Whenever people talk about diets and food, eventually the word "calorie" comes up. But do you know what a calorie is?

A calorie is a unit of energy, or more specifically, the amount of energy need to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. Most people think of calories in terms of food, but they apply to anything containing energy. For example, a gallon of gasoline has about 31,000,000 calories - and these are calories you definitely don't want to eat.

However, the calories listed on food packages are not simply calories - they are actually kilocalories (1,000 calories = 1 kilocalorie = 1 food calorie). A can of soda that has 80 food calories actually has 80,000 regular calories, or 80 kilocalories.

The same definition applies to physical activity -- when you read an article that says you burn about 100 calories for every mile you jog, it means 100 kilocalories.

For the purposes of this calculator, "calorie" means "kilocalorie."

Find out how many calories you burn doing your favorite activities. Enter your weight, then enter the number of minutes you do each different activity, click on "Calculate" at the bottom of the form for your personal report.