Calories Burned Calculator: Estimate Your Workout & Activity Burn

How to Use Our Calories Burned Calculator

To get your estimate, simply provide the following information. The calculator will automatically update as you enter your details.

• Activity: Select the exercise or activity you performed from the dropdown list. We’ve included a wide range of activities, from gym workouts to daily chores, each with its own specific intensity value.

• Your Weight: Enter your current body weight. You can input your weight in either pounds (lbs) or kilograms (kg). Accurate weight is crucial as it’s a primary factor in how many calories you burn.

• Duration of Activity: Enter the total time you spent performing the activity, measured in minutes.

Understanding Your Results

The number you see is the Total Calories Burned, which represents the total amount of energy your body expended during the specified duration of the activity. This calculation is not just a guess; it’s based on a key scientific concept: Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET).

What is a MET?

A MET is a measure of exercise intensity. One MET is the amount of energy your body uses at rest (for example, while sitting quietly). An activity with a MET value of 5 means you are burning 5 times the energy you would at rest.

Our calculator uses a standardized formula to combine your weight, the activity’s MET value, and the duration to estimate your calorie burn:

Every activity in our dropdown list has a pre-assigned MET value based on the Compendium of Physical Activities. This ensures your result is based on established scientific data.

Sample MET Values for Common Activities

To give you a better sense of how different activities compare, here is a table showing approximate MET values.

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is this calories burned calculator?

This calculator provides a high-quality estimate based on a widely accepted scientific formula and standardized MET values. However, it’s important to recognize that it is still an estimate. Individual calorie burn can be influenced by factors not included in this calculation, such as your age, sex, body composition (muscle vs. fat ratio), fitness level, and even environmental conditions. For most purposes, this calculator is an excellent tool for comparing different activities and managing your energy balance.

What is the difference between gross and net calorie burn?

This is an excellent question that highlights an important detail.

• Gross Calories Burned: This is the total number of calories you burn during the activity. Our calculator shows this number. It includes the calories you would have burned anyway just by being alive (your basal metabolic rate).

• Net Calories Burned: This is the number of calories burned in addition to what you would have burned at rest. To find this, you would subtract the calories burned at rest (1 MET) from the gross total.

For most people tracking exercise for weight management, using the gross calories burned is standard and sufficient. Fitness apps and food labels all work on a gross calorie basis.

How can I use this information for weight loss?

To lose weight, you need to be in a consistent calorie deficit, meaning you burn more calories than you consume. A common goal is a deficit of 500 calories per day to aim for approximately 1 pound of weight loss per week ($3500\text{ calories}\approx 1\text{ pound of fat}$).

You can use this calculator to understand how much exercise contributes to that deficit.

Concrete Example:

• Let’s say your daily calorie target for weight loss is 1,800 calories.

• You use the calculator and find that a 45-minute brisk walk (MET value of 4.3) burns approximately 250 calories.

• This means your exercise has “earned” you 250 calories towards your daily goal. You still need to manage the remaining 1,550 calories through your diet and other daily activity to stay on target.

By quantifying your exercise, you can make informed decisions about your diet and activity levels to reach your goal.

What other factors affect how many calories I burn?

Besides weight and activity choice, several other biological and environmental factors play a role:

• Body Composition: Muscle tissue is more metabolically active than fat tissue. A person with more muscle will burn more calories than a person of the same weight with less muscle, both at rest and during exercise.

• Age: Metabolic rate tends to decrease with age, primarily due to a natural decline in muscle mass.

• Sex: Men generally have a higher metabolic rate than women, largely because they tend to have more muscle mass and less body fat.

• Fitness Level: As you become more fit, your body becomes more efficient at performing an activity. This means you may burn slightly fewer calories doing the same workout than someone less conditioned.

• Temperature: Exercising in very cold or very hot weather can increase calorie burn as your body works harder to maintain its core temperature.

Does my heart rate affect my calorie burn?

Yes, absolutely. Heart rate is a direct indicator of how hard your cardiovascular system is working, which correlates closely with energy expenditure. While our calculator uses METs for simplicity and accessibility, advanced fitness trackers and chest straps use your heart rate, along with your personal data (age, weight, sex), to provide a more personalized calorie burn estimate. If you have a device that tracks heart rate, its calorie reading will likely be more accurate for you personally.

How many calories should I burn during a workout?

There is no “one-size-fits-all” answer. The ideal number of calories to burn depends entirely on your goals, fitness level, and available time.

• For General Health: The general recommendation is to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week. This might translate to burning 200-300 calories per session, 5 days a week.

• For Weight Loss: A common target is to burn 300-500 calories per workout session. Combined with dietary changes, this can create a meaningful calorie deficit.

• For Fitness Performance: Athletes in training may burn over 1,000 calories in a single long session.

The best approach is to start with a manageable goal and gradually increase the duration or intensity of your workouts as your fitness improves. Use this calculator to see how changing an activity or its duration impacts your calorie burn.

Now that you have a better understanding of your calorie expenditure during activity, a logical next step is to understand your body’s total daily energy needs. Use our TDEE Calculator to find your total daily energy expenditure. To understand the baseline calories your body needs just to function at rest, try our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Calculator.