Calories Burned Calculator

Estimate calories burned by activity, weight, and duration (MET method)

Estimating calories burned during an activity uses the MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) method — a standardized measure of how energy-intensive a given activity is relative to resting metabolism — combined with body weight and duration, since calorie burn for the same activity genuinely differs by how much someone weighs and for how long they do it.

How the MET method actually works

A MET value represents how many times more energy an activity requires compared to sitting quietly at rest (which is defined as exactly 1 MET) — walking at a moderate pace might be around 3-4 METs, while vigorous running or cycling can be 8-10+ METs, reflecting how much more energy-intensive those activities are relative to rest. Calories burned is calculated from MET value, body weight, and duration together — heavier individuals burn more calories doing the identical activity for the identical duration than lighter individuals, since moving more body mass requires more energy, which is why this calculator asks for weight as an input rather than giving a single generic calories-per-minute figure for each activity.

A worked example

Two people of different body weights doing the identical activity for the identical duration burn different total calories — the heavier person burns more, not because they're working "harder" in any subjective sense, but because moving more mass through the same activity requires proportionally more energy, which the MET-based calculation captures directly through the weight input.

How this connects to your other health calculations

Calories burned through activity is one side of the energy-balance equation — the Calorie/TDEE Calculator already factors general daily activity level into its baseline estimate, so use this calculator specifically for estimating the calorie cost of a particular workout or activity session on top of that baseline, rather than double-counting the same activity in both places.

Common mistakes

Double-counting exercise calories — adding a calculated workout calorie burn on top of a TDEE estimate that already used an activity-level multiplier reflecting regular exercise — overstates total daily calorie burn; if TDEE was calculated using a "moderately active" or higher activity level that already assumes regular exercise, a specific workout's calories are largely already baked into that estimate and shouldn't be added again in full.