The Calories Burned Calculator estimates the number of calories you burn during more than 100 activities, based on your body weight and how long you do the activity. Choose an activity, enter your weight and the duration, and click Calculate.
The calories burned calculator estimates how many calories you expend during physical activity. It covers more than a hundred activities — from walking, running, and cycling to weightlifting, sports, yard work, and even sleeping — and tailors the estimate to your body weight and how long you were active. Whether you are tracking a workout, planning a weight-loss deficit, or simply curious how much a hike really costs in energy terms, this tool turns an activity and a duration into a calorie figure.
Understanding calories burned is one half of the energy-balance equation that governs body weight. You take calories in through food and drink, and you expend them through your resting metabolism and physical activity. Knowing roughly how much a given activity burns helps you make informed decisions about exercise and eating, and it is far more accurate than the wild guesses most people make about how much a workout "earned" them.
The calculator is built on MET values — Metabolic Equivalent of Task. One MET is the rate of energy you expend sitting quietly at rest, defined as roughly one calorie per kilogram of body weight per hour. Every activity is assigned a MET value that expresses how many times more energy it demands than resting. Walking slowly is about 2 METs; running is around 10; sitting and watching television is about 1.
The core estimate follows directly from that definition:
Calories burned = MET × body weight (kg) × time (hours)
So a 70 kg person running at a moderate pace (about 10 METs) for one hour burns roughly 10 × 70 × 1 = 700 calories. Heavier people burn more for the same activity because it takes more energy to move a larger body, and longer durations burn proportionally more. This is why the calculator asks for both your weight and the length of the activity.
The Metabolic Equivalent of Task is a standardized way to describe the intensity of physical activities. It comes from the Compendium of Physical Activities, a reference compiled by exercise scientists that assigns a MET value to hundreds of activities based on measured oxygen consumption. Because METs are normalized to body weight, they let a single number describe an activity's intensity for people of any size.
A rough scale helps interpret the numbers: activities under 3 METs are considered light (slow walking, cooking, desk work); 3 to 6 METs are moderate (brisk walking, light cycling, general gardening); and above 6 METs are vigorous (running, fast cycling, competitive sports). Public health guidelines are often written in these terms — for example, aiming for 150 minutes of moderate activity per week.
This calculator includes over a hundred activities organized into groups:
Because intensity varies so much within a category — slow versus very fast cycling can more than double the calorie burn — the activities are broken out by pace and effort level wherever it matters.
Two people doing the exact same activity for the same time will burn different amounts if they weigh different amounts. Moving, supporting, and fueling a heavier body requires more energy, so a 90 kg person burns noticeably more than a 60 kg person on the same run. This is built directly into the MET formula, where calories scale with body weight. It is also why generic "this exercise burns X calories" claims are misleading — without a weight, the number is meaningless.
As you lose weight, the calories you burn for a given activity gradually decrease, which is one reason weight loss tends to slow over time. Recalculating with your current weight keeps your estimates realistic.
Body weight is governed by energy balance. To lose weight you need a calorie deficit — burning more than you consume; to gain, a surplus. A commonly cited rule of thumb is that roughly 3,500 calories equal about one pound of body fat, so a daily deficit of 500 calories corresponds to losing about a pound a week. Physical activity is one lever for creating that deficit, alongside diet.
That said, exercise is usually a smaller part of the equation than people expect. It is easy to eat back the calories burned in a workout in just a few minutes, so activity works best combined with mindful eating rather than as a license to overeat. Use the calculator to set realistic expectations: a 45-minute walk burns far fewer calories than a single slice of cake contains, which is a useful reality check.
Calories burned is a useful number, but it is not the only reason to be active. Regular physical activity improves cardiovascular health, strengthens muscles and bones, improves mood and sleep, reduces the risk of many chronic diseases, and supports long-term metabolic health — benefits that have nothing to do with the calorie count. Even activities that burn relatively few calories, like stretching or a gentle walk, contribute meaningfully to health. Treat the calorie figure as one helpful data point, not the whole story of why movement matters.
