How Many Calories are Burned by Hiking?
For backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack, which is a typical intensity activity under the general description of hiking activities, the average calories burned by a person weighing 190 pounds (86 Kg) in 30 minutes is 336 Calories. In one hour backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack will burn 672 Calories.
Summary of Hiking Information and Charts
To help you find the information you need, we first focus on backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack which is the most common hiking activity. This is followed by the activities with the highest burn rate which is hunting, hiking with hunting gear, and the lowest which is hiking or walking at a normal pace through fields and hillsides, giving the average calories burned per minute and per hour, along with food calorie equivalents and our new proprietary calories burned score© and calories burned rank©The calorie score gives an indication of the relative burn rate of the hiking activities measured as a percentage score out of 100 for the different hiking activities, where 100% is the maximum calorie burn which we estimate from running at a pace of 4 minutes per mile which is a world class speed for running for 30 mins.
The calorie rank is the rank of the hiking activity compared with all other 800 activities in our database to give an indication of the percentage of activities which have a higher or lower calorie burn. A rank of 1 means it is the highest ranking activity in terms or calorie burn and a rank of 100 means it is the activity with the lowest carlorie burn compared with all other activities.
Effect of Intensity on the Calorie Calculator
Although the above is a typical example for hiking, the calculator we use to determine the calories burnt depends on the intensity, duration and your body weight. At the bottom of the article we have a variety of different intensities which can be personalized based on your weight and the duration of the activities, using our free calculator.
Calorie Score and Calorie Rank for Hiking
At dietandfitnesstoday we have a new proprietary concept of a Calories Burned Score© and Calories Burned Rank©.
Calories Burned in 30 Minutes for a Typical hiking Activity
As we have previously mentioned Backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack is a moderate and typical level of intensity for hiking and can be used as a general representative approximate measure for calories burnt by hiking. For this activity in 30 minutes an average man weighing 190 pounds (86 kg) burns 336 Calories, while an average woman weighing 163 pounds (74 kg), in 30 minutes burns 288 Calories.
Calories Per Minute
The calories burned per minute for Backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack is 11 Calories per minute, for a typical man and for a typical female is 10 Calories per minute.
Calories Per Hour
The calories lost in one hour is 672 calories for a typical man, and 577 calories in one hour for a typical woman.
How to Burn 100 Calories
To burn 100 calories for a typical male would require 9 minutes of the activity backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack and to burn 100 calories with the same hiking activity for a typical female would take 10 minutes.
Score and Rank
Backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack has a Calorie Burned Score© of 31.80 out of 100 which means it gives a calorie burn of 31.80 % of the highest realistic calorie burn possible. This activity has a Calorie Burned Rank© of 51.00 out of 100 ie it is in the top 51.00 % of activities in terms of calorie burn. There are in fact 149.00 activities that have a higher calorie burn than backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack
Equivalent Activities
The following activities burn the same number of calories as Backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack -
- basketball, wheelchair
- boxing, sparring
- digging, spading, filling garden, composting, vigorous effort
- farming, vigorous effort (e.g., baling hay, cleaning barn)
- general dancing (e.g., disco, folk, Irish step dancing, line dancing, polka, contra, country)
Comparison with Inactivity
30 mins of inactivity for example just sitting and watching television burns 43 calories for a typical man and 37 calories for a typical woman. Which means Backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack burns 8.4 times more calories than the equivalent time of inactivity for an average man and 7.8 times more calories for an average female.
Food Calorie Equivalents
This level of 336 calories burnt by an average man backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack is equivalent to 0.6 Big Macs, 1.2 snickers bar, 2.8 Starbucks Grande Skinny Lattes, 1.1 cheeseburgers, 1.2 slices of pizza or 0.9 large blueberry muffins.
For an average female burning 288 calories is equivalent to 0.5 Big Macs, 1.0 snickers bar, 2.4 Starbucks Grande Skinny Lattes, 1.0 cheeseburgers, 1.0 slices of pizza or 0.7 large blueberry muffins.
Weight Loss from Hiking
To answer the question how many pounds will I lose from the activity hiking? Taking this example of backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack in 30 minutes, the weight loss for a typical man is a minimum of 0.05 pounds, and a typical woman would lose 0.04 pounds.
Based on 4 sessions per week of backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack for a duration of 30 minutes per session, the approximate time taken to lose one pound is 5 weeks for a man and 6 weeks for a woman, assuming no other changes in lifestyle or eating habits.
The same 4 sessions per week of backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack for a duration of 30 minutes per session, would lose 1kg in 2 weeks for a man and 3 weeks for a woman.
Hiking Activity with the Highest Calorie Burn
The highest number of calories burned for an average person is achieved by hunting, hiking with hunting gear. For this activity in 30 minutes an average man burns 409 Calories, while an average woman in 30 minutes burns 351 Calories.
This activity of hunting, hiking with hunting gear has a Calories Burned Score© of 39.40 out of 100 which means it gives a calorie burn of 39.40 % of the maximum realistic calorie burn possible. This activity has a Calories Burned Rank© of 40.00 out of 100 ie it is in the top 40.00 % of activities in terms of calorie burn. There are in fact 80.00 activities that have a higher calorie burn than hunting, hiking with hunting gear
Hiking Activity with the Lowest Calorie Burn
The hiking activity with the lowest calories burnt is hiking or walking at a normal pace through fields and hillsides, which for an average man in 30 minutes burns 228 Calories, and for an average woman burns 196 Calories.
This activity of hiking or walking at a normal pace through fields and hillsides has a Calories Burned Score© of 20.50 out of 100 which means it gives a calorie burn of 20.50 % of the maximum realistic calorie burn possible. This activity has a Calories Burned Rank© of 69.00 out of 100 ie it is in the top 69.00 % of activities in terms of calorie burn. There are in fact 296.00 activities that have a higher calorie burn than hiking or walking at a normal pace through fields and hillsides
Average Calories Burned by Hiking
Based on the the list of 4 hiking activities, shown below, the average calories burned for an average male, weighing 190 pounds (86 kg) is 308 Calories for 30 minutes of hiking. The average burnt for an average female, weighing 163 pounds (74 kg) is 264 Calories for 30 minutes of hiking.
| |
| Calories Burned in 30 minutes of hiking for Average Male (M) and Female (F) (click to personalise). | |
| hunting, hiking with hunting gear - calories Male=409 kcal, Female=351 kcal. | |
| backpacking, hiking or organized walking with a daypack - calories Male=336 kcal, Female=288 kcal. | |
| hiking, cross country (Taylor Code 040) - calories Male=259 kcal, Female=222 kcal. | |
| hiking or walking at a normal pace through fields and hillsides - calories Male=228 kcal, Female=196 kcal. | |
You can browse other common activities from our database, from the links below or visit the compendium at https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home.