Calories Burned Calculator
Estimate the calories burned during 100+ activities — by duration below, or by distance for walking, running, and cycling further down. Both run on your body weight, because moving a heavier body costs more energy. For the calories you should eat each day, see the Calorie Calculator.
Calories burned by duration
Typical range: 80–350 pounds or 35–160 kg.
Calories burned by distance
For walking, running, or cycling over a set distance.
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(Responsive Fluid)
What determines calories burned
No calculator measures you directly — every estimate, including this one, is built from standardized data about an "average" person. Three factors do most of the work: body mass, duration, and intensity, expressed as the activity's MET value.
Body mass and duration
A larger body burns more, at rest and in motion, because more tissue has to be fueled and moved. A 200 lb person running a mile burns far more than a 100 lb person at the same pace. Duration scales almost linearly — but not quite independently of intensity: walking five miles in an hour burns far more than walking one mile in that hour, because the faster version is a different intensity, not just a longer one.
Intensity and MET
Intensity can be tracked by heart rate, but heart rate varies with fitness — a trained athlete's heart beats slower doing the same work — so the more precise measure is oxygen consumption, which rises linearly with intensity and scales closely with body mass. That is what a MET captures: 1 MET is the energy of sitting quietly, conventionally 3.5 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute, a baseline measured on a healthy 40-year-old man of 70 kg. An activity at 2 METs uses twice the resting energy; at 8 METs, eight times. Slow walking is light (about 2 METs), doubles tennis is moderate (about 5), and jumping rope at 100 skips a minute is vigorous (about 11). Intensity also steers fuel choice: the body leans on fat at low intensity and shifts toward carbohydrate as intensity climbs; protein contributes little in normal exercise.
Other factors
Age lowers resting expenditure as lean mass declines. Body composition matters: at the same weight, more muscle burns more. Temperature nudges burn upward in the heat. Fitness improves efficiency, so the fitter body spends less on the same task. Diet and sleep act through metabolism and fatigue — too little sleep both slows expenditure and makes you less likely to train.
How the calculation works
The standard MET equation this calculator's data is built on is:
Calories = Time (min) × MET × 3.5 × Body Weight (kg) / 200
The activity values behind the lists above were compiled from published studies of energy expenditure at reference body weights, and the calculator interpolates between those weights for yours. Two accuracy caveats are worth knowing. First, the 1-MET convention itself: individual resting metabolic rates vary with lean mass, age, and health, and studies find the convention overestimates resting oxygen use by roughly 20–30% on average — so treat every result as an index of effort and an approximate energy cost, not a measurement. Second, MET values assume the activity runs at a constant rate; an hour of "tennis" with breaks between games is not an hour at tennis intensity, and entering the full hour overestimates the burn. A laboratory test of your own oxygen capacity and heart-rate response is the only route to a truly personal number.
FAQ
Why does the distance calculator ask for speed?
Because covering the same distance faster is a harder activity: speed sets the intensity (which of the slow-to-very-fast effort bands you are in) and, with distance, the time you spend in it.
Do these numbers include my BMR?
They are gross figures for the activity period — the activity values are expressed relative to resting expenditure, so the resting burn during those minutes is inside the number rather than added on top.
Which should I use, duration or distance?
Whichever you actually know. Gym work, sports, and chores are naturally timed; walks, runs, and rides are naturally measured in distance.