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Calories
burned calculator
Pick an activity, enter your weight and time. We use published MET values, show the arithmetic, and are honest that the answer is an estimate.
What a MET actually is
A MET is a multiple of resting metabolism. Sitting still is one MET. Brisk walking is about five, meaning you are burning five times your resting rate. Running at eight minutes per mile is close to twelve.
Because the scale is anchored to resting metabolism, and resting metabolism scales with body size, body weight belongs in the equation. A 100 kg person burns meaningfully more than a 60 kg person doing exactly the same thing.
Why the number has a wide error bar
MET values are population averages for an activity performed at a stated intensity. Three things move your real figure away from them.
Efficiency: a trained cyclist covers the same distance for less energy than a novice. Actual intensity: "moderate" covers a wide range and your version may not match the compendium's. And body composition: two people at the same weight with different muscle mass have different resting rates, which the MET multiplier then amplifies.
Twenty to thirty percent is a fair error band. That is fine for comparing a swim against a run, and poor for deciding whether you have earned a dessert.
Do not eat these calories back
This is the most consequential misuse of the number.
If you set your intake using the TDEE calculator, your training is already counted — the activity multiplier is what it is for. Add your session burn on top and you have counted the same exercise twice, which commonly wipes out a deficit entirely and is a frequent explanation for a diet that "stopped working".
Use this page to compare activities and to understand roughly what a session costs. Set your intake from maintenance and a goal, not from your watch.
Why lifting looks disappointing here
A hard hour of weight training lands around 250 to 400 calories for most people, well below an hour of running. Taken at face value, it looks like a poor use of time for fat loss.
It is not, because the calories burned during the session are the least important thing resistance training does. It builds and preserves muscle during a deficit, which protects your metabolic rate and determines what you look like at the end of it. Cardio spends calories; lifting protects the tissue that spends them for you.
Common questions
How are calories burned calculated?
By the MET method. One MET is your resting metabolic rate, about 3.5 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute. An activity rated at 8 METs costs eight times that. The equation is calories per minute = MET × 3.5 × body weight in kg ÷ 200, multiplied by the minutes you trained.
How accurate are calories burned calculators?
Treat the figure as ±20 to 30 percent. MET values describe an average person doing an average version of the activity; your efficiency, fitness and how hard you actually worked all move the real number. It is useful for comparing activities, not for eating back precisely.
Why is my watch showing a different number?
Wrist-based devices estimate from heart rate and movement, and independent testing has repeatedly found energy expenditure to be the least accurate thing they report — frequently overestimating by 20 to 30 percent or more. Neither number is a measurement; both are models.
Should I eat back the calories I burn?
Not if you set your intake from a TDEE calculator, because the activity multiplier there already includes your training. Adding these calories on top double-counts them, which is the single most common reason a calorie deficit fails to produce fat loss.
Does lifting weights burn many calories?
Less than most people hope during the session — a hard hour is typically 250 to 400 calories for an average-sized person. Its value for body composition comes from the muscle it builds and preserves, not from the calories spent while training.
Do you burn more calories if you weigh more?
Yes, and proportionally. Moving a heavier body costs more energy, which is why body weight is in the equation. It is also why the same walk burns steadily less as you lose weight — a real effect that makes long fat-loss phases progressively harder.