Calories Burned Calculator

The energy cost of any activity is expressed in METs (Metabolic Equivalents of Task). One MET is your approximate resting metabolic rate, defined as 3.5 millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. An activity rated at 5 MET therefore demands about five times the oxygen — and energy — of sitting still.

Because burning one litre of oxygen releases roughly 5 kcal, the MET value, your weight, and the duration are enough to estimate energy expenditure. Collapsing the constants gives the standard formula this calculator uses:

kcal per minute = (MET × 3.5 × weight in kg) ÷ 200

The derivation: oxygen used per minute (litres) = MET × 3.5 × weight ÷ 1000; multiply by 5 kcal per litre to get kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × weight × 5 ÷ 1000 = MET × 3.5 × weight ÷ 200. Total calories are then simply kcal/min × the number of minutes. The calculator confirms every result a second way — walking the oxygen-uptake path step by step — and shows that cross-check beneath the numbers, the same way a good tax tool reconciles two official methods.

Every MET value comes verbatim from the peer-reviewed 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al.), the reference physical-activity researchers use worldwide. For example: walking at a slow 3.2 km/h is 2.8 MET, brisk 6.4 km/h is 5.0 MET, running 9.7 km/h is 9.8 MET, leisure cycling under 16 km/h is 4.0 MET, vigorous lap swimming is 9.8 MET, cricket is 5.0 MET, and general house cleaning is 3.3 MET.

The steps mode converts a step count into walking minutes using your chosen cadence (steps ÷ steps-per-minute) and applies the matching brisk-walk MET — 3.5 for a casual 80 spm, 4.3 for an average 100 spm, or 5.0 for a brisk 120 spm. The cadence assumption is always shown, so the estimate is transparent rather than a black box.

One caveat worth repeating: the headline figure is grossexpenditure, which includes the resting calories your body would have spent anyway. The “Net active” tile subtracts one resting MET to isolate the extra cost of moving. MET values are population averages, so treat the output as a good estimate, not a personalised lab measurement.

• Ainsworth BE, et al. (2011) — 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities, Med Sci Sports Exerc 43(8):1575–1581
• Compendium of Physical Activities — public MET tables (Arizona State University)
• World Health Organization — Physical Activity fact sheet (150 min/week guideline)

MET values and the kcal-from-MET formula on this page were last cross-checked against the 2011 Compendium and ACSM's oxygen energy-equivalent definition on 2026-06-09. Results are estimates based on population averages, not medical or individually precise figures.