The form is (hopefully) self-explanatory. By providing input for your weight, age and gender, the result will be quite accurate, although beginners in many sports (such as skiing, swimming and ice-skating) expend more calories at a given speed, due to inefficient movement.

    The major individual difference is weight. As weight increases, the energy output for locomotive exercise (walking, running, skiing, etc.) rises in almost perfect 1 for 1 proportion; a 200-pound person expends almost exactly twice as much energy as a 100-pound person walking alongside.

    Age and gender are more problematic. The primary difference in energy output, as one grows older, is that one is less able to maintain higher levels of intensity. You just can't walk or run as fast, for as long, and walking at the same speed as a younger person takes more effort. The exercise form takes care of this automatically.

   Gender is even harder to take into account accurately. Statistically, women's metabolisms are slower than men's in a proportion of @ 1.2 to 1.3 (which may partially explain women's statistically longer life expectancy). On the other hand, body shape may mean that a woman burns more calories doing the same exercise as a man. In walking and especially in running, for example, the wider pubic space required to contain the uterus and allow a baby to be born, creates less efficient running mechanics. These differences are insufficiently researched and documented to provide maximum accuracy in determining calorie expenditures for walking/running. For whatever reason, women seem to have more trouble losing body fat by walking than men who walk the same distance and speed. (Of course, individual differences may far outweigh this statistical difference.)

    We have tried to include exercise that will interest our readers. Feel free to contact us if you have an activity you would like to see added -- we will try to find reliable caloric expenditure figures for it.