Calories burned in badminton, futsal and other popular sports in Malaysia

The table shows one hour of play for two body weights. Each sport links to its own page, with easy and hard effort, 30-minute values and more body weights.

Racket sports with long breaks between rallies, such as table tennis and doubles, burn less per hour than sports where you run most of the time, such as futsal and squash.

Most estimates use METs from the Compendium of Physical Activities. A MET is the ratio of your working metabolic rate to your resting metabolic rate. One MET is defined as 1 kcal per kg of body weight per hour, roughly the energy cost of sitting quietly.

So an activity of 5.5 METs uses about 5.5 times the energy of sitting still. To turn METs into calories, multiply the MET value by your body weight in kg and by the hours you play.

Our calories burned pages and the Nibbs app take one more step. They subtract 1 MET, because your body burns that much even when you rest, and your daily calorie needs already count it. The result is the extra calories the sport adds:

The Compendium lists separate rows for casual and competitive play. The gap is large, so pick the one that matches how you play.

A friendly doubles game after work is closer to the social row. A league match where you chase every shuttle is closer to the match play row, at 9.0 METs instead of 5.5.

The Compendium has no row for sepak takraw or pickleball. The Nibbs app estimates them from the closest sports in the Compendium, volleyball for sepak takraw and tennis for pickleball.

It helps to see the numbers next to the food you eat after the game. These are for a 70 kg person playing for one hour.

The drink after the game counts too. A Milo ais adds 230 kcal and a teh tarik adds 130 kcal, against the 476 kcal you burned in an hour of futsal.

None of this means you should earn your food. Sport is good for you whatever you eat. The point is to keep your estimates honest, so your weekly totals make sense.

It depends on how your calorie target was set. A target based on TDEE already includes an activity level. If you chose your activity level from how often you exercise, your usual games are already in the target. Adding every session on top counts them twice.

If you play more than usual, for example a weekend tournament, eating some of it back is reasonable. Our guide to TDEE explains how activity levels work, and Nibbs works out a target for you when you set up your plan.

Remember that MET values are averages for adults aged 19 to 59. Your own burn depends on your fitness, your skill and how hard you play.

Nibbs has a library of more than 1,200 exercises with calorie estimates, including badminton, futsal, football and sepak takraw. Pick the sport, enter how long you played and choose the effort. Nibbs shows the estimated calories, and you can edit them before you save.

On iPhone, Nibbs can sync with Apple Health. Your calorie and macro targets come from your TDEE, and your food log sits next to your exercise, so you see the whole day in one place.