Free tool
Daily calorie calculator
Work out roughly how many calories your body burns in a day, and what that means if you want to lose weight, gain weight, or stay where you are. It also shows what a half hour, 45 minutes or a full hour on a treadmill, bike, rower or cross trainer burns at your body weight.
Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us, saved, or shared.
What your body burns keeping you alive, before you move at all.
Eat around this and your weight should hold steady.
If you stick to the target above most days.
What a session on the equipment burns
Worked out at 80 kg, at a steady moderate effort. Fill in the form above and these become your figures. Shown in calories.
| Machine | 30 min | 45 min | 1 hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| TreadmillBrisk walk, 5.6 to 6.3 km/h | 202 | 302 | 403 |
| RowerModerate, 100 to 149 watts | 315 | 473 | 630 |
| Exercise bikeModerate, 90 to 100 watts | 252 | 378 | 504 |
| Cross trainerModerate effort | 210 | 315 | 420 |
| Home gymWeights, multiple exercises, 8 to 15 reps | 147 | 221 | 294 |
Weights burn less during the session itself than steady cardio does, and the table is honest about that. What it cannot show is what happens afterwards: muscle you build is muscle your body has to feed, which lifts the at-rest figure above. The two are not really in competition.
Every number here is an estimate. Two people of the same age, height and weight can burn a few hundred calories a day apart, so treat this as a starting point and adjust from what actually happens over a few weeks.
How the numbers are worked out
The calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which is the one dietitians reach for most often. It estimates your basal metabolic rate, the energy your body uses simply staying alive, from your age, height, weight and sex. That figure is then multiplied by an activity factor to give what you actually burn across a whole day.
The activity factors run from 1.2 for a desk job with little exercise, up to 1.9 for someone with a physical job or training twice a day. Most people pick one too high. If you get to the gym three times a week but sit down for the rest of it, you are moderately active, not very active.
The calorie figures for each machine come from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference set researchers use. They are calculated at your body weight, which is why a heavier person burns more for the same session.
What it cannot tell you
This is a general estimate, not medical advice. Two people with identical numbers on paper can burn several hundred calories a day apart, so treat the result as a starting point and adjust it based on what actually happens over a few weeks.
If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, under 18, managing a health condition, or taking anything that affects your appetite or weight, these figures will not apply properly to you. That is a conversation worth having with your GP or an Accredited Practising Dietitian before you change how you eat.
The calculator will not show a target below 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men. Lower intakes than that are sometimes appropriate, but only with a clinician supervising.
Ready to put the numbers to work?
We hire out treadmills, exercise bikes, rowers, cross trainers and home gyms across Brisbane and the Gold Coast. We deliver, we set it up in the room you want it, and you pay on delivery.