Exercise and weight

How many calories does running burn?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20267 sources

About 100 calories a mile on top of what you’d burn sitting, if you weigh 160 pounds. Heavier runners burn more and lighter runners less, roughly two thirds of a calorie per pound of body weight per mile. Your pace barely changes what a mile costs. Thirty minutes of running is about 250 to 450 calories in all for most people, and your weight sets most of that range.

Most people assume a fast run burns far more than a slow one. Per minute it does, but the fast runner finishes the mile sooner, and the two effects nearly cancel out. Others go by the big number on the treadmill or the watch at the end, which includes the calories their body would have burned anyway on the couch.

Moving your body a mile is like moving a box across town. A heavier box costs more to move. Hurrying gets it there sooner, but the trip costs about the same.

A mile, by your weight and pace

These are the calories above sitting for one mile, from the 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities, the lab table scientists use to price activities.

Across any row, the numbers barely move. At 160 pounds, a 12-minute mile and an 8-minute mile cost about 110 and 105 calories. Down a column, they climb with every pound.

Thirty minutes, by your weight

Time is where pace does matter, since a faster runner covers more miles in the same half hour. These are the calories in all, the number most treadmills show.

Why the pace barely matters

The Compendium gives each activity a MET value, how many times your resting burn it takes. Running at 5 mph is 8.5 METs and running at 7.5 mph is 11.8. Take off the 1 MET you’d burn sitting, and the slower runner spends 12 minutes at 7.5 while the faster one spends 8 minutes at 10.8. Those come out almost even, about 1.5 and 1.44 MET-hours a mile. One MET-hour is about 1 calorie per kilogram you weigh, which is why your weight decides the bill.

Running against walking

A mile run costs more than a mile walked. In 2004, Christopher Hall’s team measured 24 adults covering 1,600 meters (about a mile) on a treadmill, once walking at about 3 mph and once running at about 6 mph. Running took 481 kilojoules and walking 340, about 115 and 80 calories, so running cost about 40% more for the same distance. Walking a mile at 180 pounds is about 75 calories above sitting, as tdee.guide’s mile walk page works out, against about 115 running.

What your watch says

Apple’s HealthKit counts active energy without the resting energy of the same minutes, so a watch’s active calories are the above-sitting kind, the numbers in the first table. Wrist estimates of calories miss by a lot, as tdee.guide’s look at Apple Watch calories shows, so a run’s calories from the watch are a rough size.

Running and weight

A 3-mile run at 160 pounds is about 300 calories above sitting. That’s real, but the body pushes back. In 1,754 adults, it made up about 28% of the calories extra activity burned by spending less elsewhere. Running helps most with keeping weight off and keeping you fit, which what exercise can do for your weight covers. If you’re starting from zero, the running guide builds up to 30 minutes from one minute at a time.