Amit's data tools
BurnLab

Calories burned,
from the actual source

574 activities with 1,109 measured intensity levels, straight from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities — the research dataset the calculator sites quietly use. Free, no signup.

Activities574each with its own page
Intensity levels1,109measured MET values
Source2024Adult Compendium

The hardest things in the Compendium

Ranked by MET — the energy cost relative to sitting still.

Why the numbers here differ from your watch

Every calorie figure on this site comes from one place: the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, a research dataset that assigns each of 1,100+ activities a measured MET value — the ratio of its energy cost to sitting quietly. Multiply by body mass and time and you have an estimate that is transparent and reproducible.

Wearables use heart rate and proprietary models instead, which is why two devices on the same wrist disagree. Neither approach is "the truth": a MET-based figure is a population average, and your own metabolism, technique and fitness move the real number around. What this site gives you is the published reference figure, the equation used, and the full range so you can see how wide the uncertainty actually is.

One family of free data tools