Whenever someone asks how many calories they will lose by doing a certain exercise they assume they will get a standard answer. However, because there are so many different variables and factors that will determine how fast your body burns calories during an exercise, there is a wide range of answers. There are several ways that you can get your answer for yourself, however. You can use a heart rate monitor which will give you all of the information that you need including total time/distance of your walk, speed, heart rate and of course, calories burned. There are a number of smart phone and online apps that will give you a rough estimate of how many calories you are burning during exercise.

The more that you weigh, the more calories that you will burn during exercise. Increasing your speed, the distance that you cover and adding inclines to your walk will also increase the rate of calorie burn. Your age may also play a role in the rate of calorie burn as well. As you get older, your metabolism slows down. Your body will not burn as many calories as it should. That is why two people who are doing the same exercise might burn a completely different number of calories per session.

In addition to using the apps or monitors, you can use a formula to determine who many calories that you are burning. Those formulas are pretty complex and require you to do several steps to get your answer. First, you determine your basal metabolic rate which is the number of calories that you burn while at rest. Remember, your body burns calories all day and night long to maintain functions like heart rate, breathing and even thinking. After you get your BMR, you plug in the amount of exercise in minutes and other information to the formula and get an estimate of how many calories that you are burning.

Walking for thirty minutes is a great way to lose or to maintain weight because it is lower impact and safer for most exercisers. You don't have to go all out in the gym to get the benefits of exercise. Keep in mind that the same thirty minutes of walking can burn calories at a different rate depending on where you are walking, the road conditions and the temperature. Your body burns more calories during cold weather in an effort to keep you warm.