Calories burned calculator
One MET is the energy cost of sitting quietly — about 3.5 millilitres of oxygen per kilogram per minute. Everything else is expressed as a multiple: brisk walking is 3.5 METs, so three and a half times resting. It is a neat system because it scales automatically with bodyweight, which is why a heavier person genuinely burns more doing the same activity.
MET values are population averages. Individual expenditure varies with fitness, efficiency and terrain, and wearable estimates are frequently 20–30% out.
Calories burned are MET × 3.5 × weight in kg ÷ 200, per minute. Jogging at MET 7 for 45 minutes at 75 kg burns about 413 kcal — roughly 54 grams of body fat, which is why exercise alone is a slow route to weight loss.
How to estimate calories burned
These figures are gross rather than net: they include the energy you would have burned anyway just being alive during that time. For a 45-minute session that resting component is around 75 kcal, so the true additional burn is meaningfully lower than the headline. Wearable devices are worse still: independent testing routinely finds errors of 20 to 30 per cent for energy expenditure, even on devices whose heart-rate tracking is good. Use any of these numbers as a rough guide, never as a budget to eat back.
Questions
MET × 3.5 × bodyweight in kg ÷ 200 gives kcal per minute. Multiply by duration.
A multiple of resting metabolic rate. One MET is sitting quietly; brisk walking is 3.5 METs.
Wearable energy estimates are commonly 20–30% out. The MET method is not exact either, but it is transparent about its assumptions.
Yes, proportionally. A heavier person burns more doing the same activity because more mass is being moved.
Generally not in full. The estimates are gross, they include your resting burn, and they tend to run high.