Calories Burned Calculator
Estimate the energy cost of 40+ activities using published MET values — the same method the research literature uses.
By Lisa Nguyen, RDN, CSSD · Last updated: September 2026
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Your Estimate
The net figure is the one that belongs in a calorie deficit calculation. Gross includes the energy you would have burned anyway sitting still during that time, and counting it twice is the most common reason an exercise-based deficit fails to show up on the scale.
How this calculator works
It uses MET values — metabolic equivalents — from the Compendium of Physical Activities, which is the reference list the research literature uses for exactly this purpose.
One MET is your energy cost at rest. An activity rated at 8 METs therefore costs roughly eight times resting energy, and the conversion is:
calories = MET × 3.5 × weight (kg) ÷ 200 × minutes
Worked example: running at 6 mph is 9.8 METs. For a 70 kg runner that is 9.8 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200 = 12 calories a minute, so 30 minutes costs about 360 gross calories — and about 325 net, once you subtract the 35 calories those 30 minutes would have cost at rest.
Why this is a range and not a number
MET values are population averages measured in a laboratory. Your energy cost for the same activity depends on things the formula cannot see:
- Movement efficiency. A trained runner covers a mile for measurably less energy than an untrained one at the same pace. Efficiency reduces the burn — which is a good thing for performance and an inconvenient one for arithmetic.
- Body composition. Two people at 70 kg with different lean mass do not cost the same to move.
- Terrain, temperature and altitude. Wind, hills, heat and thin air all raise the real cost above the laboratory figure.
- Intensity within the label. "Weight training, vigorous" spans an enormous range of actual work depending on how long you rest.
Differences of 20 to 30% between two people of identical weight doing the same activity are ordinary. That is why the calculator shows a band. Use the point estimate for comparing activities to each other and for sizing a weekly total; do not treat it as a measurement of what your body did.
Gross versus net, and why it matters more than it sounds
Most calculators, and most fitness watches, report gross energy cost: the total for the activity.
Net subtracts what you would have burned anyway. At rest a 70 kg person costs roughly 1.2 calories a minute, so an hour of exercise already contains about 70 calories that were never additional.
| 30 min | 60 min | 90 min | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Already spent at rest (70 kg) | ~35 cal | ~70 cal | ~105 cal |
Across a year of daily hour-long sessions that is roughly 25,000 calories of double counting. It is the single largest systematic error in exercise-based calorie accounting.
Should you eat back what you burned?
Partially at most. Three errors stack in the same direction:
- The burn estimate is usually generous.
- Food intake is usually under-recorded — cooking oil, sauces, drinks, bites.
- The burn is usually reported gross, double-counting resting energy.
Eat back a full estimated burn and you frequently erase the entire deficit. A workable compromise is to eat back about half, and then judge results from a three-week weight trend rather than from the daily arithmetic. The trend is data; the daily arithmetic is an estimate stacked on an estimate.
For the intake half of that equation, see the calorie calculator and the deficit calculator.
Weight training rates low, and is still often the right choice
Resistance training typically lands at 3.5 to 6 METs because of the rest between sets, against 8 to 12 for running. Per session, cardio burns more.
What resistance training does that cardio does not is protect lean mass during a deficit — which changes the composition of the weight you lose rather than the amount. For most people the best structure is resistance training for body composition and walking for volume of expenditure, because walking is the activity people sustain for years.
Why your watch disagrees
A watch estimates from heart rate, movement and your profile. Heart rate is an imperfect proxy for energy cost: it rises with heat, caffeine, stress, illness and dehydration without any additional work being performed.
A MET calculator estimates from activity type and body weight, and ignores how hard it felt.
Neither is authoritative. A 20% disagreement between them is the honest uncertainty of the category, not a malfunction in one of them.
The number nobody calculates
Non-exercise activity — walking, standing, fidgeting, taking stairs — varies between individuals by several hundred calories a day, and for most people it dwarfs their workout.
It also falls when you start training hard, which is one reason a new exercise programme produces less weight change than the arithmetic predicts. If you want the single highest-leverage change to your daily expenditure, it is usually more walking rather than harder sessions.
Related calculators
- Calorie Calculator — your daily target
- TDEE Calculator — total daily energy expenditure
- Maintenance Calorie Calculator
- Calorie Deficit Calculator
- Macro Calculator
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is this calculator?
Accurate enough to compare activities and size a weekly total; not accurate enough to justify eating back an exact figure. MET values are laboratory population averages, and individual variation of 20 to 30% for the same activity at the same body weight is normal.
Does this include the afterburn effect?
No. Post-exercise oxygen consumption is real and small — typically a few percent of the session's cost for most recreational training, rather than the several hundred calories sometimes claimed. It is inside the noise of the estimate above.
Can I use this while pregnant, or with a medical condition?
The formula assumes a healthy adult and is not adjusted for pregnancy, thyroid conditions, cardiac conditions, or medication affecting metabolism or heart rate. In those situations the number here is not a basis for a decision — ask your clinician.