Energy Burned,
for the session you actually did
Twenty-nine calculators that turn a duration, a distance or a pace into an energy figure. Each one names the MET value it used, the body weight it assumed, and what it deliberately leaves out.
The same hour can differ by a factor of three
Thirty minutes of walking and thirty minutes of running are not the same thirty minutes. At 70 kg the first is about 110 kcal and the second about 257 — same person, same clock, one variable changed.
Every figure on this hub comes from one place: a MET value, which is the multiple of resting metabolic rate an activity represents, multiplied by body weight and time. One MET is defined as 3.5 millilitres of oxygen per kilogram per minute — close to 1 kcal per kilogram per hour. Everything after that is arithmetic.
That single formula is why these pages ask for your weight and almost nothing else. They do not ask your age, your resting heart rate or your body fat percentage, because the table does not use them. Collecting inputs that do not change the result would make a page look thorough and a number less honest.
What the formula cannot see is how hard you actually pushed, how efficient you are at the movement, and how much you moved for the rest of the day. Those appear below as stated limits, not as invented corrections.
Four groups, 29 calculators
Pick the group that matches what you did. Each card is one activity and one question — the line under the name tells you which figure the page reports and in what unit. Within a group, tools are sorted by activity name.
Cardio & Machines
Machines and continuous effort, where pace or resistance sets the intensity. A console figure is usually higher than a MET-table estimate, because the console does not know your body weight or how efficiently you move.
Strength & Studio
Sets and reps do not convert to energy cleanly. These pages use the published MET for the activity and the length of the session — rest between sets included, because the rest is part of the session.
Sports & Outdoors
Stop-start activity averages out over the whole session. A match is not ninety minutes of running; the table value already assumes the standing, walking and waiting.
Daily Movement
The movement that never gets counted. Carrying, standing, stepping — small per minute, and the only group here that happens without deciding to exercise.
How a duration becomes a calorie figure
Every calculator in this group runs the same four steps in the same order. Nothing is adjusted for effort, and no value is invented to make a result look more precise than it is.
Name the activity precisely
Jogging at 8 km/h and running at 12 km/h are separate rows in the published table, not one activity at two speeds. Each page uses the closest entry and prints its MET value on the result, so you can check the row rather than trust the label.
Multiply by body weight
kcal per minute = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200. A heavier body burns more for the same movement because it is moving more mass. That is a physical effect, not a judgement about the person entering the number.
Multiply by the length of the session
Duration is the whole session, warm-up and rest included. If you rested three minutes between sets, that rest was part of the thirty minutes you spent in the room — and it counts at roughly 1.5–2 METs.
Round once, at the end
The result is rounded to a whole calorie after the multiplication, never before. Rounding a per-minute figure and then scaling it up is how two calculators end up fifteen calories apart on the same session.
| Walking, 4.8 km/h (3.0 METs) | 110 kcal |
| Jogging, 8 km/h (7.0 METs) | 257 kcal |
| Running, 12 km/h (10.0 METs) | 368 kcal |
| Formula used | MET × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200 × 30 |
Same body, same half hour. The only thing that changed between the first row and the last is how fast the person moved.
Where the numbers come from
Four sources cover everything on this hub. Each tool page names the one it used, so the value can be checked against the table rather than taken on trust.
Adult Compendium of Physical Activities
The MET values behind every calculator here. Each page cites the activity entry it used, including the code, so a value can be traced to a row rather than to a general description. pacompendium.com
ACSM metabolic equations
For walking, running and cycling where speed and grade are known, the ACSM equations give a tighter estimate than a flat MET value. Used on the pages that take a distance or a pace as input.
Your body weight
The one number the table cannot supply. Entered in kilograms or pounds; pounds are converted at 0.4536 kg and the conversion is not rounded before use, so the two units agree with each other.
Post-exercise burn
The elevated burn after exercise is real but small and highly variable — roughly 6–15% of session cost. No page here adds it, because no honest per-person multiplier exists for it.
