Do You Burn Carbs While Walking?

Walking is an excellent way to boost your metabolism and to burn fat. As a weight-bearing exercise, it can help you build bone density and manage your weight.

When you exercise, your body gains energy by burning calories from carbohydrates (4 calories per gram) stored as glycogen and from fat (9 calories per gram), according to StatPearls. Just how many carbs you burn while walking depends on the briskness and length of your walk.

How Do We Burn Carbs?

In order to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you consume. This leads to long-term weight reduction, as your body ultimately taps into fat stores when it needs to burn calories for energy.

Typically, we burn 200 to 400 calories per hour of walking, depending on your body size and the intensity of your workout, notes Harvard Health Publishing.

Here’s how it works: The carbohydrates you eat are broken down into sugars and transported in your blood, according to Mayo Clinic. This causes a rise in blood sugar levels, which triggers your pancreas to release insulin to lower blood sugar and make carbohydrates available for energy or storage.

Carbohydrates are stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver or as body fat. After a few minutes of walking, your body taps into your muscle glycogen stores for energy. Having a diet adequate in carbohydrates allows you to store more glycogen and support walking endurance.

Aim to obtain about 45 to 65 percent of your daily calories from carbohydrates to provide sufficient energy for exercise, including walking, according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, healthy sources of carbohydrates include:

• Whole grains
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Beans

It’s also wise to avoid refined carbohydrates such as white rice and baked goods to avoid empty calories and unhealthy weight gain.

Setting Up a Walking Routine

Walk more every day to increase your physical activity level. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends 150 to 300 minutes of moderate exercise per week, which includes walking. They also recommend 75 minutes of vigorous activity, in addition to two days of muscle-building activities.

Walking right after eating for 10 to 20 minutes can be an effective way to use sugar from your meal as fuel, according to research published in Nature. Adults ages 60 and younger may aim for at least 100 steps per minute for a moderate pace, according to the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Taking a walk after dinner also can help decrease your stress levels and burn additional calories. If you can, walk to work or take a walk break during lunch. Parking farther away from your destination and taking the stairs instead of the elevator are also easy ways to walk more every day.

If you have health-related concerns about your ability to walk, talk to your doctor about what approach may be best for you.