The word “calorie” may bring up thoughts of nutrition labels and treadmill readouts, but really calories are just units of energy. Your car runs on gas, your house runs on electricity, and your body runs on food energy. So how many calories do we burn each day, and how many should you burn? Let’s dig in.

You actually burn most of your calories at rest

Calories aren’t only burned during exercise. It takes energy to keep the lights on, so to speak—for your heart to beat, your brain to think, your cells to repair themselves, and more. 

In fact, most of our calories are burned doing these maintenance chores. Scientists call this baseline calorie burn our “basal metabolic rate,” or BMR. There are several equations that will estimate your BMR; for a calculator, try the one at tdeecalculator.net. (It uses the Mifflin-St. Jeor formula if you don’t know your body fat percentage, and the Katch-McArdle formula if you do.)

To give you an example, I plugged in my stats—I’m 150 pounds and 5’6”—and the equation guesses that someone my size burns: 

• 1,352 calories for most of my basic bodily functions (not including digestion!)

• 1,623 calories, total, if I’m sedentary

• 2,096 calories, total, if I do moderate exercise three to five times a week

• 2,569 calories, total, if I’m a hardcore athlete or a person who exercises on top of having a physical job

Keep in mind these are just estimates; your actual calorie burn may be more or less. (From tracking my calories over the years, I know that I’m usually somewhere between those last two numbers, depending on how active I am.) The factors that affect your total calorie burn include: 

• Body size: The bigger you are, the more calories you burn at baseline and the more you burn during exercise.

• Muscle mass: Muscle burns more calories than other tissues, which is why you get a more accurate estimate if you know your body fat percentage; the lower your body fat, the more muscle you have by comparison.

• Age: These formulas assume that your metabolism slows down a bit as you age (although there is evidence that this may not make a big difference).

• Activity: The more you exercise, the more calories you burn.

• Genetics and other factors not accounted for in the formula: There’s actually a huge variety from person to person, even if you compare people of the same size, age, etc. We’re all different.

To give you a sense of the range, the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans calculates calorie counts for two example people, who are both a bit smaller than average Americans, but let’s take a look anyway. The document figures that a 5’10” man who weighs 154 pounds will burn, in total, between 2,000 and 3,000 calories each day, depending on his age and activity level. Their example woman is 5’4” and 126 pounds, and she will burn between 1,600 and 2,400 calories. 

So if you’re used to thinking of 2,000 calories as some kind of upper limit for how much to eat—or 1,200 calories as a calorie budget for dieting—you may be surprised to realize how many calories you probably already burn.

How (and why) to burn more calories

If you’re trying to lose weight, logic would say that you should focus more on diet than exercise. After all, if most of your calorie burn is your BMR, exercise is going to be a drop in the bucket by comparison. 

I don’t think that’s the only thing you should consider, though. If your BMR is 1,300 calories and your total burn is 1,600, then sure, you could eat 1,300 calories without exercising and probably lose weight. But it’s hard to be healthy while you’re eating so little. 

Burning more calories through exercise helps your body in two ways: 

1. Exercise is good for us, regardless of calorie burn; we should all be getting at least 150 minutes of cardio per week, plus some strength training to help build or retain muscle.

2. The more food you eat, the easier it is to fit in the good stuff: vitamins, minerals, fiber, good fats, and a variety of vegetables.

A person who burns 2,300 calories and eats 2,000 is in a much better position to benefit from exercise and good nutrition than a person who burns 1,600 and eats 1,300. 

So how do you burn more calories? You can’t get younger, and if you’re losing weight you won’t want to get bigger. The biggest levers you can pull are: 

• Exercise more

• Gain muscle mass (through strength training, and eating plenty of protein)

• Don’t diet all the time

I’ve written before about how I’ve noticed my total calorie burn increases when I’m eating more food; when you feed your body, it’s more willing to expend energy. This is one of the reasons it’s thought to be beneficial to take “diet breaks” if you plan to be in a weight-loss phase for a long time.

Why you shouldn’t rely on “calorie burn” numbers from wearables or exercise machines

You’re probably wondering how much exercise is “enough” to burn more calories. It’s a trick question, though: You want to change what kind of person you are—stop being sedentary and become a frequent exerciser—rather than nickel-and-dime yourself about exactly what numbers you burned in which workout.

This is because our bodies get more efficient with exercise over time. A half-hour jog might burn 300 calories in theory, but at the end of the day you may have only burned, say, 200 more than if you hadn’t jogged. You might end up feeling more tired later in the day, or you might just be getting better at running and burning fewer calories when you do it. (This is an ongoing area of scientific research.) 

There is evidence that exercise machines’ estimates of calorie burn are extremely inaccurate; wearables like Fitbits and Apple Watches are probably a bit better, being personalized to your exercise intensity, but they’re still ultimately relying on estimates that aren’t always accurate.

It’s no secret that Google, like most big tech companies, has gone all-in on AI. The company believes it is the future, and, as such, has injected the technology into every one of its products, none more visibly than Google Search. Over the past two years, Google has introduced AI summaries that seek to answer your questions, pulling the information from websites that fewer and fewer users are actually visiting and reading for themselves.

