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Daily Step Goal Calculator

Enter your weight, calorie target and stride to find your daily step goal.

How it is calculated

Calories burned per step are kcal/step = 0.0005 × weight, with weight in kilograms: moderate walking at about 100 steps a minute is about 3 METs (Tudor-Locke et al., CADENCE-adults, 2019) and 1 MET is 1 kcal per kg per hour (Compendium of Physical Activities), so 6,000 steps cost 3 kcal per kg. The steps needed are steps = target / (kcal/step), where target is the calories you want to burn by walking. Distance is steps × stride / 100 / 1000 kilometres, with stride in centimetres; the stride does not change the step count. All three inputs must be above zero. The factor is a gross figure (it includes the resting metabolism you burn anyway), and pace, slopes, carried loads and fitness change the real cost, so treat the output as an estimate.

Worked example

You weigh 70 kg, want to burn 300 kcal by walking and your stride is 70 cm. Energy per step: 0.0005 × 70 = 0.0350 kcal. Steps: 300 / 0.035 = 8,571. Distance: 8,571 × 0.70 m = 6,000 m, shown as 6.00 km. With a 78 cm stride the step count stays 8,571 and the distance becomes 6.69 km. Someone weighing 85 kg aiming for the same 300 kcal needs 300 / (0.0005 × 85) = about 7,059 steps.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Entering weight in pounds: the field is in kilograms, so 154 lb is about 70.
  • Typing stride in metres or inches: it must be in centimetres, and a typical value is far below 100.
  • Using total daily calorie needs as the target: the target should be only the extra calories you want from walking.
  • Treating the step goal as exact: pace, terrain and body composition change real calorie burn, and the formula is a fixed approximation.
  • Counting steps from a tracker with a different stride setting than the one you entered: the step goal is the same, but the distance the two show will disagree.

Sources

About this calculator

This calculator estimates how many daily steps you need to burn a target number of calories by first converting your body weight into calories burned per step and then dividing your calorie goal by that per-step figure. It uses 0.0005 kcal per kilogram of body weight per step, the same factor as the calorie-burn-from-steps calculator: moderate walking at about 100 steps a minute costs about 3 METs (the CADENCE-adults study) and 1 MET is about 1 kcal per kg per hour, so an hour of 6,000 steps burns about 3 kcal per kg. This is the gross cost, resting metabolism included. Your stride length only turns the steps into a distance; no source supports scaling the energy of a step by stride, so it does not change the step count.

It's a practical planning tool for anyone whose calorie target is more meaningful than an arbitrary step count — people on a calorie-deficit weight loss plan, fitness tracker users customizing goals beyond the generic “10,000 steps” default, and physical therapists setting a gradual activity target for a patient use it to translate a nutrition or calorie-burn goal into a concrete, trackable number of steps that accounts for their actual weight and stride rather than a one-size-fits-all figure.

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  • Editorial team

    The step count here depends only on your weight and calorie target, so it is worth deciding what that target means before trusting it. For a 70 kg person, 300 kcal gives 8,571 steps, while 500 kcal gives 14,286 steps and 10.00 km at a 70 cm stride. Because the factor is a gross figure that includes resting burn, set the target as the extra energy you want from walking. Does your tracker's step count run higher or lower than the distance shown here?

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