TDEE Calculator (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)

TDEE is the total number of calories you burn in a day, including rest, digesting food, daily movement and exercise. Your TDEE is also called your maintenance level: eating about that much keeps your weight steady, eating less leads to weight loss over time and eating more leads to weight gain.

Estimate your BMR, then multiply it by an activity factor from 1.2 (sedentary) to 1.9 (very heavy exercise). BMR comes from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation: 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm - 5 × age, plus 5 for men or minus 161 for women. A woman with a BMR of 1,500 who exercises moderately burns about 1,500 × 1.55 = 2,325 calories.

BMR is what you would burn lying still all day. TDEE is BMR plus everything else: digesting food, walking, working and exercise. The difference between BMR and TDEE is your activity, so TDEE is always higher than BMR, by 20 percent or more with these factors. Use TDEE for planning how much to eat.

Eat below your TDEE. A deficit of 500 calories a day is about 1 lb of weight loss a week by the 3,500 calories per pound rule of thumb, and real loss slows as you get lighter. Pick the Goal option to see the target. A very low target is a decision for you and your doctor or registered dietitian.

It gives an estimate, not a measurement. The Mifflin-St Jeor equation was the most reliable of the common BMR equations in a 2005 systematic review by Frankenfield and colleagues, yet it still misses by more than 10 percent for a meaningful share of people, and the activity factor adds more error. Track your weight for 2 to 3 weeks and adjust.

Yes. A lighter body burns fewer calories, so your TDEE falls as you lose weight and your target should be recalculated every few pounds, or every month or two. This is also why a fixed 500 calorie deficit produces less loss over a year than the 3,500 calories per pound rule predicts.

Move more across the whole day: walking, taking stairs and standing add up, and so does regular exercise. Building muscle raises BMR a little, since muscle burns more than fat at rest. None of this changes the numbers quickly, so expect small gains.

Your TDEE is the answer: the big number above, in calories per day. For the example woman (35 years, 5 ft 6 in, 165 lb, light exercise) it is about 2,008 calories. Taller, heavier, younger and more active people burn more, and the results list shows how far TDEE moves with exercise alone.

For most people, Mifflin-St Jeor. The 2005 systematic review by Frankenfield and colleagues compared four common equations and found it the most reliable. Katch-McArdle can do better for very lean or muscular people if your body fat percentage is known, and worse if your body fat estimate is far off. Neither beats a lab measurement of your resting metabolic rate.

Only in one constant. The equation subtracts 161 calories for women and adds 5 for men, which makes a man of the same age, height and weight burn 166 calories more at rest. Because the multiplier then scales that gap, the difference in TDEE is larger: 166 × 1.375 = 228 calories at the light exercise level.