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
Basal Energy Burned
  basal-energy-burned
  basal_energy_burned 		Interval list, reconcile activity_and_fitness
Basal Metabolic Rate
  basal-metabolic-rate
  basal_metabolic_rate 		Sample list, reconcile nutrition

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.

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
}

Basal Energy Burned

Basal Energy Burned represents the calories burned due to the user's resting metabolism over intervals of time, measured in kilocalories (kcal).

Note: Rollup and daily rollup operations are not available for this data type. To obtain daily basal energy values, use the Basal Metabolic Rate data type.

Basal Metabolic Rate

Basal Metabolic Rate measures the energy expended by a body at a normal, resting state, measured in kilocalories per day (kcal/day). Because this rate fluctuates with physical updates (such as weight) over time, the API records BMR as a time series of rate samples.

Developers can treat the rateKcalPerDay field in a basal-metabolic-rate sample as the daily counterpart to a daily rollup of basal energy burned.

REST representation example

{
  "date": {
    "year": 2026,
    "month": 4,
    "day": 20
  },
  "dataSource": { ... },
  "rateKcalPerDay": 1650.0
}

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.
  • Basal metrics: To track resting metabolic rate or basal metabolic trends, query basal-metabolic-rate for BMR values. Treat BMR samples as a daily baseline for the user's resting energy consumption.
Previous
Data types index