Calories and energy data types

The Google Health API provides data types that track a user's calories and energy expenditure. These types measure different aspects of energy burn, including total expenditure, active burn, and resting (basal) metabolic rates.

Understand the differences between these data types to determine which metrics suit your application.

Supported data types

The API supports the following data types for measuring calories and energy expenditure:

Table: Google Health API calories data types

Data type   dataType   filter parameter	Record type	Available operations	Scope	Webhook support	True zeros support
Active Energy Burned   active-energy-burned   active_energy_burned	Interval	list, reconcile, rollup, dailyRollup	activity_and_fitness
Total Calories   total-calories   total_calories	Interval	rollup, dailyRollup	activity_and_fitness

The following sections provide technical details for each data type, including REST representation examples and specific integration constraints.

Total Calories

Total Calories is a read-only derived data type that tracks all energy expended by a user, including basal metabolism and active energy, measured in kilocalories (kcal). The value is calculated from active energy expenditure and the user's basal metabolic rate.

Queries for the total-calories data type must include a time interval filter (such as total_calories.interval.start_time or total_calories.interval.civil_start_time). The maximum range for these queries is 14 days.

Query example

To query the total-calories data type, send a request to the list endpoint with an interval filter:

Request

GET https://health.googleapis.com/v4/users/me/dataTypes/total-calories/dataPoints?filter=total_calories.interval.start_time >= "2026-04-20T00:00:00Z" AND total_calories.interval.start_time < "2026-04-21T00:00:00Z"
Authorization: Bearer access-token
Accept: application/json

Active Energy Burned

Active Energy Burned represents the energy burned by the user during periods of activity, excluding their basal energy expenditure, measured in kilocalories (kcal).

REST representation example

{
  "startTime": "2026-04-20T08:00:00Z",
  "startUtcOffset": "0s",
  "endTime": "2026-04-20T08:30:00Z",
  "endUtcOffset": "0s",
  "dataSource": { ... },
  "kcal": 150.0
}

Guidelines

When integrating calories and energy metrics in your app, use these guidelines:

• Daily overview: To show the overall daily calorie expenditure, request the daily rollup of the total-calories data type.
• Activity-only expenditure: To track calories burned during a specific workout or throughout the day exclusive of resting metabolic rate, query active-energy-burned.