Is it better to walk 3 miles or run 2 miles?
Basically, running burns more calories than walking if you're doing them for the same amount of time, but increasing your speed, distance, or incline while doing either of those activities will boost your calorie burn.
It's the perfect amount of running to keep you going every day without getting burned out. That's why so many people swear by running 2 miles a day. It's an achievable distance that can be part of a sustainable daily running habit, which can lead to numerous health and mindset benefits!
Running burns more calories per minute than walking, but it's harder to keep the high-intensity for a long time. There is a 〜30% difference in calorie burn between a slow walk and a moderate run for the same distance. Further increases in running speed won't cause a dramatic increase in calories burned.
Step count aside, most health and fitness experts would agree that walking 2 miles a day is enough for overall health and to reduce the risk of lifestyle diseases such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and certain cancers.
Walking can provide a lot of the same benefits of running. But running burns nearly double the number of calories as walking. For example, for someone who's 160 pounds, running at 5 miles per hour (mph) burns 606 calories. Walking briskly for the same amount of time at 3.5 mph burns just 314 calories.
Generally, older adults in good physical shape walk somewhere between 2,000 and 9,000 steps daily. This translates into walking distances of 1 and 4-1/2 miles respectively. Increasing the walking distance by roughly a mile will produce health benefits.
Running 2 miles a day can help you tone your body, but it's not going to happen overnight. Running will help to build lean muscle, and as you lose weight, you'll start to see more definition in your muscles. But don't expect to running to give you abs after a few weeks of running 2 miles a day!
Walking is a form of low impact, moderate intensity exercise that has a range of health benefits and few risks. As a result, the CDC recommend that most adults aim for 10,000 steps per day . For most people, this is the equivalent of about 8 kilometers, or 5 miles.
Running for weight loss
Calories burned running 2 miles a day count toward your weight loss goals. Together with the right food choices, good sleep, and effective stress management, running daily can help you shed 2 or more pounds a month.
As you can see, running a mile burns roughly 26 percent more calories than walking a mile. Running a minute (or 30 minutes, or an hour, etc.) burns roughly 2.3 times more calories than the same total time spent walking.
Is it better to walk far or run short?
If you're trying to lose weight, moderately paced running can burn calories twice as fast as walking. If you're just trying to promote a base level of health and fitness, then walking will do the job just as well. Running delivers more health benefits more efficiently than walking.
Q: Can you burn the same amount of calories walking vs. running the same distance? A: The short answer is no, there is usually around a 30% differential.

The study found that walking led to weight loss for nearly everyone in the study. However, running was more effective at dropping pounds for men overall, and for women starting out with the most pounds.
For example, regular brisk walking can help you: Maintain a healthy weight and lose body fat. Prevent or manage various conditions, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer and type 2 diabetes. Improve cardiovascular fitness.
On average, it takes around 40 minutes to walk 2 miles. This is if you walk at a pace of 3 MPH through out your walk.
Which is better for burning calories? Walking and running provide similar health benefits, but running has a calorie-burning edge over walking. According to the American Council on Exercise, a person who is 160 pounds burns approximately 15.1 calories per minute while running.
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Average running speed per mile in a 5K.
Age | Men (minutes per mile) | Women (minutes per mile) |
---|---|---|
16–19 | 9:34 | 12:09 |
20–24 | 9:30 | 11:44 |
25–29 | 10:03 | 11:42 |
30–34 | 10:09 | 12:29 |
If you're interested in losing weight, running 3 miles a day could help with this goal. In order to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. Calculating your burn rate and knowing how many calories you're burning from running is a good start.
Who is Defined as Elderly? Typically, the elderly has been defined as the chronological age of 65 or older. People from 65 to 74 years old are usually considered early elderly, while those over 75 years old are referred to as late elderly.
Ageing, an inevitable process, is commonly measured by chronological age and, as a convention, a person aged 65 years or more is often referred to as 'elderly'.
Can you build muscle at 70 years old?
Seniors Can Still Bulk Up On Muscle By Pressing Iron Our muscle mass decreases at surprising rates as we get older. But researchers found that people older than 50 can not only maintain but actually increase their muscle mass by lifting weights.
Two Mile Goal/Pace | First 100M | Last 7 400s |
---|---|---|
20:00 (10/mile) | 40-41 | 2:28-2:30 |
19:30 (9:45/mile) | 39-40 | 2:24-2:26 |
19:00 (9:30/mile) | 37-39 | 2:19-2:22 |
18:30 (9:15/mile) | 36-37 | 2:16-2:19 |
If you're a new runner take it slow and easy. Instead of aiming to run 2 miles every day, consider running 2 miles every other day. This can help you have days of recovery in between days of running helping your body to repair muscle and ensure you don't burn out on your new routine.
Beginner runners should aim to run 2 – 3 miles (3.2 – 4.8 kilometres) in 30 minutes. Even if you're taking regular walking breaks, you should be able to run this distance in half an hour.
In a new study, which looks at activity tracker data from 78,500 people, walking at a brisk pace for about 30 minutes a day led to a reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and death, compared with walking a similar number of steps but at a slower pace.
Sometimes overlooked as a form of exercise, walking briskly can help you build stamina, burn excess calories and make your heart healthier. You do not have to walk for hours. A brisk 10-minute daily walk has lots of health benefits and counts towards your recommended 150 minutes of weekly exercise.
Most people can expect to walk a mile in 15 to 22 minutes, according to data gathered in a 2019 study spanning five decades. The average walking pace is 2.5 to 4 mph, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles.
5,000 steps make about 2 miles.
