For some people hiking is a way to lose weight and at the same time experience the wonderful magic of nature. But some people hiking is a passion, they pack their backpacks and march towards a mountain or any hill to explore what nature might offer. Hiking is the best way way to explore nature, but have you ever wondered does hiking helps you lose weight? or how many calories you will burn while hiking?
The gym is overrated and not everyone wants to work out in a closed room with unknown people around. Many people are fond of working out in an open environment ( close to nature). Hiking is a brilliant exercise that helps you make a healthy body.
Leading a Long hiking trail will make your body healthy by improving stamina and cardiovascular performance.
If you hike every day, you should know How far can you hike in a day?
Content
- Does hiking help you lose weight?
- How does hiking help you lose weight?
- Can hiking every day make you lose weight?
- How many times you should hike to lose weight
- How many calories burned while hiking
- How much to hike to lose weight
- Experiment to calculate calories during hiking
Does Hiking help you lose weight?
Yes, Hiking helps you lose weight. Hiking trails are steep and unpaved road which needs more strength to move your body upwards. This results in burning more amount of calories and losing weight faster. Hiking terrains are different, and it affects how many calories you’ll burn through your hiking trail. One thing is for certain, if you hike on regular basis it will help you lose weight and you’ll start to shed your extra pounds. If you have a steeper hiking trail, you’ll need to travel a short distance (a few miles) to lose the extra pounds. But on the other hand, if your hiking trail is less steep, your body muscles will feel less pressure and you need to travel far distances to burn the same amount of calories.
How does hiking help you lose weight?
Hiking is also a form of exercise where our body burns energy or calories. When our body burns calories from hiking, it’s mainly from fats, and to lose weight, our body needs to burn fat. Hiking consists of difficult paths, with steep mountains and rugged roads, and it burns more calories than if you walk around the neighborhood ( on a straight road).
If you go hiking in a fast state ( without eating for more than 6 hours), you will experience fatigue, dizziness and in some worst conditions, you could faint. It happens because our body burns more fats to provide energy to the body for steep trails. This makes your body tired and you’ll start feeling fatigued and dizzy.
It is a fast process to lose weight but it could also trigger some serious health conditions. In my recommendation, never hike or perform any exercise when you are fasting.
Uphill Sprint in hiking help you lose weight faster
Racing on a steep road could boost burning calories that result in shedding down fats faster. The steep the road the more energy the muscles require to push the body upward.
Sprint athletes perform uphill sprints to get faster results.
If you want to lose weight faster with hiking uphill sprint is the only way you could do it. Sprint doesn’t only burn calories during your run, but also for a long time to repair muscles. It results in the burning of more calories from fat and it is preferable for people who want to get results faster.
Can hiking every day make you lose weight?
Hiking is an ideal weight loss exercise and you could hike every day. If you hike every day, you burn calories 7 days a week and with a proper nutritious diet, you will lose the extra weight in a few weeks.
How many times you should hike to lose weight
If you hike every day on a steep road, you’ll feel tired and your body will not get sufficient time to recover. It’s like going to a gym, you only go 3-5 at per week and the other are rest days. This also includes hiking as on a rest day your body will finally relax and recover those tired muscles.
You need to hike 3- 5 days per week to get results faster without damaging your muscles.
How much to hike to lose weight?
Many different variables affect how much you will lose weight. Your hiking trail( hiking terrain), distance, elevation, environment, and diet. If you are in a hilly area or you hike on a mountain, you’ll have less oxygen due to the air pressure and it acts as a benefit in losing weight.
On hiking trails that are more elevated, you have to hike a small distance as it will burn more fat in a certain amount of calories. But if your Hiking trail is not elevated, you have to walk very far to burn calories that will shed down your fat.
It’s also determined how much you have to burn fat and how fast. People eager to lose weight through hiking end up to 5 -10 miles on a steep mountain. If you could range in this category, you will reduce more than 5 pounds of weight in a week. It’s going to be very difficult and hard.
How many calories are burned while hiking?
For accurate results, you could use sports watches that track the amount of calories you’ll burn through your hiking trail. But if you are looking for a traditional way to calculate the number of calories you’ll burn while hiking, we have a method to calculate it.
It’s not the accurate results, due to every hike terrain, age, weight, height, time, hiking trail elevation. In order for accurate results, we at trekkearth performed an experiment that includes different hiking trails and with me and my friend.
I weigh only 185 pounds and my friend weighs 225 pounds, we performed the experiments on two hiking trails first one has a normal steep but the other one was way too steep.
We started the experiment using sports watches and also includes a backpack with water and energy drinks.
First experiment with a moderate incline
Our hiking trail includes uphill and downhill with a 6-mile distance and 2 hours duration. At the end of the hike, we were exhausted and also used all our energy drinks just to cover the distance.
In the end, we calculated our results.
My friend burnt 996 calories and I only burnt 767 calories. The difference in the calories is because if the weight, the person who weighs more will lose more calories as compared to the person who weighs less.
A second experiment on Steep mountain
To make this more challenging we just measured the distance we could travel in 2 hours duration. We didn’t include the downhill, and we use sprint for a short duration to make this hard and burn more calories.
In the end, the results were insane, my friend burnt about 1986 calories, almost twice the amount of calories than on a moderate incline. I burnt about 1600 calories, which is also better but it had to happen because I weigh less.
Remember, this figure is of an experiment of two-person and it is an estimate of the total amount of calories you might burn during your hike. It doesn’t give accurate results, there are various other variables that affect the results hiking trail, diet, age, weight, elevation, height.
