What is the calories burned calculator?
The calories burned calculator is a free online tool that estimates how much energy you spend during exercise. Pick an activity, enter your body weight and how long you kept moving, and it returns a realistic estimate of the calories you burned. It covers a broad range of everyday activities — walking, running, cycling, swimming, hiking, yoga, and weightlifting — each carrying its own intensity, so you can compare a gentle stretch session against an all-out run at a glance.
Understanding roughly how many calories an activity burns helps you plan training against your goals, whether you are chasing a calorie deficit, fuelling a long session, or simply curious about the value of your effort.
How does it work?
Energy expenditure during physical activity is commonly expressed with the MET, the Metabolic Equivalent of Task. One MET is the energy you spend sitting quietly, roughly one kilocalorie per kilogram of body weight per hour. Every activity is then assigned a MET value describing how many times more energy it demands than resting: gentle yoga sits near 2.5 METs, brisk walking around 3.5, cycling near 7.5, swimming around 8, and running about 9.8.
Three factors drive the result:
-
Activity intensity: A higher MET value means more energy burned per minute.
-
Body weight: Heavier bodies require more energy to move, so calories scale directly with weight.
-
Duration: Calories accumulate with every minute, so a longer session burns proportionally more.
Formula
The calculator uses the standard MET equation, converting your duration from minutes into hours:
Where:
- MET = the Metabolic Equivalent value of the chosen activity
- Weight = body weight in kilograms
- Duration = time spent on the activity, in minutes
Examples
Example 1: swimming
A person weighing 70 kg swims (MET 8) for 60 minutes:
Example 2: running
A person weighing 60 kg runs (MET 9.8) for 30 minutes:
Reference MET values
| Activity | MET |
|---|---|
| Yoga | 2.5 |
| Walking | 3.5 |
| Weightlifting | 3.5 |
| Hiking | 6.0 |
| Cycling | 7.5 |
| Swimming | 8.0 |
| Running | 9.8 |
Notes
- The results are estimates: individual fitness, metabolism, terrain, technique, and effort all shift the true figure, so treat the number as a useful guide rather than an exact reading.
- Choose the activity that honestly matches your session. Two activities can share a MET value — walking and light weightlifting both sit near 3.5 — while a hard run demands nearly three times as much.
- Pair it with other tools such as the calories burned biking calculator or a walking calorie calculator to build a fuller picture of your week.
FAQ
How many calories does exercise burn?
It depends on the activity, your weight, and the time. As a rough guide, a 70 kg person swimming for one hour burns about 560 kcal, while the same person running for half an hour burns close to 294 kcal. Lighter people burn less and heavier people more for the same session.
Why is body weight part of the formula?
Moving a heavier body requires more energy, so calories burned rise in direct proportion to weight. That is why the same activity burns different amounts of energy for different people.
What is a MET?
A MET, or Metabolic Equivalent of Task, expresses an activity’s intensity relative to sitting still. An activity of 8 METs burns roughly eight times as many calories per minute as resting quietly.
Are these calorie figures exact?
No. They are evidence-based estimates built on average MET values. Real expenditure varies with fitness, intensity, and individual physiology, so use the result as a dependable estimate rather than a precise measurement.