The exact number depends on the individual's height and stride length. For a woman with an average stride length (2.2 ft), 5,000 steps are 2.0816 mi, and for a man with an average step (2.5 ft), it's 2.3674 mi.
Running 2 miles a day will definitely tone your body. For best results combine running with healthy eating. If you're a beginner runner don't jump right into running every day. You need rest days for your body to recover and to reduce the risk of injury.
Why is walking better than running?
Scientists who looked at information from 33,060 runners and 15,945 walkers found that walking can lower your risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure as much as running. They measured exercise by time, not distance.
However, the good news is that running is one of the best forms of exercise to lose belly fat, and there are even a few small tweaks you can make to your regular running schedule to deliver a sustained fat burning boost.
But is a brisk walk really as good an exercise as a sweaty, heart-pounding run? Research reported by the American Heart Association finds that walking is just as good as running when it comes to lowering your risk for heart disease.
Running generally burns about twice as many calories as walking depending on the walking and running speeds being compared. So if you go for a 20-minute jog and you want to burn the same amount of calories walking the next day, you need to walk at least 40 minutes.
"The most favorable [regimen] is two to three running days per week, at a slow or average pace," Schnohr advised. "Running every day, at a fast speed, more than 4 hours per week is not as favorable." And for those who don't like running, he noted, "Fast walking, not slow, also prolongs life.
Is it safe to run every day? Running every day may increase your risk for an overuse injury. Overuse injuries result from taking on too much physical activity, too fast, and not allowing the body to adjust. Or they can result from technique errors, such as running with poor form and overloading certain muscles.
Swimming. Swimming is the perfect physical activity for people of all ages and fitness levels. It's an excellent way to improve your cardiovascular health and has a low impact on the joints.
If You Want to Maximize Calorie Burning
For a 160-pound person, walking at a brisk, 3.5-mph pace for 30 minutes will burn about 156 calories. But running at a 6-mph pace for that same 30 minutes will burn more than double the calories (about 356).
7 Things That Happened When I Made Myself Go For A Walk Every Single Day For A Month. For a such simple, approachable activity, walking certainly does deliver some remarkable health benefits. Studies show that a daily brisk walk can help lower blood pressure, reduce belly fat, increase energy levels, and improve mood.
After 3-4 days of walking: you will notice the “better fit” or more room in your clothes! After 7 days of walking: real changes are happening! You have used body fat as energy (fat burning!) Muscles feel more toned!
Will walking 2 miles a day lower blood pressure?
Ten minutes of brisk or moderate walking three times a day
Exercise lowers blood pressure by reducing blood vessel stiffness so blood can flow more easily. The effects of exercise are most noticeable during and immediately after a workout. Lowered blood pressure can be most significant right after you work out.
Age | Meters/second | Miles/hour |
---|---|---|
50 to 59 | 1.31 to 1.43 | 2.93 to 3.2 |
60 to 69 | 1.24 to 1.34 | 2.77 to 3.0 |
70 to 79 | 1.13 to 1.26 | 2.53 to 2.82 |
80 to 89 | .94 to .97 | 2.10 to 2.17 |
Many experts agree that the recommended steps per day for seniors is 7,000-10,000. People who live with a disability or chronic illness can still benefit from an active lifestyle, and depending on individual abilities may strive for 5,500 steps per day.
Walking 3 miles a day is a great way to improve various markers of health such as your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar regulation.
“A person would need to walk 4.3 miles at a brisk pace to expend the same amount of exercise as running 3 miles, and it would take about twice as long (an hour and 15 minutes by walking instead of 38 minutes by running),” Williams says. In general, the runners were younger and fitter than the walkers were.
Both Running and Walking Are Great Forms of Exercise
Since walking is less vigorous than running, you'll have to walk longer or more often to get the same benefits. Running is more efficient, but has a higher risk of injuries, and you'll need more time to heal if you get injured.
Walking can be as effective as running
Walking about 20 to 30 minutes every day helps you burn some calories. For the elderly, who suffer from joint problems, walking is the best low-intensity workout for them.
Other benefits of walking 2 miles a day include improved fitness and stamina, lowering bad cholesterol while improving good cholesterol levels, improving your cardiovascular fitness and heart health, reducing your risk of diabetes (16), improving blood and oxygen circulation, and even reducing your risk of breast and ...
We touched on this already, but slow jogging burns more calories than walking at an identical pace, and thus, it is a more effective way to lose weight, if that's your goal.
Walking is a form of low impact, moderate intensity exercise that has a range of health benefits and few risks. As a result, the CDC recommend that most adults aim for 10,000 steps per day . For most people, this is the equivalent of about 8 kilometers, or 5 miles.
How many miles should you walk or run a day?
For Beginners. Beginners are often advised to focus more on minutes than miles when getting started, especially as they work up to running continuously by reducing the frequency and duration of walk breaks. Run/walks should be kept to 20-30 minutes or 2-3 miles of combined running and walking as you gain fitness.
Studies show that running just 5 to 10 minutes each day at a moderate pace may help reduce your risk of death from heart attacks, strokes, and other common diseases. But the same research also shows that these benefits top off at 4.5 hours a week, meaning there's no need to run for hours each day.
But is it OK to run every day? The simple answer is: No, you need at least one rest day a week to allow your muscles to recover. Plus, overtraining can lead to overuse injuries, stress and prolonged fatigue.
“In fact, walking is the suggested workout over running for many people. For example, those with knee, ankle and back problems and also for people who are overweight to obese. Walking is a lower impact exercise and can be done for longer periods of time.”