Calories Burned Calculator
Estimate how many calories you burn walking, running, cycling, lifting, and more, from your weight and how long you exercise.
How many calories does exercise burn?
It depends mostly on two things: how hard the activity is and how much you weigh. A heavier person moves more mass, so burns more doing the same thing. A 70 kg (154 lb) person burns roughly 160 kcal in 30 minutes of brisk walking and about 360 kcal running at 6 mph (10-minute miles) for the same time. This calculator works it out for more than 30 activities.
How it's calculated
Each activity has a MET value (metabolic equivalent of task): how many times more energy it takes than sitting quietly. Sitting is 1 MET, brisk walking about 4.3, and running at 6 mph about 9.8. The values come from the Compendium of Physical Activities, a reference built from hundreds of studies that measured people's energy use. One MET equals 3.5 mL of oxygen per kg of body weight per minute, which gives:
Calories per minute = MET × 3.5 × body weight (kg) ÷ 200
For example, 30 minutes of running at 6 mph for a 70 kg person is 9.8 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200 × 30 ≈ 360 kcal.
How to use this calculator
Pick an activity, choose Metric or US units, enter your weight and how many minutes you exercised (or tap a preset), and press Calculate calories. You'll see the calories burned, the rate per hour, and how a few other common activities compare over the same time.
Exercise and weight loss
Exercise burns fewer calories than most people expect: a 30-minute run is roughly a large muffin. That's why weight loss depends mostly on what you eat, while exercise helps you keep muscle, stay fit, and keep the weight off later. Don't add every workout's calories back to your diet — your TDEE & Maintenance Calorie Calculator result already counts your usual exercise through its activity level. To plan a goal date, use the Weight Loss Timeline Calculator.
Lifting weights burns less per minute than running, but it's the best way to keep muscle while you lose fat, so more of the weight you lose is fat. The 3D workout guides show the main lifts.
Limitations
MET values are averages for a typical adult doing the activity at a typical effort, so your real burn can differ quite a bit depending on your fitness, technique, terrain, and how hard you actually work. The results include the calories you'd have burned at rest during that time. Fitness watches estimate from your heart rate instead, and they can be off too. Use the numbers to compare activities, not as an exact count. See the Disclaimer for details.
Read the science
- Why Weight Loss Slows Down: The 3,500-Calorie Rule and Your Metabolism →
Where the 3,500-calorie rule came from and why it overpromises, how metabolism adapts as you lose weight, whether fast or slow loss is better, and what helps people keep weight off.
References
The formulas and figures on this page come from these sources. Our Editorial Policy explains how they're chosen and checked.
- MET values for each activity: Ainsworth, B. E., Haskell, W. L., Herrmann, S. D., Meckes, N., Bassett, D. R., Jr., Tudor-Locke, C., Greer, J. L., Vezina, J., Whitt-Glover, M. C., & Leon, A. S. (2011). 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities: A second update of codes and MET values. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 43(8), 1575–1581. doi:10.1249/MSS.0b013e31821ece12
- 1 MET = 3.5 mL of oxygen per kg per minute: Jetté, M., Sidney, K., & Blümchen, G. (1990). Metabolic equivalents (METS) in exercise testing, exercise prescription, and evaluation of functional capacity. Clinical Cardiology, 13(8), 555–565. doi:10.1002/clc.4960130809