NEAT calculator

There is no fitness-tracker black box, no third-party nutrition API, and no hidden adjustments.

What NEAT measures and how steps become kilocalories

The product is reported as neat_kcal for the day covered by the step count, with an equivalent neat_kj for SI workflows.

How to call the API and read the response fields

Send two required inputs and one optional refinement. Zero is allowed and yields zero NEAT; negative counts are rejected. Convert pounds to kilograms in your client before calling if that is what you store. When omitted, the engine uses zero point seven eight meters, a common adult default; when provided it must be finite and positive. The first required field is steps: a finite non-negative number representing the step count for the day or period you care about. Aliases such as step_count, daily_steps, n_steps, and count map to the same field so existing forms can wire in without renaming. The second required field is weight_kg: a finite positive body mass in kilograms. Aliases include weight, body_weight, mass_kg, and body_weight_kg so existing onboarding forms can reuse their mass field without renaming. The optional field is stride_m: average step length in meters. Aliases include stride, stride_length, step_length, and step_length_m. Missing steps or weight, non-finite values, negative steps, or non-positive weight or stride fail with invalid_input and are not charged. A successful response returns the cleaned steps, weight_kg, stride_m applied, distance_m and distance_km, the walk_kcal_per_kg_km coefficient, neat_kcal, neat_kj, a short formula string, and the unit label kcal/day. There is no network hop, model call, or randomness, so latency stays in the pure edge-parse band and free browser checks match the paid API byte for byte. Use the distance fields when you want to show users how step goals translate into kilometres before calories, and use neat_kcal when stacking NEAT under a basal rate for a rough daily budget.

Where step-based NEAT estimates fit in real workflows

Nutrition coaching apps often already store weight from onboarding and pull daily steps from a wearable or phone; this capability turns those two fields into an explicit NEAT line item so clients see why a ten-thousand-step day moves the needle without inventing a gym session. Research coordinators can batch-apply the same stride default and walking cost coefficient across cohort step logs so secondary analyses share one definition of locomotion energy rather than ad-hoc spreadsheet factors. Employer wellness portals and insurance education tools can show members how increasing average daily steps at a fixed weight changes estimated non-exercise burn without re-asking height or age. Clinical dietitians document the stride and coefficient used in a care plan so the NEAT assumption is transparent when the case is reviewed months later. Developers embed this call in CRON jobs and webhooks so every microservice multiplies with the same constants instead of re-hardcoding floating factors that disagree on rounding. The browser path is free for single checks: enter ten thousand steps and seventy kilograms, leave stride at the default, and confirm neat_kcal equals distance times mass times zero point five seven. The API path costs $0.002 per successful request and is billed per item, which keeps bulk onboarding and nightly sync scripts inexpensive while still covering edge execution. Because results are deterministic, audit logs can store the full JSON and re-run it years later without drift, which matters when regulators or internal reviewers ask how a calorie target was justified from steps alone.