Calories Burned Calculator: Walking, Running, 10,000 Steps, Cycling and Swimming

How many calories do you burn exercising?

Multiply the activity's MET value by your weight in kg and the hours you spent: 30 minutes of moderate walking at 70 kg is 3.8 x 70 x 0.5, about 133 kcal.

Pick from 83 activities below, grouped by type, switch to steps for a step count, or switch to distance for a walk, run or ride of a known length and time. You can share the result: the link keeps your inputs.

MET values and codes are from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities (Herrmann and colleagues, Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2024), and step cadence from the CADENCE-Adults study. All checked 7 November 2026. The result is an average for adults aged 19 to 59, not a measurement of you, and not medical advice.

Want to know what to eat? Calories burned are only half of it. The calorie calculator works out your whole day's burn, your TDEE, and a daily target to lose about 0.5 kg a week, keep your weight or gain.

How are calories burned calculated?

With METs: the activity's MET value times your weight in kg times the hours, because 1 MET is about 1 kcal per kg per hour. A MET, or metabolic equivalent, compares an activity's energy cost with a standard resting rate of 3.5 mL of oxygen per kg per minute, which the 2024 Compendium paper puts at approximately 1.0 kcal per kg per hour.

The Compendium's unit conversions list the same 1 MET = 1 kcal/kg/hr. So a 3.8 MET walk burns 3.8 times what you would burn sitting still.

The Compendium also sorts activities by intensity: 1.6 to 2.9 METs is light, 3.0 to 5.9 moderate and 6.0 or more vigorous. Singapore's physical activity guidelines, revised in 2022, recommend at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week for adults, and count every vigorous minute as about two moderate ones.

What is the difference between total and net calories burned?

Total, or gross, calories include what you would have burned anyway at rest, and net calories leave it out. Because 1 MET is the resting rate, net calories take off 1 MET, worked out here as the total minus the resting burn so the two always add up.

Walking at 3.8 METs for 30 minutes at 70 kg is 133 kcal in total, but you would have burned about 35 kcal sitting still instead, so the walk added 98 kcal. Net is the fairer number when you compare a workout with doing nothing, and the gap matters most for light activities, where resting is a bigger share of the total.

How many calories does walking to the MRT burn?

A 70 kg adult walking 30 minutes to the MRT at a moderate pace burns about 133 kcal, 98 kcal of it above resting. Here is the sum, using the Compendium's code 17190 for level walking at 4.5 to 5.5 km/h on a firm surface.

One way is 28% of a plate of steamed chicken rice, which HPB's SG FoodID lists at 475 kcal. The walk also counts toward HPB's activity target: at 3.8 METs it counts as moderate intensity, so 30 minutes each way on five working days is 300 minutes, the top of HPB's 150 to 300 minute range.

How many calories does walking burn?

About 81 to 298 kcal per 30 minutes at 70 kg, depending on speed. The Compendium's walking codes run from 2.3 METs for a stroll under 3.2 km/h to 8.5 METs at 8.0 to 8.9 km/h, all on level, firm ground.

Speed matters: going from a moderate pace to a brisk one raises the MET value from 3.8 to 4.8, so the same 30 minutes burns about 35 kcal more at 70 kg.

Hills and stairs cost more. Climbing stairs at a general pace is 6.8 METs in the Compendium, so 238 kcal per 30 minutes at 70 kg, and that is what the stairs of an HDB block count as. For a hike with climbs, pick a hiking entry in the calculator rather than a walking speed.

How many calories do 10,000 steps burn?

About 390 kcal for a 70 kg adult walking at 4.8 km/h, a walk of about 88 minutes and 7.0 km. At a brisk 5.6 km/h the same 10,000 steps take about 82 minutes and burn about 461 kcal, because faster walking costs more per minute.

The steps mode needs two assumptions, and both have a source. How many steps you take a minute comes from the CADENCE-Adults study (Tudor-Locke and colleagues, 2019), which counted the steps of 76 adults aged 21 to 40 at each treadmill speed: 113.6 steps a minute on average at 4.8 km/h.

Your step count divided by that gives the minutes. The MET value for that speed comes from the Compendium. The study's adults averaged 170.7 cm, and taller people take longer strides, so they cover the distance in fewer steps.

These figures assume one continuous walk at a steady pace. Steps gathered in short bursts around the flat or the office are often slower than that, and at the slow pace in the table above, 10,000 steps burn 331 kcal at 70 kg rather than 390. If steps are your main lever for fat loss, ideas for adding them around the estate are in losing weight without a gym.

How many calories does running burn?

About 298 to 518 kcal per 30 minutes at 70 kg, from 8 to 16 km/h, or about 63 to 74 kcal for each km. The Compendium's running codes rise from 6.5 METs at 6.4 km/h to 23.0 METs at 22.5 km/h, and jogging at your own pace is 7.5 METs.

A 5 km run at 10 km/h, 6:00 per km, takes 30 minutes and burns about 326 kcal at 70 kg. A 10 km run at the same pace burns about 651 kcal.

Per km, speed matters far less than you might think. A faster runner burns more each minute but spends fewer minutes on each km, so in the table below every km costs between 0.9 and 1.1 kcal per kg of body weight.