Six things that change the answer more than the table does
If a figure here disagrees with your watch, one of these is almost always why. All six are stated on the individual tool pages rather than buried in a footnote.
- Weight, not body compositionMET tables assume average efficiency. A trained cyclist at the same power output burns slightly less than a novice, because less energy is wasted on movement.
- The table label versus the actual effortA “moderate” row assumes a moderate pace. If you were breathing hard enough that talking was difficult, you were in the row above.
- Rest between setsCounted inside the session at roughly 1.5–2 METs. Leaving it out inflates a weights session by 20–30%.
- Machine readoutsEllipticals and treadmills without a weight input often overstate by 15–25%. The console measures work done on the machine, not energy spent by the person on it.
- The other twenty-three hoursA hard session can reduce spontaneous movement for the rest of the day. These pages count the session only, and say so.
- Heat, hills and soft groundAll three raise the cost of the same pace. The table value assumes level, temperate, firm ground.
What these tools are not
A calculator can tell you that half an hour of jogging at 70 kg costs roughly 257 kcal. It cannot tell you whether that session was appropriate for you, and it will not pretend that the number cancels out anything you ate.
Where energy expenditure genuinely matters for a decision — cardiac rehabilitation, diabetes management, an eating disorder history, medication that affects heart rate — an estimate from a table is the wrong instrument. Measured calorimetry exists for exactly that, and a clinician can order it. These pages are for curiosity and rough planning, not for clinical arithmetic.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my watch report more calories than this?
A wrist device combines heart rate with a proprietary model that often includes some movement between sessions and, on some devices, an estimate of post-exercise burn. It also has to assume your efficiency. Differences of 10–40% against a MET calculation are common in both directions. Neither figure is measured — both are estimates built on different assumptions, and only laboratory calorimetry measures the thing itself.
Does the calculator include the calories I keep burning afterwards?
No. Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption is real but small — roughly 6–15% of the session cost, higher after very hard or very long work — and it varies too much between people to attach a fixed percentage to your result. Adding one would make the page look more complete and the number less honest.
Why does it ask for weight and not body fat percentage?
Because the MET table is derived from whole-body oxygen consumption per kilogram of body mass, not per kilogram of lean mass. Correcting for body composition moves the answer by a few percent, which is smaller than the error in estimating body fat in the first place.
Why do two activities with the same MET value look different?
Published MET values are rounded to one decimal, so two rows can both read 6.0 while differing by several percent underneath. The page cites the activity code it used, so you can compare the underlying entries rather than the rounded label.
Does walking pace really change the number that much?
Yes. Walking at 4 km/h is about 2.8 METs; at 6.4 km/h it is about 5.0 — nearly double for a 60% increase in speed, because stride length, arm swing and vertical oscillation all change. Pace is the variable people most often leave out.
Can I use this to work out a calorie deficit?
No, and these pages are not built to help you do it. Exercise energy is one side of a balance that also includes intake, non-exercise movement and measurement error on both sides — and the error is often larger than the deficit someone is aiming for. If weight is a medical concern, that belongs in a conversation with a clinician rather than a calculator.
Who checks this, and what happens when a number is wrong
How this hub is maintained
- Every value is traceable. Each tool page names the activity entry and the MET value it used, and the formula is printed on the result. There are no unsourced numbers on this site.
- Assumptions are stated, not hidden. Body weight, duration and the included rest are all shown as inputs. If a default was used, the page says what it was.
- Corrections are welcome and acted on. If a figure looks wrong, tell us the activity, your weight and the duration you used. We check it against the table and correct the page rather than quietly adjusting the result. Contact the team.
- Reviewed on a schedule. Values are re-checked when the Compendium is updated and whenever a reader reports a discrepancy. The date above is the last full pass over this hub.
The other three groups
If what you need is not here, it is one of these.