Since my minor foot injury, I have been really trying to take it easy as far as the jarring of of my ankles are concerned and this means that I am mostly just walking or doing short jogs to keep my heart rate up in between. I have started to find that I actually quite enjoy this, much more so than going for a run for 30 minutes straight, and if my Garmin can be trusted, it is actually burning more calories so we'll see where this gets me in about a month where I feel as though I can be more hardcore with my fitness again.
I am not trying to impress anyone with my pace. That is me mostly walking but if the song that came up inspired me as such I would increase my pace to something reasonable like 7 mins per km. Then once my heart rate would get to 160 or so I would step it back. If the pavement wasn't flat, I would only walk. My ankle is still quite tender and I don't want to run the risk of hurting it again.
You can tell by the chart there that I had a bit of a system going as far as the ups and downs of my heart rate went for the first hour or so but then it tapered off to near resting for the 2nd hour or so. This is because I ran into my friend who is trying really hard to lose weight after his surgery and I was really impressed that he was out there on his own without being asked by any of our crew to do so. This is so much more meaningful to me than for him to accompany me. This is fantastic for his mental state. He is going to do it without us as well as with us.
So burning nearly 900 calories is kind of a big deal for me because if I ran at a steady pace for a half an hour or so and really pushed myself I would probably be looking at burning about half that much, maybe a bit more. This exercise wasn't even really difficult, I dare say I enjoyed it, and it burned more.
Of course this all kind of hinges on whether or not you have time to spend 2 hours walking but I do, thankfully, and this may actually become my norm.
I think that I probably burn more than most people when I do cardio because I am kind of big from years of my primary focus being weight-training, I also developed rather large calves and thighs when I was in my 20's from playing football and American football competitively and I guess that sticks with you for life.
Unless I seriously developed some sort of David Goggins approach to fitness, I am very likely to have large legs for my entire life. I'm not really worried about that because I like my muscular thighs!
That's a strange flex, I know.
So here is just more proof, if you need it, that you don't have to work your ass off to burn a crap ton of calories. If you are injured, or are - let's face it - a fatty, then I think this combined with some weight training is likely the best thing you could do for yourself.
You gotta not hate the exercise that you are doing, if you do hate it, you will need a sort of mentality like David Goggins in order to get out there and do it. While I appreciate his take on things, I don't really think it is healthy to HATE the exercise that you are doing. I don't hate going for walks and that is why I do them. Once I am out there I feel compelled to step it up a notch as well.
Try it!
Just a guy that lost over 50lbs by making gradual and lasting changes to his life! I don't know it all but I do know a lot and most of this came from doing things WRONG. Maybe if you listen to me you can skip the wrong stuff and get straight to the correct