Calories Burned API

About the Calories Burned API

A calories burned API built on the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference list of energy costs used in physical activity research. Each of its 1,100+ activities carries a MET value (a multiple of resting energy use) and a five-digit code; the API searches them by everyday names and synonyms such as biking, weightlifting or jump rope, scales the MET by body weight and duration, and returns calories per hour and for the session.

Every plan gets the search, weight in kilograms or pounds, duration, the MET value and Compendium code, the light, moderate or vigorous intensity class and a reverse mode that answers how many minutes an activity takes to burn a calorie target. Paid plans add personalised results: pass age, sex and height to estimate resting metabolic rate with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, or pass a measured RMR, and the API applies the Compendium's corrected MET method alongside the standard value. Paid plans also return up to 25 matches per search.

Source: Herrmann SD, Willis EA, Ainsworth BE, Barreira TV, Hastert M, Kracht CL, Schuna JM Jr, Cai Z, Quan M, Tudor-Locke C, Whitt-Glover MC, Jacobs DR Jr. 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: A third update of the energy costs of human activities. Journal of Sport and Health Science 2024;13(1):6-12, and the Compendium website, https://pacompendium.com. MET values are used exactly as published.

How it works

Activities and MET values come from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities (Herrmann SD, Willis EA, Ainsworth BE, et al. 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: A third update of the energy costs of human activities. J Sport Health Sci. 2024;13(1):6-12; https://pacompendium.com). The Compendium is free for commercial use with citation. A monthly collector copies its activity tables into our storage; MET values are stored and returned exactly as published.

Calories per minute are met x 3.5 x weightKg / 200: one MET is 3.5 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute and a litre of oxygen releases about 5 kcal. caloriesPerHour and totalCalories are rounded to whole kcal. intensity classifies the standard MET with the Physical Activity Guidelines bands: light under 3, moderate 3 to 5.9, vigorous 6 and above, with 1.5 or below reported as sedentary.

With age, sex and height (all three) the API estimates resting metabolic rate with Mifflin-St Jeor (10 x kg + 6.25 x cm - 5 x age, plus 5 for men or minus 161 for women); rmr replaces the estimate with a measured value. That rate is converted to ml O2/kg/min and correctedMet = met x 3.5 / RMR, the Compendium's corrected MET method; calories then use the corrected value. minutesToBurn is calories divided by calories per minute. Search ranks activities that contain every word of the query (after synonyms such as biking to bicycling), preferring general and non-competitive entries, and falls back to partial matches.

What people use it for

Workout Logging Apps

Fitness apps turn a logged activity and duration into calories burned, showing the MET and intensity class so users see why a session counted the way it did.

Calorie Goal Planning

Nutrition coaches use the reverse mode to tell clients how many minutes of walking, cycling or swimming offset a snack or meal.

Corporate Wellness Challenges

Step and activity challenges convert mixed activities, from yard work to basketball, into one comparable calorie or MET-minute total.

Wearable and Health Platforms

Device makers fill in activities their sensors cannot classify with Compendium-based estimates personalised to the wearer's age, sex, height and weight.

Ways to call it

One endpoint, many ways in — REST with JSON, XML, YAML and CSV, plus GraphQL and an MCP interface for AI agents.

JSON

Default REST response

XML

Markup format

YAML

Human-readable

CSV

Tabular export

Beta

GraphQL

Query language

New

MCP

For AI agents

Request parameters — GET /v1/caloriesburned

Sent in the query string. Premium parameters are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them. Anything not listed here is dropped rather than passed through.

Optional

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curl "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/caloriesburned?activity=running&code=12150&weight=70&unit=metric&duration=30&calories=300&age=35&sex=female&height=170&rmr=1500&limit=10" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Authentication

Send your key in the x-api-key header. That is the only auth step — no token exchange, and no per-endpoint scope to configure.

Response — GET /v1/caloriesburned

Every APIVerve endpoint returns the same three top-level keys, so one response handler covers your whole integration: status, error and data. Only data changes shape.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "query": "running",
    "count": 5,
    "totalMatches": 73,
    "weightKg": 70,
    "durationMinutes": 30,
    "targetCalories": null,
    "personalized": false,
    "rmrKcalPerDay": null,
    "activities": [
      {
        "code": "12145",
        "activity": "Running, self-selected pace",
        "heading": "Running",
        "met": 10.5,
        "correctedMet": null,
        "intensity": "vigorous",
        "caloriesPerHour": 772,
        "durationMinutes": 30,
        "totalCalories": 386,
        "minutesToBurn": null
      },
      {
        "code": "12140",
        "activity": "Running, cross country",
        "heading": "Running",
        "met": 9.3,
        "correctedMet": null,
        "intensity": "vigorous",
        "caloriesPerHour": 684,
        "durationMinutes": 30,
        "totalCalories": 342,
        "minutesToBurn": null
      },
      {
        "code": "12170",
        "activity": "Running, stairs, up",
        "heading": "Running",
        "met": 15,
        "correctedMet": null,
        "intensity": "vigorous",
        "caloriesPerHour": 1103,
        "durationMinutes": 30,
        "totalCalories": 551,
        "minutesToBurn": null
      },
      {
        "code": "12150",
        "activity": "Running (Taylor Code 200)",
        "heading": "Running",
        "met": 8,
        "correctedMet": null,
        "intensity": "vigorous",
        "caloriesPerHour": 588,
        "durationMinutes": 30,
        "totalCalories": 294,
        "minutesToBurn": null
      },
      {
        "code": "12180",
        "activity": "Running, on a track, team practice",
        "heading": "Running",
        "met": 10,
        "correctedMet": null,
        "intensity": "vigorous",
        "caloriesPerHour": 735,
        "durationMinutes": 30,
        "totalCalories": 368,
        "minutesToBurn": null
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Response headers

Every response carries your balance, so your own code always knows where it stands without polling anything. All four are exposed to browsers through CORS.

Errors

Read the HTTP status first, then error for the specific reason. The body names the parameter that has to change.

What a call costs — 1 credits per call

Credits are shared across every APIVerve API — one balance, one key, one bill. Failed requests never count against it, so a rejected input costs nothing.

Calls are what the credits buy at this API's rate — spend them here, on any of the other APIs, or across both. Nothing is reserved per endpoint.

Zero-code embed — one snippet, no backend

Drop an interactive Calories Burned form onto any page. The widget calls the API for you, so no key ever appears in your markup and there is nothing to deploy.

Changelog — Calories Burned API

Every change to this endpoint, newest first. Breaking changes ship as a new version and the previous one keeps serving — response fields are added, never removed or retyped in place, so an integration written against v1 keeps working.

Currently v1