Walking It is the calorie burning and not walking pace that is linked to heart disease; this according to Harvard researchers attending the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine on June 1. In fact, women who burned more than 600 calories per week through walking or other excercises, are 50% as likely as women who burned less than 200 calories to have heart disease. They said that even sedentary women can reduce the risk of heart ailment by beginning to walk. The researchers advice is: Start walking, no matter how fast, just walk. What really counts is the amount of time you spend on walking and not the speed.