Calories Burned Calculator
Calculate calorie burn from exercise
Calories Burned Calculator tool
Calories Burned Calculator
Food Equivalents
Projections
Workout Planner
Calories Burned Calculator: key facts
- What it does
- Calculate calorie burn from exercise
- Category
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Cost
- Free, with no account, sign-up, or install.
- Your data
- Runs entirely in your browser — the files and text you enter are never uploaded to a server.
- Last reviewed
- . Report an incorrect result.
What this tool is for
How many calories did that workout actually burn? The Calories Burned Calculator estimates it using the MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) method, the same approach used in exercise science. You pick an activity from a database of 40+ options, enter your body weight and duration, and get an estimate in kilocalories with optional personalization factors.
The tool now supports both metric and imperial units, so you can enter weight in kilograms or pounds. It includes activities across four categories: cardio, strength training, sports, and daily activities. For greater accuracy, you can optionally add your heart rate, gender, and age — the calculator adjusts the estimate based on these personal factors. A comparison mode lets you stack multiple activities side by side to see which burns the most energy for your time.
Beyond the basic calculation, the tool shows food equivalents (like how many donuts your workout offset), weekly and monthly projections, and a workout planner for building multi-activity sessions. All calculations happen locally in your browser, and your history is saved locally for tracking progress over time.
How to use the Calories Burned Calculator
- Enter your body weight and choose kilograms or pounds using the unit toggle.
- Enter how long you exercised, or click a preset duration button (15, 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120 minutes).
- Select an activity from the dropdown — use the search bar or category filter to find it faster. Each option shows its MET value.
- For more accurate results, expand Advanced Options and add intensity level, heart rate, gender, and age if desired.
- Read the estimated calories burned, food equivalents, and projections. Use comparison mode to stack activities or the workout planner to build sessions.
What the Calories Burned Calculator gets right
- The expanded database covers 40+ activities across cardio, strength, sports, and daily tasks, so you can find accurate MET values for everything from running to gardening. Custom MET input handles activities not in the list.
- Unit support for both kilograms and pounds eliminates manual conversion — the tool handles the math automatically based on your selection.
- Optional personalization factors (heart rate, gender, age, intensity) refine the estimate beyond the standard MET formula, making it more tailored to your physiology and effort level.
- The comparison mode, food equivalents, and workout planner turn a simple calculator into a comprehensive fitness planning tool — all while keeping data local and requiring no account.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a MET and how does it relate to calories?
MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent of Task — a measure of how much energy an activity uses compared to sitting still, which is 1 MET. Running at a moderate pace is about 8 METs, meaning it burns roughly eight times the resting rate. The calculator uses the formula MET × 3.5 × weight (kg) ÷ 200 × minutes × 1.05, then applies optional adjustments for intensity, gender, and age.
How does the heart rate option improve accuracy?
When you enter your heart rate along with your age, the calculator uses a heart rate-based formula that accounts for your individual cardiovascular response. This provides more personalized estimates than standard MET values alone, especially useful for high-intensity workouts where heart rate varies significantly between people. Without heart rate data, the tool uses the standard MET formula.
What do the intensity levels do?
The intensity slider (Light, Moderate, Vigorous) applies a multiplier to the base MET calculation. Light intensity reduces the estimate by 20%, moderate uses the standard MET value, and vigorous increases it by 20%. This lets you fine-tune the result based on how hard you actually worked.
How does the workout planner work?
The workout planner lets you add multiple activities with different durations to build a complete session. For example, you could add 15 minutes of warm-up walking, 30 minutes of running, and 10 minutes of cool-down stretching. The planner calculates the total calories burned for the entire session.
Where is my calculation history stored?
Your calculation history is stored locally in your browser using localStorage. It keeps up to 20 recent entries and persists between sessions. Since it never leaves your device, you maintain privacy while still being able to track your progress over time.
