Calories Burned Calculator

How this calculator turns MET values into calories

Every activity in the table below carries a MET value, short for metabolic equivalent of task. One MET is the energy you use sitting quietly, defined as 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. Cycling at 12 to 14 mph carries 8.0 METs, which means it costs about eight times as much energy as sitting still.

The arithmetic converts METs into calories with one equation: calories per minute = MET x 3.5 x body weight in kilograms / 200. The 3.5 is the resting oxygen cost, and the 200 converts oxygen consumption into calories. Weight in pounds becomes kilograms by dividing by 2.2046.

The intensity labels used on this page follow the CDC bands: 3.0 to 5.9 METs counts as moderate, and 6.0 METs or more counts as vigorous. Those bands matter when you compare a session with the weekly activity guideline, because one minute of vigorous work counts the same as two minutes of moderate work.

Worked example: 180 pounds, 45 minutes of circuit training

Take a 180 pound adult who spends 45 minutes in a vigorous circuit class. The weight converts to 81.65 kilograms. Circuit training at a vigorous effort sits at 7.5 METs. The per-minute cost is 7.5 x 3.5 x 81.65 / 200, which comes to 10.7 calories a minute. Multiply by 45 minutes and the session costs 482 calories.

Two numbers, one session, and both are correct depending on the question. Gross calories answer "what did this cost me in total". Net calories answer "how much extra did this add", and net is the figure that matters when the session is part of a weight plan. The 64 calorie resting line comes from the same formula with a MET value of 1.

The scaling is plain arithmetic from there. Half the time is half the calories. A class at 5.0 METs instead of 7.5 costs a third less, about 321 calories for the same 45 minutes. Doubling body weight doubles the cost, which is why two people in the same class can leave with totals 70 percent apart.

MET values for 15 common activities

The MET values below come from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference that most fitness machines and tracker apps are built on. Calories are shown for a 180 pound adult, so scale them to your own weight before you compare activities.

The spread between the top and bottom of that table is close to five to one for the same half hour. A 30 minute yoga session and a 30 minute jump rope session are the same appointment on your calendar and completely different transactions for your body. The Compendium of Physical Activities lists several hundred more activities with the same format if yours is not here.

How body weight scales the number

Body weight sits in the formula as a straight multiplier, so the same activity costs more for a heavier person and less for a lighter one. The table below holds time and activity constant and moves only the weight.

A 220 pound adult burns about 70 percent more than a 130 pound adult doing the same thing for the same time. That gap is not a flaw in the formula; moving a larger body takes more work. It also explains why two people comparing tracker totals after a shared workout often see numbers that look impossible to reconcile.

There is a wrinkle the table cannot show. As people get fitter, they often become more efficient at a movement and burn slightly less than the formula predicts for their weight. The MET tables are averages across a population, not a measurement of you, so treat a 10 to 15 percent band around the result as normal.

Gross calories and net calories

Gross calories count everything you burned during the session, including the calories you would have burned anyway. Net calories subtract that baseline. The baseline is roughly 1 MET, and it scales with weight like everything else.

For a 180 pound adult, half an hour of hatha yoga costs 99 gross calories and adds 56 net. Half an hour of tennis singles costs 343 gross and adds 300 net. The lighter the activity, the more the resting baseline matters: for yoga it is 43 percent of the gross total, while for jump rope it is under 10 percent.

Weight loss advice usually quotes the 3,500 calorie figure for a pound of fat. At 180 pounds, 30 minute circuit sessions at 7.5 METs add 321 gross calories each, so about 10.9 sessions would cover a pound on paper. Real bodies do not work that cleanly, because appetite, adaptation and non-exercise movement all shift when activity rises. Use the number as a planning estimate, not a ledger.

Why the gym machine and your watch read higher

Gym machines and wrist trackers tend to report higher numbers than the MET equation, and the reasons are structural rather than conspiratorial.

Most cardio machines count gross calories and add your resting metabolism for the session, which is defensible but inflates the total by the resting share, about 12 percent at 8 METs and 30 percent at 3.3 METs. Many machines also ask for weight once and then apply a fixed equation for everyone, so a fit person with a low resting rate gets a number built for an average body. Ellipticals and stationary bikes are the worst offenders because the machine cannot see how much work you are doing, only how fast the flywheel turns.

Wrist trackers estimate energy from heart rate and arm motion. That works reasonably well for steady running and poorly for strength work, interval classes and anything where your arms stay still. The errors do not cancel: most devices run high on steady cardio and high again when they credit the resting burn, so two devices on the same wrist can land a third apart on the same session.

A practical rule: pick one source, use it every time, and compare sessions to each other instead of to a lab value. The relative signal is useful even when the absolute number is soft.

Building a week around the 150 minute guideline

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans ask adults for 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, plus two days of muscle strengthening. That target is about health, not weight, and the calorie totals below show what it adds up to at different body weights.

Notice that the guideline's two routes land in different places: 150 moderate minutes at 3.3 METs is 707 calories for a 180 pound adult, while 75 vigorous minutes at 9.3 METs is 997. The vigorous route buys more calories per minute, which is why time-poor people drift toward it, but the health benefits of the two routes are close for most outcomes.

Five 30 minute sessions at 7.5 METs also add up to 150 minutes and 1,607 calories at 180 pounds. The CDC activity guidelines page lays out the weekly targets by age group, including the two strength days that this calculator does not try to score.

What the estimate leaves out

The MET formula is a population average, and several things push a real session away from it.

Movement economy is the big one. A trained cyclist holds 8.0 METs at a speed that costs an untrained rider 10 or 11, so the fit rider's true burn is lower than the table suggests. Terrain, heat, altitude and carrying a pack all raise the cost above the flat-ground value. Afterburn, the extra oxygen your body uses while recovering, is real but small, usually a few percent of the session.

Appetite is the factor most often left out. Hard sessions can raise hunger enough to replace a large share of the calories burned, which is one reason exercise alone moves weight slowly. Non-exercise movement matters too: a hard class often comes with a quieter afternoon, and the fidgeting and walking you skip can cancel part of the session.

None of this makes the estimate useless. It makes it an estimate. People who track consistently, use the same method and adjust from real results over four to six weeks do fine with numbers this rough. The CDC explanation of MET intensity is a good next read if you want the measurement background.

This page is general information, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, managing a heart condition, taking medication that affects heart rate, or returning from injury, ask a clinician before you use calorie targets to plan your training.