MET-based estimates are a solid, science-based approximation, but they are averages. Actual calorie expenditure varies from person to person based on fitness level, age, sex, body composition, metabolism, technique, and how hard you actually work within an activity. Two people of the same weight running "moderately" may burn different amounts if one is fitter or pushing harder. Environmental factors like heat, cold, wind, and terrain also change the real number.
For these reasons, treat the result as a reasonable estimate rather than a precise measurement. It is excellent for comparing activities, tracking trends over time, and planning, but if you need exact figures, a heart-rate monitor or laboratory testing will be more individualized — though even those have their own margins of error.
The single biggest driver of calorie burn, after body weight and time, is intensity — and the differences are larger than most people assume. Walking slowly sits at around 2 METs, a brisk walk at roughly 4, and a run at 10 or more. That means running does not burn a little more than walking; for the same duration it can burn four or five times as much. The same pattern holds within every category: slow cycling versus fast cycling, gentle swimming versus vigorous laps, a casual game versus a competitive one. When your goal is to maximize calories in limited time, raising intensity is far more effective than simply spending longer at a low effort.
This is also why the calculator breaks activities out by pace and effort rather than lumping them together. "Cycling" alone is nearly meaningless as a calorie figure, because the range from a leisurely ride to an all-out effort spans a factor of two or more. Picking the option that honestly reflects how hard you worked is the key to a realistic estimate. If you are unsure, err toward the lower-intensity choice; people tend to overestimate how hard they exercised.
It is easy to focus only on formal workouts, but the calculator deliberately includes household and daily-life activities — cleaning, cooking, shopping, moving furniture, playing with children — because this so-called non-exercise activity is a meaningful part of total daily energy expenditure. For many people, the calories burned through ordinary daily movement over a whole day rival or exceed those from a single workout. This is the concept fitness researchers call NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), and it is one reason two people with identical exercise routines can have very different energy needs: the one who fidgets, takes the stairs, walks while on the phone, and stays generally active burns considerably more.
The practical takeaway is that building more movement into your ordinary day — standing, walking, doing chores actively — can contribute as much to your energy balance as a dedicated gym session, and it is far easier to sustain. Use the home and daily-life activities in this calculator to see just how much those hours are worth.
Seeing the calorie cost of activities alongside the calorie content of food is a powerful reality check. A vigorous 30-minute run might burn 300–400 calories for an average adult, roughly the amount in a large muffin or a couple of sugary drinks. This is not a reason to skip exercise — the health benefits of activity extend far beyond calories — but it does explain why exercise alone rarely produces dramatic weight loss without attention to diet. The most effective approach almost always combines moving more with eating mindfully, using the calorie figures here to inform both sides of the equation rather than treating a workout as permission to indulge.
Using MET values: calories = MET × body weight in kilograms × time in hours. Each activity has a MET value representing its intensity relative to rest, so heavier people and longer durations produce higher calorie estimates.
A MET, or Metabolic Equivalent of Task, is a unit of exercise intensity. One MET is your energy use at rest — about one calorie per kilogram of body weight per hour. An activity of 5 METs burns about five times as much energy as sitting still.
Yes, significantly. Because it takes more energy to move a heavier body, a heavier person burns more calories doing the same activity for the same time. The calculator accounts for this by scaling the result with your body weight.
Weight loss depends on total energy balance, not exercise alone. A deficit of about 3,500 calories corresponds to roughly one pound of fat, so a 500-calorie daily deficit — from diet, activity, or both — leads to about a pound of loss per week. Combine activity with mindful eating for best results.
Different tools use different MET values, rounding, and adjustments for factors like resting metabolism, age, or body composition. MET-based estimates are approximations, so small differences between calculators are normal. Use one consistently to track trends.
The MET formula gives gross calories — the total energy used during the activity, including what you would have burned at rest. The "extra" calories attributable to the activity itself are somewhat lower, roughly the gross figure minus your resting expenditure for that time.
This Calories Burned Calculator is provided for educational and general informational purposes. It produces estimates based on standard MET values and your inputs; actual energy expenditure varies with individual fitness, age, sex, body composition, effort, and conditions. It is not medical or dietary advice. Consult a healthcare or fitness professional before starting a new exercise or weight-management program.