than none. Cadence links steps and minutes: about 100 steps a minute marks moderate-intensity walking, so 30 minutes at that rhythm is at least 3,000 steps, and five such walks a week reach the WHO minimum.
Should you eat back the calories you burn walking?
Eating back exercise calories means adding them to your daily budget. It is easy to overshoot:
- The estimates are rough, and a total figure includes resting energy you have already counted.
- Exercise can raise appetite. In the E-MECHANIC trial, adults with overweight or obesity did supervised exercise for 24 weeks and lost less weight than predicted, mainly because they ate about 90–125 kcal a day more than the control group.
A cautious approach:
- Don’t count your usual day twice. If your target already assumes your normal activity, only planned walks and extra steps count.
- Use the net figure and start by eating back a share of it, for example half.
- Let your weight decide. After a few weeks, check your weekly average weight: losing more slowly than planned, eat back less; faster or feeling drained, eat back more. See calorie deficits and plateaus for reading the trend.
How Portiva helps
In Portiva you log walks and other activities from a built-in library, with walking at different paces, running, cycling, gym and more. Calories are estimated from each activity’s MET value in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities and your current weight. With your permission, Portiva reads your daily steps and Apple Watch workouts from Apple Health and saves the workouts you log there. Exercise logging is part of the free plan.
You decide whether your exercise calories go back into your daily budget, and how much of them. Because your daily targets adapt to your weight trend, a few weeks of data show whether your estimates fit.
Frequently asked questions
How many calories does a 30-minute walk burn?
For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult on flat ground, about 98 kcal at a slow pace, 133 kcal at a moderate pace and 168 kcal at a brisk pace, calculated from the 2024 Compendium. Those are totals; the extra above rest is about 35 kcal less in each case.
Is walking 10,000 steps a day good for weight loss?
For a 70 kg person, 10,000 steps at a moderate pace come to roughly 400 kcal in total, about 290 kcal above rest. Only steps beyond your usual day add to your deficit, and some may come back as appetite. Your overall calorie balance decides whether you lose weight.
How many steps are in a kilometre or a mile?
It depends on stride and pace: in laboratory studies, about 1,350–1,430 steps per kilometre (2,170–2,300 per mile) at 4.8 km/h (3 mph) and about 1,200 (1,900–1,950 per mile) at 6.4 km/h (4 mph). For your own figure, walk a known distance, such as a 400 m track lap, and count your steps.
Is it better to walk faster or longer?
For calories, distance matters most: per kilometre, slow and brisk walking cost roughly the same, so walking faster mostly saves time. For health, brisk walking counts as moderate-intensity activity; about 100 steps a minute is a useful sign you are there. Choose a pace you can keep up.
Sources
- 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: A third update of the energy costs of human activities, Herrmann SD et al., Journal of Sport and Health Science (2024).
- Walking (Major Heading 17), 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, Compendium of Physical Activities (2024).
- Unit Conversions and ACSM Metabolic Equations, Compendium of Physical Activities.
- How many steps/day are enough? for adults, Tudor-Locke C et al., International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (2011).
- Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts, Paluch AE et al., The Lancet Public Health (2022).
- Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis, Ding D et al., The Lancet Public Health (2025).
- World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour, Bull FC et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine (2020).
- The accuracy of Apple Watch measurements: a living systematic review and meta-analysis, Lambe R et al., npj Digital Medicine (2026).
- Effect of different doses of supervised exercise on food intake, metabolism, and non-exercise physical activity: The E-MECHANIC randomized controlled trial, Martin CK et al., The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2019).