Calories Burned Calculator
Find out exactly how many calories you burn during any workout — running, lifting, cycling, HIIT, swimming, and more — based on your weight and exercise intensity.
Calculate Calories Burned
Total Calories Burned
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Per Minute
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cal/min
Per Hour (at this pace)
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cal/hr
TDEE Context
Note: MET-based calculations are estimates. Actual calorie burn varies by individual fitness level, exact intensity, terrain, and technique. These figures represent net calories above resting metabolic rate and are most accurate for moderate-intensity aerobic exercise.
What Are MET Values?
MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent of Task — a standardized way to express the energy cost of physical activities relative to rest. A MET of 1.0 represents sitting quietly at rest (roughly 1 calorie per kg of body weight per hour). An activity with a MET of 8.0 burns 8 times as many calories as sitting still.
The formula is straightforward: Calories = MET × body weight in kg × duration in hours. This means that heavier individuals burn more calories doing the same activity for the same duration — because moving more mass requires more energy.
MET values were compiled from thousands of studies measuring oxygen consumption during various activities and are published in the Compendium of Physical Activities, the authoritative reference maintained by researchers at Arizona State University.
MET Reference Table
| Activity | MET |
|---|---|
| Yoga | 3.0 |
| Walking 3.5 mph | 4.3 |
| Weight Training (moderate) | 5.0 |
| Weight Training (vigorous) | 6.0 |
| Cycling (moderate) | 8.0 |
| Running 6 mph | 9.8 |
| HIIT / Circuit Training | 10.0 |
| Running 8 mph | 12.8 |
Cardio vs. Weights for Fat Loss
Cardio: High Immediate Burn
Cardio burns more calories per minute during the session than weight training at equivalent durations. A 45-minute run at moderate pace burns roughly 400-600 calories for a 175 lb person. This is why cardio is often prescribed for weight loss — the calorie expenditure is immediate and measurable.
However, cardio has limited effect on resting metabolic rate. Your BMR doesn't change significantly from cardio alone, and excessive cardio without resistance training can contribute to muscle loss over time — lowering your TDEE and making future fat loss harder.
Weights: Lower Immediate, Higher Long-Term
Weight training burns fewer calories per minute during the session (MET 5-6 vs. running's MET 9-13), but its long-term metabolic effects are superior. Building muscle tissue raises your BMR — every pound of muscle burns approximately 6 calories per day at rest. This compounds over months and years.
Resistance training also triggers EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) — elevated calorie burn for 24-48 hours after a heavy training session as muscles repair. This "afterburn" can add 50-200 additional calories beyond what was burned during the session.
EPOC: The Afterburn Effect Explained
EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) refers to the elevated metabolic rate that persists after exercise ends. Your body requires extra oxygen — and burns extra calories — to restore itself to its pre-exercise state: replenishing ATP and phosphocreatine stores, clearing lactate, reducing core temperature, and repairing muscle microtrauma. High-intensity resistance training and HIIT produce the largest EPOC effects. For a typical strength training session, EPOC adds approximately 6-15% on top of calories burned during the workout — meaningful, though not as dramatic as often marketed.
How Exercise Affects Your TDEE
EAT (Exercise Activity Thermogenesis)
The calories you burn during planned workouts are called Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. For most gym-goers training 4-5 days per week, EAT contributes 200-600 calories per day to TDEE on training days, and significantly less on rest days. This variability is why daily calorie cycling (eating more on training days) can be beneficial.
NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis)
NEAT — the calories burned by all non-exercise movement (walking, fidgeting, standing, posture) — is often larger than EAT for most people, contributing 300-2,000+ calories per day. Increasing daily steps, taking stairs, and standing more can add 200-400 calories to your TDEE without formal exercise. NEAT declines significantly during periods of caloric restriction.
Using Exercise for a Deficit
Adding cardio to create a deficit is often more sustainable than cutting food further — especially when you're already in a significant restriction. A 30-minute daily walk at 3.5 mph burns about 150 calories for a 175 lb person — 1,050 calories per week without changing your diet. Combined with a modest food deficit, this creates a comfortable, sustainable fat loss pace without excessive hunger.
Related Calculators
Frequently Asked Questions
MET-based calorie estimates are reasonably accurate for moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (±10-15%) but less reliable for resistance training and high-intensity intervals where anaerobic contributions are significant. Fitness trackers and gym equipment screens are notoriously inaccurate — studies show they overestimate calorie burn by 15-40% on average. Heart rate monitors improve accuracy by correlating heart rate to oxygen consumption, but still have meaningful error. Use these estimates as planning tools rather than precise measurements. For weight management decisions, track your actual weight changes over 2-3 weeks to validate your assumed deficit.
Yes — for weight-bearing exercises like running and walking, heavier people burn significantly more calories because more energy is required to move greater mass. A 250 lb person running at 6 mph burns roughly 30-40% more calories per mile than a 150 lb person running at the same pace. For non-weight-bearing exercises like cycling and swimming, the difference is smaller but still present since more mass still requires more energy to move through resistance. This means heavier individuals have a natural calorie-burning advantage during cardio that diminishes as they lose weight — one reason why TDEE recalculation as you lose weight is important.
Yes — and in a counterintuitive direction. As you become more fit, your body becomes more efficient at performing the same movement, meaning you burn slightly fewer calories doing the same workout at the same absolute speed. A trained runner burns fewer calories per mile than an untrained runner of the same weight because their cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems have adapted to be more economical. This is one reason why progressive overload — consistently increasing workout difficulty — is important for continued results, and why varying training stimuli prevents adaptation plateaus.
Both are effective — the "best" choice depends on individual factors. HIIT burns more calories per minute and produces greater EPOC, meaning it's more time-efficient for calorie burning. A 20-minute HIIT session can match or exceed the calorie burn of a 40-minute steady-state session. Steady-state cardio is lower-impact, easier to recover from, can be done more frequently, and is generally more sustainable for people with joint issues or heavy training schedules. For fat loss, total weekly calorie deficit matters more than the specific cardio modality. Most fitness professionals recommend a mix: 1-2 HIIT sessions and 2-3 steady-state sessions per week for optimal fat loss without excessive recovery demands.
It depends on how you calculated your TDEE. If you used an activity multiplier that already accounts for your exercise (e.g., "moderately active" = 3-5 days/week of exercise), then no — your exercise calories are already included in your TDEE. If you calculated TDEE using a sedentary multiplier and then exercise on top of that, then yes — you should add those calories back. Most calorie tracking apps (MyFitnessPal, Cronometer) use a sedentary base and ask you to log exercise, so eating back 50-75% of the estimated burn (to account for overestimation) is appropriate in that system. Fitbit and Apple Watch integrate activity data differently — check your app's methodology.