Calorie Burn Calculator
Select an activity, enter your weight and how long you exercised, and get an estimate of the calories you burned. Covers 40+ activities across running, cycling, swimming, sports, gym, and everyday movement.
Select an activity and duration to see calories burned.
- Enter your body weight. In kilograms or pounds — calorie burn scales directly with body weight.
- Choose an activity category. Pick from running, cycling, swimming, sports, gym, or everyday activities.
- Select the specific activity. Each activity has a MET value from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities.
- Enter the duration. How many minutes you performed the activity.
- Read your calorie burn. You get the total calories burned, plus estimates at other common durations for comparison.
MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent of Task. A MET of 1 represents the energy cost of sitting at rest — approximately 1 kcal per kilogram of body weight per hour. Every other activity has a MET value that is a multiple of that baseline: walking briskly is about 4 METs (four times the cost of rest), running at 10 km/h is about 10 METs, and so on.
The values used here come from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities, published by Ainsworth et al. in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. It is the standard reference used by researchers, fitness trackers, and clinical exercise testing worldwide, covering hundreds of activities with MET values derived from laboratory measurements.
The most common use is understanding how exercise affects your energy balance. If your maintenance calories (TDEE) are 2,200 kcal and a 40-minute run burns 480 kcal, that run creates nearly a quarter of a reasonable daily deficit on its own — or it means you can eat slightly more that day without affecting your overall balance.
A common mistake is double-counting. If you selected a high activity level in your TDEE calculator, those workouts are already included in your maintenance figure. Only add exercise calories on top of TDEE if the activity is extra — beyond your normal routine. The TDEE calculator and calorie deficit calculator handle the baseline; use this calculator for ad-hoc sessions.
After a hard session, many people expect the scale to drop and are disappointed when it does not — or when it goes up. Two things explain this. First, intense exercise causes temporary water retention as muscles repair micro-tears and replenish glycogen. This is normal and reverses within a day or two. Second, a single workout rarely burns enough calories to move fat stores by a measurable amount: losing 100 grams of fat requires a deficit of roughly 770 kcal, more than most single sessions.
The right frame is weekly energy balance, not daily. Consistent exercise across a week — combined with a moderate calorie deficit — produces the deficit needed for meaningful fat loss. The body weight planner models this timeline.
MET-based calorie burn
calories = MET x weight(kg) x duration(hours)- MET
- = Metabolic Equivalent of Task — energy cost relative to rest (1 MET = sitting still)
- weight
- = body weight in kilograms
- duration
- = time spent on the activity, in hours
MET values are from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al.). This formula gives gross calorie burn — the total including resting metabolism during the activity.
How does this calculator work?
It uses MET values — Metabolic Equivalents of Task — from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities, the standard reference for exercise energy expenditure. The formula is: calories burned = MET × body weight (kg) × duration (hours). A MET of 1 equals sitting at rest; running at 10 km/h has a MET of 10, meaning it burns 10 times as many calories per kilogram per hour as sitting still.
Why does body weight affect calories burned?
Moving a heavier body requires more energy. The MET formula scales linearly with body weight — a 90 kg person burns 50% more calories doing the same activity for the same time as a 60 kg person. This is why weight-normalized estimates are more useful than generic per-activity tables.
How accurate is the MET method?
MET-based estimates are reasonably accurate for moderate aerobic exercise and population-level research, but individual results vary by fitness level, exercise intensity, and technique. A trained runner is more efficient than a beginner at the same speed, so burns slightly fewer calories. The calculator gives a useful estimate, not a laboratory measurement. Wearable devices use similar (or the same) MET tables, so their estimates carry the same margin of error.
What is the difference between net and gross calorie burn?
Gross calorie burn includes the calories your body would have burned anyway just being alive (your resting metabolic rate) during that time. Net calorie burn is only the extra calories above rest — the exercise contribution alone. The MET formula gives gross calories. For most practical purposes (logging a workout, estimating a deficit) gross is the right number to use, since that is what fitness trackers and food logging apps report.
Why does running burn more calories than cycling at the same speed?
Running requires you to repeatedly lift your full body weight off the ground and absorb the impact of landing — a fundamentally more energy-intensive movement than the seated, supported motion of cycling. At similar intensities (heart rate, perceived effort) the calorie burn per minute is actually similar, but a given speed on foot corresponds to a much higher effort than the same speed on a bike.
Can I use this to estimate my calorie deficit?
Yes, with one caveat. Most people already account for their regular exercise in their TDEE activity level. If you chose 'moderately active' in the TDEE calculator because you run three times a week, those runs are already baked into your maintenance calories — counting them again would double-count the burn. Use this calculator to estimate the extra burn from additional or occasional exercise that is not captured in your baseline activity level.
Why does weight training show a lower MET than cardio?
The MET value for weight training reflects only the active portion of a typical session — the time under tension — averaged with rest periods. The actual metabolic cost of a strength session is often underestimated by MET because it does not capture the elevated post-exercise calorie burn (EPOC) that resistance training produces for hours afterward. So while weight training scores lower per minute during the session, its total effect on daily energy expenditure is larger than the MET calculation suggests.
Does fitness level affect how many calories I burn?
Yes. As you get fitter, your body becomes more efficient at a given activity — it burns slightly fewer calories doing the same work. This is an adaptation, not a problem. A fitter person can sustain a higher absolute workload for the same effort, so the total calorie burn over a session is often similar or higher even as efficiency improves. The MET values used here represent averages across fitness levels.
References
FitCalcs calculators provide general estimates for healthy adults and are not medical advice.
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