So the same 5 km at an easy 8 km/h burns about 372 kcal against 326 kcal at 10 km/h: the slower run takes longer, so it ends up costing a little more, not less. Distance and body weight set most of a run's calories.

The Compendium lists running at set speeds. Where your speed falls between two of them, this page and the calculator use the slower one, so the figure leans low: 12 km/h, for example, takes the 11.0 METs listed for 11.3 km/h.

Switch the calculator to distance, enter your run's km and minutes, and it finds the speed and the code for you. To plan the pace itself, use the running pace calculator.

How many calories does cycling burn?

About 140 to 420 kcal per 30 minutes at 70 kg, from an easy ride to a racing pace. The Compendium's cycling codes rise from 4.0 METs for leisure or commuting under 16.1 km/h, such as an easy park connector ride, to 12.0 METs at 25.7 to 30.6 km/h. A spin class is 9.0 METs and a stationary bike at a general effort 6.8 METs.

Speed is only a guide to effort. If a hill or a headwind made the ride feel harder than its speed suggests, pick the higher effort level. In distance mode, the calculator works out your average speed from the km and minutes of a ride and picks the matching cycling code.

How many calories does swimming burn?

About 168 to 483 kcal per 30 minutes at 70 kg, depending on the stroke and how hard you swim. In the Compendium's water activities, relaxed backstroke is 4.8 METs, recreational breaststroke 5.3 and slow freestyle laps 5.8. Swum hard, the same strokes run from 9.5 to 10.3 METs, and butterfly is 13.8.

So 30 minutes of easy breaststroke at an ActiveSG pool is about 186 kcal at 70 kg, and 30 minutes of fast freestyle laps about 343 kcal. Rest at the wall counts as rest: time only the minutes you were swimming.

Which activities burn the most calories in 30 minutes?

Faster running, vigorous HIIT, fast freestyle, a competitive badminton match and a spin class top the list, all at 9 METs or more. Running at 9.7 to 10.1 km/h (about 6:11 to 5:56 per km) is 9.3 METs, about 326 kcal per 30 minutes at 70 kg.

Social badminton at 5.5 METs is about 193 kcal, and a competitive match at 9.0 METs about 315 kcal. The table gives 30 minutes at three body weights, sorted from the highest MET value. To set a running pace, use the running pace calculator.

The full lists are on the Compendium's pages for running, conditioning exercise, sports, dancing and home activities. In this formula, calories rise in direct proportion to body weight: at 80 kg, every figure is a third higher than at 60 kg.

How accurate are calories burned calculators and fitness watches?

Both are estimates. The Compendium's authors say its values are a starting point that does not reflect a person's precise energy use: resting metabolism varies with age, sex, height, weight and body composition, and one study they cite found women with obesity used about 8 to 15% more energy than women without it at the same treadmill speeds.

They describe a corrected MET that adjusts for your own resting rate from age, sex, height and weight, which this calculator does not apply. Fitness, technique and terrain change the real burn too, and no table can see those.

Watches are no more exact. In a study of seven wrist-worn devices (Shcherbina and colleagues, 2017), 60 adults wore them while their energy use was measured by indirect calorimetry. Heart rate was mostly accurate, but no device estimated energy expenditure with an error below 20%, and errors were highest for walking. Use either number to compare one week with the next, not as an exact count.

Should you eat back the calories you burn?

Not one for one, because the number is an estimate and part of it you would have burned anyway. The total includes your resting burn, so eating it back counts that part twice: use the above-resting figure if you add anything. And if you set your activity level in the calorie calculator, your usual workouts are already inside your TDEE, so adding them on top counts them twice as well.

The safer test is your scale and your waist over two to three weeks. If you are eating to a target and losing nothing, eaten-back exercise calories are one of the usual suspects in why you are not losing weight.

Who should not rely on these numbers?

1. 01Adults 60 and overThe 2024 Adult Compendium covers ages 19 to 59. Older adults have lower resting energy use, so the Compendium team built a separate Older Adult Compendium for them, and these figures may not fit you.
2. 02Under 19Children and teens have their own Youth Compendium, and this calculator does not apply to them.
3. 03Pregnancy and medical conditionsThe Compendium is not meant for pregnant women or people with conditions that change energy use, such as heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Ask your doctor what activity suits you.
4. 04Hills, sand and stairsThe walking and running speeds are for level, firm ground. Pick a hiking or stair entry for climbs, or expect the real burn to be higher.
5. 05Anyone using the number to decide what to eatIt is an average estimate, not a measurement. Let two to three weeks of weighing tell you whether your intake is right.

Where does a personal trainer fit in?

A session's calories are one part of fat loss, alongside what you eat and how much you move the rest of the day. What training adds is muscle kept while you lose fat, and a plan you stick to.

Fit Titans matches you with a freelance coach who trains you at home, in your condo gym, at a park or at a Gym Pod. How coached fat loss works is on our weight loss page.

Read next

Long sessions in the heat cost water too. The water intake calculator adds a sweat top-up to your daily figure.

For what a daily step count does for your health beyond calories, see is 10,000 steps a day enough.