Calories Burned Calculator: Estimate Your Workout Burn

How this calculator works

It uses the MET method, the same approach behind the Compendium of Physical Activities, the standard reference list of energy costs for hundreds of activities (Ainsworth et al., 2011). Each activity in the dropdown carries a MET value, from 3.3 for general household chores up to 11 for running at 11 km/h.

Two numbers come out:

• Calories burned (gross) = MET × body weight in kg × hours
• Above resting = gross - (body weight in kg × hours), which removes 1 MET for the same time

So 30 minutes of running at 8 km/h (8.3 METs) for a 70 kg person works out to about 291 kcal gross and 256 kcal above resting. The same 70 kg person doing 60 minutes of cricket (5 METs) gets 350 kcal gross and 280 kcal above resting.

How to read your result

The gross number is the one apps usually show. It quietly includes calories you would have burned on the sofa. The “above resting” number is the honest one.

Here’s the catch. Workouts are a smaller slice of daily burn than most people think. For many people, steps, chores and general movement across the whole day add up to more, which is why the NEAT and steps guide is worth a read if fat loss is the goal. For the full picture of where your calories go, the TDEE breakdown walks through each part.

A common mistake is eating back exercise calories on top of a maintenance number that already counted them. Set your intake with the calorie calculator, then let your weekly weight trend decide whether to adjust. Planning a cut? The weight loss calculator turns a target rate into daily calories.

Limitations and who this is not for

The 1 MET = 1 kcal per kg per hour convention was originally based on one 70 kg, 40-year-old man. In a study of 769 healthy, weight-stable adults (642 of them women, some with obesity), measured resting burn averaged 0.84 kcal per kg per hour, so the 1 MET convention overestimated resting energy expenditure by about 20% on average (Byrne et al., 2005). If your resting metabolism is lower than the convention assumes, your real burn is likely lower than shown.

MET values are also averages. Your fitness, technique, effort and rest periods all shift the true cost, and a “moderate” lifting session can mean very different things. The 2024 Compendium update, built from measured values where possible, is tailored to adults aged 19-59 and removed data from older adults (Herrmann et al., 2024), so estimates may fit people over 60 less well.

Wearables don’t fix this. In a lab test of seven wrist-worn devices, none got energy expenditure error below 20% (Shcherbina et al., 2017).

This tool is not built for children, pregnancy, or people with medical conditions or medications that change heart rate or metabolism (beta blockers, for example). If that’s you, ask your doctor what intensity is safe before chasing a calorie number.