# how many calories do your steps burn? · Angel Step > Steps to calories and calories to steps, from your weight, height and pace — plus why your watch shows a smaller number than a calculator. Canonical: https://angelstep.app/steps-to-calories Language: en Updated: 2026-09-30 Whole site in one file: https://angelstep.app/llms-full.txt This file is the markdown twin of the page at the canonical address above: the same words, without markup. Cite the canonical address, not this file. --- For a 70 kg adult of average height, 10,000 steps at an everyday pace come to about 245 kcal above resting — or 368 kcal in total, if you count what the body would have burned anyway. Those are two different numbers for the same walk, and knowing which one you are looking at explains most of the arguments people have with their watch. Angel StepCute Pedometer, Daily StepsFree · In-App Purchases · iPhone Scan with your iPhone camera ### Steps to calories, by weight Large figure: energy above resting — the number a watch calls active energy. Small figure: total energy, which is what most calculators on the web give you. Everyday pace, height 170 cm. Calories burned by steps and body weight, at an everyday walking pace | weight | 1,000 | 2,000 | 5,000 | 7,000 | 10,000 | 15,000 | 20,000 | | 55 kg · 121 lb | 19 · 29 gross | 39 · 58 gross | 96 · 144 gross | 135 · 202 gross | 193 · 289 gross | 289 · 433 gross | 385 · 578 gross | | 70 kg · 154 lb | 25 · 37 gross | 49 · 74 gross | 123 · 184 gross | 172 · 257 gross | 245 · 368 gross | 368 · 551 gross | 490 · 735 gross | | 85 kg · 187 lb | 30 · 45 gross | 60 · 89 gross | 149 · 223 gross | 208 · 312 gross | 298 · 446 gross | 446 · 669 gross | 595 · 893 gross | | 100 kg · 220 lb | 35 · 53 gross | 70 · 105 gross | 175 · 263 gross | 245 · 368 gross | 350 · 525 gross | 525 · 788 gross | 700 · 1050 gross | Worked out with the MET method and the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities; the formula and its sources are below. ### Work it out for yourself Your own weight, height and pace. Height matters because it sets the length of a step, and the length of a step sets how fast you are actually going. 70 kg · 154 lb 170 cm · 5′7″ 245 kcal 368 kcal in total, including resting ### How many steps burn 100, 300, 500 or 1000 calories? The same arithmetic read backwards, counting energy above resting. These numbers are larger than most people expect, and that is the honest part of them. Steps needed to burn a given number of calories above resting | to burn | 55 kg | 70 kg | 85 kg | 100 kg | | 100 kcal | 5,195 | 4,082 | 3,361 | 2,857 | | 300 kcal | 15,584 | 12,245 | 10,084 | 8,571 | | 500 kcal | 25,974 | 20,408 | 16,807 | 14,286 | | 1000 kcal | 51,948 | 40,816 | 33,613 | 28,571 | ### Why your watch shows a smaller number The standard formula is kcal per minute = MET × 3.5 × weight in kg ÷ 200. One MET is what your body uses sitting still, so that formula includes resting energy — it answers how much did this hour of my life cost. An Apple Watch Move ring, and the activeEnergyBurned value that Apple Health keeps, answer a different question: how much did I spend above sitting still. Subtract one MET and you convert one into the other. At a moderate pace the total figure is about 1.36 times the active one — which is exactly the size of the gap people notice between a calculator they found and the ring on their wrist. Neither is wrong. They are answers to two different questions, and almost no calculator says which one it is giving you. ### What the pace does 10,000 steps at 70 kg and 170 cm, by pace | pace | speed | MET | time | kcal | | stroll · 80/min | 2.1 mph · 3.4 km/h | 2.8 · code 17152 | 125 min | 276 · 429 gross | | everyday walk · 100/min | 2.6 mph · 4.2 km/h | 3 · code 17170 | 100 min | 245 · 368 gross | | brisk · 130/min | 3.4 mph · 5.5 km/h | 3.8 · code 17190 | 77 min | 264 · 358 gross | Two things in that table surprise people. First, walking briskly does not multiply the calories of a fixed number of steps — it mostly saves time. Second, a stroll can cost slightly more total energy than a brisk walk over the same steps: very slow walking is less economical, and the extra minutes outweigh the lower rate. The MET values come from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, and the activity codes are printed in the table so you can check them: 17152 for a slow pace, 17170 for 2.5 mph, 17190 for a moderate pace, 17200 for brisk walking for exercise. ### Why weight matters more than anything else Body weight enters the formula as a straight multiplier, and it dominates. In a study of 224 adults, weight alone accounted for around 60 % of the variation in the energy cost of walking, with a correlation of 0.775 against calories per mile. A 100 kg adult burns about 1.43 times what a 70 kg adult burns over the same walk. Which is why a calculator that asks only for steps cannot be right for you. It has to pick someone, and that someone is usually a 70 kg adult. ### Does a hill change it? More than pace does. The ACSM walking equation adds a term for grade: VO₂ = 0.1 × speed + 1.8 × speed × grade + 3.5, with speed in meters per minute. A 5 % incline at a moderate pace raises the cost of walking by roughly a third. Stairs are steeper still, which is why the same number of steps up a hill and along a street are not the same walk at all. ### How accurate is any of this? Calories are the weakest number in fitness tracking, and it is worth saying plainly. Heart rate on a modern smartwatch is well validated — errors of about 4 to 5 % against a clinical ECG. Energy is not: in a Stanford comparison of seven wearables, the error in energy expenditure never fell below 20 % for any device tested. A formula does worse still, because it knows only your weight, your pace and the clock. It cannot see your fitness, your gait, the wind, the bag you are carrying or the hill. Use these numbers as a scale, not as a measurement. ### What Angel Step shows The quiet line under the number in Angel Step is an estimate of 0.04 kcal per step, which is close to the total figure for a 75 kg adult and deliberately cautious. The app asks Apple Health only for your steps, so it doesn't see the active energy your iPhone or Apple Watch measured — unless Health already shares that figure with it, in which case the measured one is shown instead. That follows the same rule as the step count itself: one number, from one source. The full explanation of where the number comes from is on why your step counts don't match, and the distances behind the same steps are on how far is that many steps. ### One trap worth knowing A step is one foot landing. A stride is a full cycle — two steps. Plenty of pages use one word for the other and still count single steps, but a full stride entered where one step is expected doubles every distance worked out from it. Everything on this page counts single steps, and the step length used is 0.413 × your height — an approximation rather than a measurement of your step. Nothing here is medical advice, and none of it is a target. It is arithmetic about walking. Updated 30 September 2026 a cautious number, from the steps your phone counted. Angel Step works out calories from your steps, unless Apple Health already shares a measured figure.