Steps to calories

How it’s calculated

With the same math as the Evzia app, in two steps:

1. The kilometers: your steps times the length of each step, estimated from your height: about 0.414 times how tall you are (at 170 cm, about 70 cm). It’s an average: real step length varies from person to person and with how fast you walk.
2. The calories: 0.5 kcal for every kilo of body weight and every kilometer. It comes from the ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) walking equation: walking on flat ground takes 0.1 ml of oxygen per kilo and meter, and each liter of oxygen is about 5 kcal.

Kilometers = steps × 0.414 × height (cm) ÷ 100,000
Net calories = 0.5 × weight (kg) × kilometers

These are net calories: only what you burn on top by walking. What you’d burn in that time without moving is already in your maintenance (your resting burn and everyday life in the maintenance calculator), so it isn’t counted twice.

The equation is for walking on flat ground at a normal pace, about 3 to 6 km/h. Per kilometer, it doesn’t matter whether you go faster or slower: what changes is how many kilometers you cover in the same time. Hills, stairs and carrying weight burn more; so does running.

A worked example

To get it right

• Use your average steps over a normal week: a single day can mislead.
• Keep your phone on you: if it stays on the table, those steps don’t count.
• If you walk on a treadmill with your phone or watch, those steps are already in your daily count: don’t also add that session with the treadmill calculator.
• Hills, stairs and carrying weight (groceries, a backpack) burn more than this calculation says, since it’s for flat ground.
• For what you burn in a whole day, with your steps included, use the maintenance calculator.

Frequently asked questions

How many calories is 10,000 steps?

It depends on your weight and height: the more you weigh, the more each kilometer takes, and the taller you are, the longer each step. For example, about 341 net kcal (7.6 km) for a man who is 183 cm and 90 kg, and about 176 (6.4 km) for a woman who is 155 cm and 55 kg.

How many steps are in a kilometer?

With a step of 0.414 times your height, about 1,560 if you’re 155 cm, about 1,420 at 170 cm and about 1,310 at 185 cm. To find yours, count your steps over a distance you know: real step length varies from person to person and with how fast you go.

What if I run?

Your phone counts running steps too, but this calculation treats them as walking, so it comes up short: when you run, each step is longer and, according to the ACSM, each kilometer on flat ground takes twice as much as walking (1 kcal per kilo and kilometer instead of 0.5). If you run on a treadmill, use the treadmill calculator, which has an equation for running.

Why does my watch give a different number?

Every device has its own formulas, and some also count what you’d burn without moving. If your watch separates active and total calories, the ones that compare with these are the active ones: net, without your resting burn.

Do I need 10,000 steps a day?

It’s not a magic number: there’s little evidence you need to hit it exactly. In an analysis of 15 studies with more than 47,000 adults, the risk of death from any cause kept going down with more steps, up to about 6,000 to 8,000 a day for people over 60 and about 8,000 to 10,000 for people under 60 (Paluch et al., 2022): below those numbers, every step counts. Another analysis, from 2025, found that about 7,000 steps a day is already linked with clearly better health than 2,000 (Ding et al., 2025).