How the calculator works
Every activity here has a MET value — a metabolic equivalent. One MET is the energy you burn sitting still. An activity rated 8 MET costs eight times that. The values come from the Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference database researchers have maintained since 1993.
The formula that turns a MET value into calories is:
- kcal per minute = MET × 3.5 × weight (kg) ÷ 200
Worked example: a 70 kg person running at 8 km/h (8.3 MET) burns 8.3 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200 = 10.2 kcal per minute, or about 305 kcal in 30 minutes. The same run at 100 kg costs about 436 kcal. Weight is inside the formula because moving more mass takes more energy — this is also why the number drops as you lose weight.
Calories per 30 minutes at 70 kg
| Activity | MET | kcal / 30 min |
|---|---|---|
| Yoga (hatha) | 2.5 | 92 |
| Walking (casual) | 3.5 | 129 |
| Weightlifting (general) | 3.5 | 129 |
| Brisk walking | 4.3 | 158 |
| Elliptical (moderate) | 5.0 | 184 |
| Hiking | 5.3 | 195 |
| Dancing | 5.5 | 202 |
| Swimming (leisurely) | 5.8 | 213 |
| Basketball | 6.5 | 239 |
| Rowing machine | 7.0 | 257 |
| Soccer (casual) | 7.0 | 257 |
| Cycling (moderate) | 7.5 | 276 |
| HIIT / circuits | 8.0 | 294 |
| Running (8 km/h) | 8.3 | 305 |
| Running (10 km/h) | 9.8 | 360 |
You cannot outrun a bad diet
The table above deserves a sober reading. Thirty minutes of running, a genuinely hard session for most people, burns about 305 kcal at 70 kg. A coffee-shop muffin is 400. One chocolate bar undoes a swim. This is not an argument against exercise; it is an argument about where deficits come from.
A 500-kcal daily deficit built from food is a smaller dinner and no dessert. The same deficit built from exercise alone is roughly an hour of hard running, every single day. Food is simply the easier lever. Exercise still earns its keep — it preserves muscle while you diet, improves the health markers that matter, and raises the daily burn — but it works best as a partner to a food deficit, not a substitute for one. The calorie deficit calculator plans the food side.
One warning about double counting
If your daily calorie target came from a TDEE calculationwith an activity level of "moderately active" or higher, your workouts are already inside the target. Adding tonight's spin class on top counts it twice, and twice-counted exercise is the quietest way to erase a deficit. Use this calculator to understand what activities cost, or to log workouts when your target assumes a sedentary baseline. For everyday movement rather than workouts, the steps to calories calculator covers the walking you do anyway.
How rough are these numbers?
MET values are averages measured across groups of people. Your movement economy, fitness level, and terrain all pull the real figure up or down, so treat any single result as a band of roughly ±10–20% rather than a precise count. That sounds bad until you remember the alternative: wearables tested at Stanford in 2017 missed energy expenditure by 27–93%. The practical move is to pick one consistent method, use it for every workout, and watch the trend rather than the digits.
