About the Calories Burned Calculator
This calculator is different from a BMR or calorie-needs calculator, which estimates your baseline daily calorie burn. This one estimates calories burned during a single specific activity session — useful for weighing a workout against a meal, comparing the calorie cost of different activities, or logging exercise for a fitness tracker.
It uses MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) values, a standardized scale from exercise physiology research where 1 MET represents the energy cost of sitting quietly. Multiplying an activity's MET value by body weight and time gives a widely used estimate for calories burned during that activity — the same underlying method used by many fitness trackers and apps.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do fitness trackers sometimes show a different number for the same activity?
Wearable devices often factor in heart rate data, which can produce a more personalized estimate than a fixed MET value — though heart rate-based estimates carry their own margin of error and both methods are estimates, not precise measurements.
Does a heavier person burn more calories doing the same activity?
Yes — the MET formula scales directly with body weight, since moving more body mass requires more energy, which is why this calculator asks for your weight as an input.
What exactly is a MET value?
MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent of Task. One MET is defined as the energy cost of sitting quietly (roughly 1 kcal per kg of body weight per hour) — an activity with a MET of 8 burns roughly 8 times that resting rate.