Activity Recognition Calculator

Active calories are calculated from your estimated MET value (derived from walking cadence and step length), body weight, and active minutes -- total step count is never multiplied into that formula. Step count only feeds the separately reported distance figure, so logging more steps at the same pace and duration changes your distance, not your calorie estimate.

Only near this calculator's shipped defaults. Resting metabolism uses the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, which multiplies height in centimeters by 6.25 and weight in kilograms by 10 -- close to the default 70kg/170cm point, an equal-sized nudge to height outpaces one to weight in how much it shifts the total. But weight both carries the larger raw coefficient and spans a much wider allowed range (20-250 kg vs. 100-250 cm), so across this calculator's full input ranges, weight actually moves total daily calories more than height does -- the height-dominant pattern only holds close to the defaults, not everywhere.

The Tanaka formula (208 minus 0.7 times age) comes from Tanaka, Monahan, and Seals' 2001 meta-analysis in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, which pooled data from hundreds of studies to update the older 220-minus-age rule of thumb. Even so, it's a population-average estimate with a real spread across individuals -- actual measured HRmax for two people of the same age can easily differ by 10 to 15 beats per minute depending on genetics and training history. A supervised maximal exercise test administered by a sports physiologist gives a far more accurate number for setting training zones than any age-based formula, including this one, can provide.

No. Distance equals your step count multiplied by an estimated step length based on height only -- cadence never enters that formula. Cadence instead determines your estimated speed, which feeds into the MET value used for calories, so cadence and distance are independent calculations here even though both derive from the same height-based step length.

The Karvonen method sets each zone boundary as resting heart rate plus a percentage of your heart-rate reserve (estimated max minus resting rate). A lower resting heart rate increases that reserve, so the same percentage represents a larger number of beats added on top of a lower starting point, pushing every zone boundary upward relative to a higher resting heart rate at the same fitness level.