Calories burned calculator
Pick what you did, how long you did it and what you weigh. See the calories in all, the part above sitting that a watch calls active, and how much of the week's 150 minutes it covers.
185calories in all
About 145 of them are extra, on top of what you'd have burned sitting for those 30 minutes. That's the number to compare with a watch's active calories.
A mile at this pace costs about 80 calories above sitting (100 in all).
That's brisk (moderate) effort, so these 30 minutes count toward your 150 a week.
The same 30 minutes, other ways
- Yoga, hatha90
- Weight training, 8 to 15 reps135
- Walking, 3 mph (moderate)145
- Brisk walk, 3.5 to 3.9 mph185
- Swimming, not laps230
- Cycling, 10 to 11.9 mph260
- Tennis, singles310
- Running, 5 mph (12 min a mile)330
- Running, 6 mph (10 min a mile)360
- HIIT, hard (burpees, squat jumps)425
Calories in all, with the darker part above sitting. Compendium of Physical Activities 2024, at your weight.
Each activity is one measured row of the 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities, built from adults 19 to 59. A MET assumes an average resting burn, so your own number moves with your fitness, your stride and how hard you really went.
These tools are for adults 18 and up. How much exercise does a teenager need?
What your result means
The big number is everything your body burned in those minutes, including the calories it would have used anyway just keeping you alive. The second number takes those out, so it's the extra the activity cost you. Your watch's active calories leave out your resting burn too, so compare it with the second number, never the first.
Your weight and the minutes move it most. A heavier body costs more to carry, and an hour costs twice what half an hour does. Speed matters less than people think. A mile run at 6 mph costs about 115 calories above sitting at 180 pounds, and a slower or faster mile costs about the same, because the faster runner finishes sooner.
What to do next
Use the number to see what a session is worth, not as food you've earned. In 1,754 adults, the body made up about 28% of the calories that extra activity burned, mostly by spending less elsewhere. Exercise is better at keeping weight off and keeping muscle than at taking weight off, which what exercise can do for your weight explains.
For your health, the minutes count more than the calories. If the result said brisk or hard, add it to your week and see how close you are to 150 minutes and two strength days. For your whole day's burn, resting included, use tdee.guide's calorie calculator.
How it works
Each activity is one row of the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference table scientists use to price activities. It lists 1,114 of them, 912 measured in a lab with a mask that captures your breath. Each row has a MET value, how many times your resting burn the activity takes. Sitting quietly is 1 MET, a brisk walk at 3.5 to 3.9 mph is 4.8 and running at 6 mph is 9.3.
One MET is about 1 calorie per kilogram of body weight per hour. So the total is METs times your weight in kilograms times the hours, and the part above sitting is the same sum with 1 MET taken off. CDC calls 3 to 5.9 METs moderate (brisk) and 6 or more vigorous (hard), and a hard minute counts as two toward the 150.
Read it the right way
The Compendium was built from adults 19 to 59, and a MET assumes an average resting burn. Fitter people, older people and people with a long stride can land above or below it. A watch guesses from your heart rate and motion, and its calories miss by a lot too, as tdee.guide's look at Apple Watch calories shows. Treat any calorie number for one session as a rough size. For running and walking in detail, see how many calories running burns and how many calories walking burns.
6 sources
- Herrmann SD and others, 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: a third update of the energy costs of human activities, Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2024europepmc.org
- Compendium of Physical Activities, activity tables by heading (walking, running, bicycling, conditioning exercise, water activities, sports, lawn and garden, dancing, inactivity), 2024 adult values, checked 2026-11-15pacompendium.com
- Compendium of Physical Activities, Unit conversions (1 MET = 1 kcal per kg per hour), checked 2026-11-15pacompendium.com
- Apple, activeEnergyBurned, HealthKit documentation, checked 2026-11-15developer.apple.com
- CDC, Measuring physical activity intensitycdc.gov
- Careau V and others, Energy compensation and adiposity in humans, Current Biology, 2021europepmc.org
