TDEE Calculator
Work out your total daily energy expenditure and see exactly where the calories go.
Your details
Moderate exercise 3–5 days a week
This is an estimate from a published formula, not medical advice. Individual results vary widely. Talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before making changes to your diet, training or medication.
This estimates your total daily energy expenditure: the calories you burn in a day including activity.
It gives your BMR first, then applies an activity multiplier, and shows targets for losing, maintaining or gaining.
What TDEE is
TDEE is total daily energy expenditure: everything you burn in a day. It is the number your calorie target should be built from, because eating below it loses weight and above it gains.
It is built in two steps. BMR is what your body uses at complete rest, which is most of the total. An activity multiplier then accounts for movement, exercise and digestion.
The multiplier is where people go wrong. For a 30-year-old man at 70 kg and 175 cm, BMR is 1,649. Choosing "moderately active" gives 2,556 and "very active" gives 2,844. That 288-calorie difference is enough to turn a real deficit into maintenance.
One step up the scale adds roughly 290 calories a day. Most people should choose one level lower than they think.
What to enter
- Age, sex, height and weight
- These four determine BMR through the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which is the most accurate of the common formulas.
- Activity level
- The multiplier applied to BMR. It should reflect your whole week, not your best day.
- Goal
- Losing, maintaining or gaining. A deficit or surplus of 500 a day is roughly a pound a week.
Activity multipliers, honestly described
- Sedentary (1.2)
- Desk job, little deliberate exercise. More people belong here than choose it.
- Lightly active (1.375)
- Light exercise one to three days a week.
- Moderately active (1.55)
- Moderate exercise three to five days a week. A reasonable default for most regular gym-goers.
- Very active (1.725)
- Hard exercise six or seven days a week, or a physically demanding job.
- Extra active (1.9)
- Hard daily training plus a physical job. Genuinely rare.
What this assumes
Mifflin-St Jeor is a population equation. Individual metabolic rate varies by roughly 10% either way at the same stats.
TDEE is not fixed. It falls as you lose weight and adapts downward during a prolonged deficit.
How to calculate your total daily energy expenditure
Calculate BMR, apply the multiplier, then adjust for your goal.
- w
- Weight in kilograms
- h
- Height in centimetres
- a
- Age in years
- TDEE
- BMR × activity multiplier
Work out BMR. The Mifflin-St Jeor equation. For a 30-year-old man at 70 kg and 175 cm: 700 + 1,094 − 150 + 5 = 1,649.
Choose an activity level conservatively. Think about a typical week including rest days. Most people who train three or four times a week are moderate, not very active.
Multiply. 1,649 × 1.55 = 2,556 calories to maintain.
Adjust for your goal. Subtract 500 a day for about a pound a week of loss, or add 250-500 for a lean gain. Then track real results for a fortnight and adjust from those.
See a worked example: the same person, two activity levels
- Person
- Male, 30, 70 kg, 175 cm
BMR: (10 × 70) + (6.25 × 175) − (5 × 30) + 5 = 1,649.
Moderately active: 1,649 × 1.55 = 2,556 to maintain.
Very active: 1,649 × 1.725 = 2,844.
Someone aiming for a 500-calorie deficit who picked the wrong level would eat 2,344 instead of 2,056, and lose weight at barely half the intended rate. A woman with identical stats has a BMR of 1,483, about 10% lower.
2,556 calories a day, moderately active
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between BMR and TDEE?
BMR is what you burn at complete rest, keeping organs running. TDEE is BMR plus everything else: movement, exercise and digesting food.
BMR is typically 60-70% of TDEE, which is why it is the larger part of the calculation even for active people.
- Which activity level should I choose?
Almost certainly one lower than your instinct. "Moderately active" covers most people who train three to five times a week and are otherwise sedentary.
A desk job with four gym sessions is moderate, not very active. Very active means a physical job or near-daily hard training. Overstating this by one level adds nearly 300 calories a day.
- How accurate is a TDEE estimate?
It is a starting point, not a measurement. Mifflin-St Jeor is the most accurate of the common equations and still varies by around 10% between individuals with identical stats.
Treat it as a hypothesis. Eat at the estimate for two weeks, track your weight, and adjust from what actually happened. Your real-world result beats any formula.
- Why has my weight loss stalled at the same calories?
Because TDEE falls as you do. A lighter body burns less, both at rest and moving, so the deficit shrinks as you succeed.
There is also adaptive thermogenesis: prolonged dieting reduces expenditure a little beyond what weight loss alone predicts. Recalculate every 10-15 lb lost.
- Should I eat back exercise calories?
Not if your activity multiplier already accounts for your training, which it should. Counting workouts separately double-counts them.
Either use a sedentary multiplier and add exercise, or use an honest activity multiplier and stop counting workouts. Doing both is the most common way a deficit disappears.
- What deficit should I use?
500 calories a day for roughly a pound a week is the standard, and it is sustainable for most people.
Larger deficits lose weight faster and cost more muscle, and are harder to hold. Pair any deficit with adequate protein and resistance training to protect lean mass.
Problems people actually run into
Overstating activity level
"Very active" adds 288 calories a day over "moderate" on the example. Someone targeting a 500-calorie deficit ends up with 212, and loses weight at less than half the expected rate.
If results do not match the plan after a fortnight, the activity multiplier is the first thing to question, not the equation.
Treating the number as fixed
TDEE is not a property you have; it is a moving estimate. It falls as you lose weight, and it adapts downward during a long deficit.
Recalculate every 10-15 lb and adjust. A target that worked at the start of a cut stops working partway through, and that is expected rather than a failure.
Results are estimates for general information only and are not professional financial, medical, or legal advice. Read our full disclaimer.
Sources
- Mifflin et al., A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals, Am J Clin Nutr 1990;51:241-7 · National Library of Medicine (PubMed)
Last updated: September 13, 2026
