Walking calories calculator

How does the walking calories calculator work?

It uses METs, short for metabolic equivalents: how many times more energy an activity takes than sitting quietly. One MET is 3.5 ml of oxygen per kilogram of body weight a minute. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities lists measured MET values for 1,114 activities, and the Compendium’s own conversion turns METs into calories:

Calories a minute = METs × 3.5 × body weight (kg) ÷ 200

Multiply by your minutes and you have the total. For the net figure, what the walk added over sitting still, the calculator takes 1 MET off first. The walking values, all for level ground on a firm surface, from the Compendium’s walking list:

What does a worked example look like?

A 160 lb (72.6 kg) person walks briskly, 3.5–3.9 mph, for 30 minutes. Brisk walking is 4.8 METs:

1. 4.8 × 3.5 × 72.6 ÷ 200 = 6.1 calories a minute.
2. × 30 minutes = about 185 calories in total.
3. Net of rest: 3.8 × 3.5 × 72.6 ÷ 200 × 30 = about 145 calories more than sitting still.

How many calories does a 30-minute walk burn?

How accurate is a walking calorie estimate?

It’s an average, so expect your own number to differ. The main reasons:

• Age. The 2024 Adult Compendium is built from adults 19 to 59. For people 60 and over, the Older Adult Compendium uses a lower resting baseline, 2.7 ml/kg/min instead of 3.5, because resting energy is lower.
• Your resting rate. The formula assumes everyone burns 3.5 ml/kg/min at rest. Yours depends on your body, which is why the Compendium also publishes corrected METs and says plainly that it wasn’t built to find the precise energy cost of an activity for one person.
• Hills and surfaces. These values are for level, firm ground. Uphill walking is listed separately and costs far more: 5.3 METs up a 1–5% grade at a moderate-to-brisk pace.
• Pace bands. Each pace covers a range of speeds, so a walk at the edge of a band is over- or under-counted a little.

For your own walks, a watch that measures your heart rate during the walk gives a number specific to you, though it’s an estimate too.

How does Coachh count your walks?

Not with this formula. Coachh does this for you every day by reading your walks from Apple Health, whether your Apple Watch, the Coachh app on your Watch, your iPhone or another app recorded them, so the calories come from the device that was there. Walking counts as active recovery: it’s recognized and celebrated, and it never counts as training load or fatigue. Step goals start from what you already walk instead of a fixed 10,000. The honest limit: on Android, which arrives in November 2026, walks come in through Health Connect, and without a watch or phone recording the walk there’s nothing to read. Our guide to walking for fitness covers steps, pace and after-meal walks.