- Choose an activity: The list carries a MET (metabolic equivalent) value for each activity — 1 MET is your resting energy use, so a 4-MET activity burns about four times as much. Values are the recreational/typical estimates from the 2024 Adult Compendium; pickleball is a careful estimate because it has no official Compendium code yet.
- Enter body weight in kilograms: Calorie burn scales directly with body weight. Dry weight (post-dialysis weight) is preferred for hemodialysis patients.
- Enter duration in minutes: How long you actually kept moving — count only active time, not rest breaks.
- Read the intensity tier: Light is under 3 METs, moderate is 3–6, vigorous is above 6. The weekly target of 150 minutes is built on moderate activity; vigorous minutes count double, and light activity is healthy but does not fill the moderate quota.
- Track your week: Run the tool for each session and add up the "counts-toward-target" minutes across the week, aiming for 150. Start low and build over weeks, not days.
When to Use
Use this tool to turn any activity — a barangay-court shootaround, a senior-center Zumba class, sweeping the house, or a walk to the market — into two useful numbers: roughly how many calories it burned, and how much it counts toward the 150-minute weekly target recommended in the KDIGO 2024 CKD guideline. It works for anyone with CKD, including patients on hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, or after a transplant.
Appropriate population
Adults with CKD across stages G1–G5, non-dialysis and dialysis-dependent, who have physician clearance to exercise. The calorie estimate assumes steady effort at the listed MET value; real-world burn varies with fitness, terrain, and heat.
Screen before vigorous activity
The vigorous-tier activities (full-court basketball, competitive badminton, Zumba at full tempo) are for cardiac-cleared, higher-functioning non-dialysis patients only. Get clearance first if you have uncontrolled blood pressure, a recent cardiac event, a new dialysis access, or a recent very high potassium result. Stop for chest pain, severe breathlessness, dizziness, or access bleeding.
Pearls & Pitfalls
Vigorous minutes count double toward the target
The 150-minute weekly goal is expressed in moderate-intensity minutes. Because vigorous activity does roughly twice the work per minute, 75 vigorous minutes satisfy the same target — so the tool credits every vigorous minute as two moderate-equivalent minutes.
"Hidden" activity still counts
Household chores, gardening, and walking errands sit in the light-to-moderate range. For a less mobile patient, stacking several of these across a day is a legitimate and realistic way to build activity minutes without a gym or a court.
Heat inflates perceived effort
In the Philippine midday heat, the same activity feels harder and stresses the kidneys more. The MET value doesn't change, but the safe move is to shift outdoor activity to sunrise or early evening and sip water to your fluid limit — the tool measures work done, not the heat risk around it.
Pickleball is an estimate, not a fixed figure
Pickleball has no official code in the 2024 Compendium, so its MET value here is a careful estimate from published metabolic-measurement studies. Treat its calorie and tier output as an approximation rather than a guideline number.
Why Use It
Guideline advice — "aim for 150 minutes of moderate activity a week" — is easy to say and hard to picture. Patients rarely know whether badminton doubles or sweeping the house "counts," or how a 40-minute walk stacks up against a 20-minute Zumba class. Putting a MET value on each activity makes the target concrete: it converts a real thing you did into minutes toward the goal.
The MET (metabolic equivalent) framework comes from decades of indirect-calorimetry measurement, catalogued in the Compendium of Physical Activities and refreshed in its 2024 adult update. Anchoring the calorie estimate to body weight and duration, and the tier to the standard light/moderate/vigorous cutoffs (below 3, 3–6, above 6 METs), lets a patient and their physical therapist select activities that fit their CKD stage — and see progress accumulate week by week.
Physical Activity Calculator — Calories, Intensity Tier & Weekly-Target Credit
Enter an activity, your body weight, and the minutes you were active. The tool returns the calories burned, the intensity tier, and how many moderate-equivalent minutes the session adds toward the weekly 150-minute goal.
⚕ Calories = MET × 3.5 × weight (kg) ÷ 200 × minutes. Tier cutoffs: light <3 MET, moderate 3–6 MET, vigorous >6 MET. Target credit: light = 0, moderate = 1× minutes, vigorous = 2× minutes toward the KDIGO 150-minute/week moderate goal. Estimates only — actual energy cost varies with fitness, terrain, and heat. Get physician clearance before vigorous activity in CKD stage 4–5 or on dialysis.
Next Steps
Use the numbers to build a realistic week — not to chase a single big session.
- Spread activity across most days rather than one long effort; short bouts add up toward the 150-minute total.
- Pair aerobic minutes with two strength sessions a week (bands or bodyweight) to fight muscle loss — strength work is not captured by the aerobic target.
- Match the tier to your CKD stage and dialysis status using the full guide's weekly-plan table before adding vigorous activity.
- Bring your weekly minutes to your nephrologist or physical therapist so exercise is prescribed and progressed like any other therapy.
Evidence & References
Formula & Tiers
| Step | Calculation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Calories | MET × 3.5 × weight (kg) ÷ 200 × minutes | Standard MET-to-kcal conversion (1 MET ≈ 3.5 mL O₂/kg/min; ~5 kcal per litre O₂). A population estimate, not a measured value. |
| 2. Intensity tier | Light <3 · Moderate 3–6 · Vigorous >6 MET | Standard absolute-intensity cutoffs used with the Compendium. |
| 3. Target credit | Light 0 · Moderate ×1 · Vigorous ×2 | The 150-minute weekly goal is moderate-intensity minutes; vigorous minutes count double (75 vigorous = 150 moderate). |
| Activity | MET (typical) | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Walking, leisurely | 2.0 | Light |
| Household chores (sweep/mop) | 2.5 | Light |
| Tai chi | 3.0 | Moderate |
| Calisthenics / bands, light–mod | 3.5 | Moderate |
| Gardening, moderate | 3.8 | Moderate |
| Cycling, leisure | 4.0 | Moderate |
| Walking, brisk | 4.3 | Moderate |
| Pickleball, rec. doubles* | 4.8 | Moderate |
| Basketball, half-court · Swimming, slow | 5.0 | Moderate |
| Badminton, social doubles | 5.5 | Moderate |
| Badminton, competitive | 7.0 | Vigorous |
| Zumba / aerobic dance | 7.3 | Vigorous |
| Basketball, full-court | 8.0 | Vigorous |
*Pickleball has no official 2024 Compendium code; the value is a careful estimate from metabolic-measurement studies, not a fixed guideline figure.
Evidence & References
The Compendium of Physical Activities assigns measured MET values to hundreds of activities and is the standard reference for estimating the energy cost of self-reported activity; its 2024 adult update replaced many older estimates with directly measured values. The 150-minute weekly moderate-activity target for people with CKD is a Level 1, Grade A recommendation of the KDIGO 2024 CKD guideline.
- Herrmann SD, Willis EA, Ainsworth BE, et al. 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. J Sport Health Sci. 2024;13(1):6–12.
- KDIGO 2024 Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of CKD. Kidney Int. 2024;105(4S):S117–S314.
