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.