Losing weight is about more than simply finding a healthy diet and sticking to lower calorie intake. Indeed, those people who wish to lose weight at a steady and quick clip need to pair restricted calorie intake with the right amount of caloric output. There is virtually no better way to burn calories than to engage in regular cardio exercise, and most health professionals agree that those people looking to lose weight and get back in shape should dedicate at least half an hour of their time, five days per week, to either running, biking, swimming, or walking.

While this is a good guideline, it still doesn’t’ account for just how many calories are burned during any given exercise. Indeed, this number depends on the conditions of the ground where exercise took place, the duration of the workout itself, the type of workout, and the person’s bodyweight and overall speed. These key components are the best, and generally only, way to calculate the effectiveness of an exercise. Luckily, a calculator can showcase the effectiveness of an exercise by using all of these attributes to display the number of calories burned by an individual during their most recent workout.

Overweight individuals looking to lose weight do have one thing which might be ironically construed as an “advantage” when endeavoring to burn calories: People with higher body weight actually burn more calories in the same period of time than those who have a healthy body weight or who have been exercising more consistently over longer periods of time.

This is why a good calorie burned calculator will absolutely request a user’s body weight before outputting the number calories burned by their exercise. It might sound invasive at first, but supplying the calculator with body weight information is the best way to determine the overall effectiveness of the exercise.

All cardio workouts are not created equally, and those users who are able to run, bike, swim, or walk faster, will find that they are also able to burn more calories in the same amount of time than their slower counterparts. This is the number one area where most dieters and exercisers focus their efforts, as incremental improvement in the speed of an exercise promotes not only more burned calories each time an exercise is completed, but also contributes to a more significant and long-lasting boost of the person’s metabolism. The calorie burned calculator takes this into consideration when determining its output, and users will be rewarded for running just a bit faster each time.

The grade of the workout is not, as some people might think, an arbitrary evaluation of how well a person perfumed during their jog. Indeed, the calorie burned calculator asks for the grade in terms of overall elevation, as completing cardio on an uphill climb is far more effective at working the muscles and burning calories than a workout done either on a flat piece of land or on a downhill grade. Any calorie burned calculator should allow for this information to be entered, as the terrain on which a workout was executed is key to determining its effectiveness.

Running is more effective than biking, and swimming is more effective than running. The type of workout done specifically determines how many calories were burned, as does the duration of the workout itself. Remember that half an hour is a great place to start, but increasing the longevity of the workout will decrease the longevity of the initial weightless period. The calorie burned calculator will make this plainly obvious as the workout’s duration increases over time.

Despite common wisdom, there really is comfort in numbers. Using a calorie calculator is a great way to show the hundreds of calories burned through a simple workout, and those numbers will directly lead to a feeling of accomplishment and progress. Always know the numbers associated with weight loss, both calories in and calories out, and the process will be far more effective and rewarding than it would be with mere estimations and loose guidelines.