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Exercise MET Value Calculator

Calculate calories burned from an activity's MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) value, body weight, and duration.

Result

Calories Burned
441 kcal

Formula: kcal/min = (MET × 3.5 × body weight in kg) / 200. One MET represents your resting energy expenditure, so an activity with a MET of 8 burns roughly 8 times as much energy as sitting quietly - this is the same underlying calculation many activity-based calorie calculators use, just made explicit here with the MET value as a direct input.

About the MET Calculator

The Exercise MET Value Calculator converts an activity's Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) value, along with your body weight and workout duration, into an estimated calorie burn. It is built for anyone who knows or looks up a specific MET value for an activity and wants to translate that into a concrete kcal figure for their own body weight and session length.

How It Works

You enter a MET value, your body weight in kilograms, and the duration of the activity in minutes. The calculator uses the standard MET-based energy expenditure formula to compute calories burned per minute, then multiplies by the number of minutes to get total calories burned for the session.

Calories burned = (MET x 3.5 x body weight in kg / 200) x duration in minutes

Formula & Methodology

The core rate is calories per minute, calculated as MET multiplied by 3.5 (an approximation of resting oxygen consumption in mL/kg/min) multiplied by body weight in kilograms, all divided by 200 (a conversion constant relating oxygen consumption to kilocalories). That per-minute rate is then multiplied by the total session duration in minutes to produce the final total calorie figure.

Examples

Moderate cycling session

A 70 kg person cycling at a MET value of 8 for 45 minutes burns (8 x 3.5 x 70 / 200) x 45 = 12.25 x 45 = 551 kcal, matching the calculator's default inputs.

Brisk walking session

The same 70 kg person walking at a MET value of 3.5 for 30 minutes burns (3.5 x 3.5 x 70 / 200) x 30 = 4.2875 x 30 = 129 kcal, showing how a lower MET activity produces a proportionally smaller calorie estimate.

Advantages

  • Uses a widely recognized, research-based formula rather than a proprietary or activity-specific estimate.
  • Lets you plug in a MET value for any activity, not just a fixed list, making it flexible for activities not covered by preset calorie calculators.
  • Scales cleanly with both body weight and duration, so the same MET value produces appropriately different results for different people and session lengths.

Common Mistakes

  • Entering body weight in pounds instead of the required kilograms, which significantly overstates the calorie result.
  • Using a MET value that does not match the actual intensity of the activity performed, since even small MET differences directly scale the final calorie figure.
  • Forgetting that MET values represent an average intensity for a named activity category, so a highly variable-intensity workout may not be well represented by a single fixed MET number.

Edge Cases to Watch For

  • The formula has no built-in cap or floor, so an unusually high MET value or long duration will scale the calorie output linearly without any plausibility check.
  • Because one MET is defined as roughly your resting energy expenditure, entering a MET value below 1 (which is not physiologically typical for an active task) would still compute without any warning.
  • The calculation depends entirely on selecting an accurate MET value for the specific activity performed, and different sources sometimes list slightly different MET values for the same named activity.
  • Body weight is required in kilograms; entering a value already in pounds would inflate the calorie estimate by roughly a factor of 2.2.

Common Use Cases

  • People using a MET value from an external reference, such as the Compendium of Physical Activities, to estimate calorie burn for a specific activity.
  • Anyone comparing calorie burn across different activities by holding body weight and duration constant and only changing the MET value.
  • Fitness trackers or coaches who want a transparent, formula-based calorie estimate rather than a black-box app calculation.
Written & fact-checked by the Calculateus TeamLast updated August 5, 2026How we verify our formulas

Frequently asked questions

Where do standard MET values for different activities come from?

They're derived from the Compendium of Physical Activities, a research-maintained reference database that assigns MET values to hundreds of specific activities based on measured oxygen consumption during those activities - it's the standard reference researchers and fitness apps draw from when estimating calorie burn for a named activity.

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Conclusion

The Exercise MET Value Calculator applies the standard MET-based energy expenditure formula to your body weight and session duration to produce a straightforward calorie estimate. Its accuracy depends on selecting a MET value that genuinely matches the activity's intensity, since the entire output scales linearly from that single input.

References