TDEE Calculator
Total Daily Energy Expenditure is every calorie you burn in a day. It is the number every other calorie target is built from.
Most people pick one level too high. A desk job plus three gym sessions is moderately active, not very active.
Your TDEE
2,610 cal/day
BMR 1,684 cal × activity 1.55
Cut: lose fat
2,088
20% deficit, about 0.75 lb a week
Maintain
2,610
Weight holds steady
Bulk: build muscle
2,871
10% surplus, lean gain
What your TDEE is made of
Your daily burn comes from four places. Knowing the split is useful, because the part most people try to change is not the part with the most room in it.
| Component | Share | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| BMR | 60 to 70% | Breathing, circulation, brain activity, tissue repair. The cost of staying alive. |
| NEAT | 15 to 30% | Walking, standing, fidgeting, housework. Everything you do that is not deliberate exercise. |
| TEF | About 10% | Digesting and absorbing food. Protein costs the most to process, carbs less, fat least. |
| Exercise | 5 to 10% | Your actual workouts. Smaller than almost everyone assumes. |
The surprise for most people is the bottom two rows. An hour in the gym might buy you 300 to 500 calories, while the gap between a sedentary day and an active one can be 600 or more. NEAT is also the component that quietly falls when you start dieting: you sit more, move less, take the elevator. That drift is a real part of why weight loss slows down.
How TDEE is calculated
This calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, published in 1990 and still the most accurate of the common formulas. It predicts resting metabolic rate more closely than the older Harris-Benedict equation it replaced, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends it for healthy adults.
Men: BMR = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age + 5
Women: BMR = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age − 161
TDEE = BMR × activity multiplier
The equation is the dependable half. The activity multiplier is where the error creeps in, because it compresses your commute, your job, your training and your weekend into a single number between 1.2 and 1.9. Treat the result as a starting estimate you test, not a fact about your body.
Choosing your activity level honestly
| Level | Multiplier | What it actually looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 1.2 | Desk job, no structured exercise, under 5,000 steps a day |
| Lightly active | 1.375 | Desk job plus 1 to 3 workouts, or 7,000 to 9,000 steps |
| Moderately active | 1.55 | 3 to 5 real training sessions a week. Where most gym-goers land. |
| Very active | 1.725 | 6 or 7 hard sessions, or an active job plus training |
| Extremely active | 1.9 | Manual labor plus daily training, or an athlete in season |
If you are genuinely unsure, pick the lower of the two levels you are choosing between. An underestimate shows up as faster progress than expected, which is easy to correct. An overestimate shows up as no progress at all, which people usually blame on their metabolism.
Example TDEE by age and activity
These figures come from the same equation the calculator uses, worked out for two common builds. They are a sanity check, not a substitute for your own numbers.
Man, 5'9", 175 lb
| Age | BMR | Sedentary | Light | Moderate | Very active |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 1,793 | 2,150 | 2,470 | 2,780 | 3,090 |
| 30 | 1,743 | 2,090 | 2,400 | 2,700 | 3,010 |
| 40 | 1,693 | 2,030 | 2,330 | 2,620 | 2,920 |
| 50 | 1,643 | 1,970 | 2,260 | 2,550 | 2,830 |
| 60 | 1,593 | 1,910 | 2,190 | 2,470 | 2,750 |
Woman, 5'4", 145 lb
| Age | BMR | Sedentary | Light | Moderate | Very active |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 1,416 | 1,700 | 1,950 | 2,190 | 2,440 |
| 30 | 1,366 | 1,640 | 1,880 | 2,120 | 2,360 |
| 40 | 1,316 | 1,580 | 1,810 | 2,040 | 2,270 |
| 50 | 1,266 | 1,520 | 1,740 | 1,960 | 2,180 |
| 60 | 1,216 | 1,460 | 1,670 | 1,880 | 2,100 |
Notice how little the age rows move: about 50 calories per decade at the same weight. Most of the slowdown people blame on age comes from losing muscle and moving less, not from age itself.
What to do with the number
Losing fat
Take 15 to 25% off. Keep protein high so the weight you lose is fat rather than muscle. Expect roughly 0.5 to 1% of body weight per week.
Building muscle
Add 10 to 15%. Bigger surpluses add fat rather than muscle, because muscle has a speed limit that extra food cannot raise.
Maintaining
Eat at your TDEE. This matters most right after a diet: holding a new weight for a few months makes it far more likely to stay.
Then test it
Weigh daily, average each week, compare after 14 days. Adjust by 150 to 200 calories if the trend is not what you wanted.
Find your real TDEE in two weeks
Any equation gives you an estimate. Two weeks of data gives you your actual number, and it is worth more than every calculator on the internet put together.
Eat at your calculated TDEE for 14 days. Track everything, including oils, drinks and the bites you take while cooking. Those are where most of the untracked calories hide.
Weigh yourself every morning after using the bathroom, before eating or drinking. Daily weight swings 2 to 4 lb on water alone, so single readings tell you nothing.
Average week one and compare it to week two. Averages cancel out the noise that makes day-to-day readings so frustrating.
Do the math. Steady weight means the calculator was right. Lost a pound a week? Your real TDEE is about 500 calories higher than you ate. Gained a pound? About 500 lower.
Why your real number might be different
Body composition. The equation only knows height, weight, age and sex. Two people at 180 lb can differ by 200 calories a day if one carries much more muscle. If you know your body fat percentage, the Katch-McArdle equation on our BMR calculator will fit you better.
A long diet behind you. After months of restriction, expenditure sits below what your size predicts. Part is less muscle, part is reduced NEAT, part is genuine hormonal adaptation. It recovers when you eat at maintenance for a while.
Thyroid function. An underactive thyroid lowers resting expenditure. If you are also cold all the time, tired, or losing hair, that is worth a blood test rather than a smaller calorie target.
Plain variation. Even after accounting for everything measurable, people of the same size can differ by 100 to 200 calories a day. That is normal, and it is exactly why the two-week test beats any estimate.