Given this trend, it should hardly come as a surprise that during I/O 2026, Google announced “a new era for AI Search.” This “era” essentially marks an expansion of its investment in AI in Search: In addition to rolling out its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model to Search, Google is making it even easier to use its AI-generated results (or, perhaps, harder to avoid them). You can now expand an AI Overview to continue the conversation in AI Mode, and keep receiving answers without engaging with any primary sources yourself. Google will also soon offer select users access to Search “agents,” which can take actions on your behalf on the web.

Google’s goal is to make Search synonymous with AI, which will no doubt please Google’s investors, but will also alienate some users. Many of still search Google seeking good results for our queries, and not AI-generated summaries and chats. Personally, I’m not interested in “continuing the conversation” with Google’s AI: I want to find relevant websites to read and explore. As such, I went looking for Google Search alternatives that either don’t use AI, or let you disable all AI features entirely. Here are five of your best options.

Kagi

Kagi is a favorite among tech fans who want more control over their search experience. It includes perks like ad-free search and a high level of customization, but the real benefit for this discussion concerns its AI features: Kagi has them, and you can use them if you want to, but you can also avoid them entirely—and even use the browser to fight back against AI results on the web.

By default, Kagi keeps its AI “Quick Answer” setting behind a keyboard shortcut. If you want to use it, you’ll need to enter a question mark at the end of your query. If you don’t use question marks, you’ll never see Kagi’s version of AI Overviews, but you can also disable the feature entirely from Kagi’s settings. That way, even if you ask Kagi a more formal question, you’ll get the usual website links—not an AI-generated answer. Kagi also includes an option (appropriately called SlopStop) to block certain results that the search engine believes are AI-generated. That applies to both image and video results, too.

Kagi not only allows you to return to a simpler time of endless blue links and zero AI-generated answers, but it actively works to block any known AI content from entering your feed. The only downside is that Kagi isn’t free: With other search engines, you pay for your use by being shown ads, but with Kagi, you pay with actual money. Your first 100 searches are free, and paid plans start at $5 per month.

Startpage

Startpage’s shtick is all about user privacy. According to the company, this search engine removes your personally identifying information each time you search. Rather than sending your request from you directly, Startpage will anonymously send the query to its search providers on your behalf and return the results to you without sharing your data. The search engine doesn’t save your search history, and its measures should prevent your searches from being tracked across sites.

These privacy perks aside, Starpage has few AI features to worry about. By default, you shouldn’t have to deal with them at all on the web app, but you can check under settings for any that may appear—Startpage says it has an optional Summary feature that uses AI to generate result synopses, but I don’t even have the option in my Startpage settings. (Summary appears to be separate from Startpage’s Instant Answer feature, which doesn’t seem to use AI, but which can also be turned off in settings.) It’s a similar story on mobile: If you’re using the iOS app, the company says it offers optional AI features, but I don’t see them in my settings there either. The company also offers a private AI app called Vanish, but that’s unrelated to its search engine.

Startpage isn’t as feature-filled as other search engines, but that might be to its benefit. In my experience, it offers a standard search experience out of the box, without much (if any) AI.

Qwant

Qwant, as far as I can tell, has only one AI feature to speak of, called Flash Answer. Like other search engine, this feature uses AI to offer a summary of whatever it is you’re asking about. Luckily, if you’re looking to use a search engine free of AI, it’s quite easy to disable.

The first time you use Qwant—at least, in my experience—Flash Answer will appear if Qwant’s AI deems it appropriate. You’ll see the option at the top of the search results window, complete with stars that denote its AI abilities. Click “Flash Answer,” then choose “Deactivated,” rather than “Activated by Qwant” (the default), or “Always activated.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you can strip away the option itself, so you’ll always have to stare at the “Flash Answer” button, but at least you can quickly scroll down to view your straightforward links.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo has long been a go-to option for users looking for a privacy-focused search engine. However, in recent years, the company has taken a bit of a headfirst approach to AI, adding new features and chatbot integrations to keep up with the rest of the industry. If you use DuckDuckGo’s defaults, you’ll indeed see “Search Assist,” its version of AI Overviews, and you’ll be invited to try Duck.ai, the company’s original chatbot. Fortunately, like other entries on this list, you can disable these options for the most part, and keep the focus on the links.

In DuckDuckGo’s search engine, click the three lines to find the site’s Settings. Here, choose “AI Features,” where you’ll see all of DuckDuckGo’s AI options. Disable Duck.ai, then set Search Assist to “Never.” Finally, you can choose to hide AI-generated images, if you really want a search engine experience devoid of AI.

Ecosia

Ecosia has long been the choice for eco-conscious web surfers. The company uses its ad revenue to plant trees all over the world, which makes for an engaging pitch: If you’re not going to use Google anyway, perhaps you should use a search engine that makes the world a better (or at least greener) place.

While Ecosia’s main mission hasn’t changed, it has added new AI features to the mix. Notably, there are now Overviews, which are Ecosia’s AI-generated summaries, as well as AI Chat, which uses models from OpenAI to run. While Overviews are enabled by default, you can disable them at any time from Ecosia’s settings (which you’ll find at the bottom of any given search results). However, Ecosia doesn’t let you disable its AI Chat button, even if you aren’t using the feature. That might not be a dealbreaker for you, since the feature isn’t engaged unless you click the button, but it’s a bit disappointing that Ecosia forces you to look at an invitation to use AI Chat every time you search.