Burn It Off Calculator
Type the calories in a food, or pick the item from one of 78 restaurant menus, then enter your weight. The calculator shows how many minutes of walking, running or cycling it takes to burn that food off, and how many steps it takes to lose a set amount of body fat.
Calories to burn off
500calories
About 12,500 steps of walking
Steps to lose 1.0 kg of fat
Minutes use kcal per minute = MET x 3.5 x kg / 200 with walking 3.5, running 9.8 and cycling 6.8 MET. Steps assume 0.04 calories a step at 70 kg, scaled by your weight, and 7,700 calories in a kg of body fat. Food and other activity during those days are not counted.
How the numbers are worked out
Each activity has a MET value, a multiple of the energy you spend sitting still, taken from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities. Walking at 3 mph is 3.5 MET, running at 6 mph is 9.8 MET and moderate cycling is 6.8 MET. Calories burned per minute are MET × 3.5 × body weight in kg ÷ 200. The minutes shown are the food's calories divided by that rate.
The steps block rests on two assumptions. A 70 kg person burns about 0.04 calories a step, and the calculator scales that by your weight divided by 70, so a 90 kg person burns about 0.051. A kilogram of body fat holds about 7,700 calories. Steps to lose X kg are X × 7,700 divided by your calories per step. That counts the steps alone, as if the rest of your eating and moving stayed at maintenance.
Three worked examples
A Big Mac has 580 calories on the McDonald's US menu. A 70 kg person burns 4.29 calories a minute walking at 3 mph, so the Big Mac takes 135 minutes of walking, 48 minutes of running at 6 mph or 70 minutes of moderate cycling.
A grande Caramel Frappuccino with whole milk and whipped cream has 380 calories at Starbucks. For someone who weighs 85 kg, that is 73 minutes of walking, 26 minutes of running or 38 minutes on the bike.
To lose 1 kg of fat at 70 kg you need about 192,500 steps, close to 20 days at 10,000 steps a day. At 90 kg the same kilogram takes about 149,700 steps, because a heavier body spends more on each step.
What the numbers leave out
MET values are averages. Fitness, terrain, wind and effort all move the real burn, so a fitness watch will often show a different figure. The minutes count your whole burn, including what you would spend sitting still, which makes the true extra burn a little lower. Use the result to compare foods and activities, and treat it as a rough guide for planning.
Where NutriScan fits
Most people do not know the calories in what they just ate, and that is the number this calculator starts from. NutriScan reads it from a photo of your meal and logs the calories, protein, carbs and fat to your day, so the walk or the ride gets measured against a real figure instead of a guess. The app has 150k+ downloads and a 4.6 star rating.