Estimate what a session cost you — either from the activity and how long it lasted, or from your average heart rate if you wore a monitor.
Estimates are for general guidance only and are not medical advice. For a personalised plan, book a free guided tour at RPM Gym.
The figure is the energy cost of the session, not the amount of fat you lost. Fat loss follows the whole day's balance, and a single session is a small part of it.
Which method you pick matters. The activity method scales with body weight and time only, so two people of the same weight doing the same session get the same number regardless of fitness. The heart-rate method responds to how hard you actually worked, which is why it is worth using when you have the data.
Activity: kcal = (MET × 3.5 × weight kg) ÷ 200 × minutes Heart rate: kcal/min = (−55.0969 + 0.6309·HR + 0.1988·kg + 0.2017·age) ÷ 4.184 [men] kcal/min = (−20.4022 + 0.4472·HR − 0.1263·kg + 0.0740·age) ÷ 4.184 [women]
A 75 kg person doing 30 minutes of HIIT at moderate intensity (MET 10.0).
About 394 kcal for the 30-minute session, a rate of roughly 788 kcal per hour.
Treat them as a rough band, not a figure. MET-based estimates commonly differ from measured expenditure by 20-30% for the same activity, because they can't see your technique, fitness or effort. They are most useful for comparing one session with another.
A metabolic equivalent: the energy cost of sitting quietly, defined as 3.5 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute. An activity at 10 METs costs roughly ten times as much energy per minute as sitting still.
Not automatically. Cardio machines use the same style of population estimate, and many don't know your body weight unless you enter it. Where the machine doesn't have your weight, this calculator has more to work with, not less.
Because it is measuring something different. The activity method reads your weight and the clock; the heart-rate method reads how hard your cardiovascular system was working. They disagree most when your effort was unusual for that activity, in either direction.
The activity method gives a reasonable ballpark. The heart-rate method doesn't suit lifting. Heart rate spikes during a set and drops between sets, which the equation reads as sustained aerobic work and overestimates.
Usually not. If your daily calorie target already assumed you train, eating the session back counts it twice. Add training calories back only if you set your target from a sedentary baseline.
Training you can repeat every week is what the coaching floor is set up for. Book a free guided tour at RPM Gym in Al Manhal.