TDEE Calculator

Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure is the calorie figure your body burns in 24 hours including everything: breathing, heart rate, walking the dog, the gym session, fidgeting at your desk. This calculator works it out in two steps. First it computes your Basal Metabolic Rate using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation (the most accurate of the common formulas for adults), then multiplies that by an activity factor between 1.2 and 1.9 to land on TDEE.

A worked example. A 35-year-old woman, 165cm, 68kg, who trains 3 to 5 days a week sits at a BMR of about 1,392 and a TDEE of around 2,158 (BMR x 1.55). Eat that number and weight stays flat. Eat 500 fewer (around 1,658) and the calculator marks that as a weight-loss target of roughly 0.45kg per week. Eat 500 more and that is the gain target. The 500 figure comes from the rough rule that 7,700 kcal equals 1kg of body fat, so a daily 500-kcal change works out to half a kilo a week.

Almost everyone overestimates this. Sedentary (1.2) is desk work and almost no purposeful exercise. Light (1.375) is 1 to 3 short workouts a week. Moderate (1.55) is 3 to 5 sessions. Very active (1.725) is 6 to 7 sessions or a physical job. Extremely active (1.9) is twice-a-day training or hard manual labour. If you are unsure, drop one level - underestimating activity gives a TDEE that is closer to your real maintenance, which is exactly what you want for a fat-loss target.

The activity multiplier already includes your incidental movement (NEAT), not just the workout itself. So a one-hour gym session does not bump you up a tier on its own. The honest test: have you trained at least 3 times this week, AND walked or moved noticeably outside that? If only the first is true, stay on light. If you sit at a desk all day and train hard 4 times a week, moderate is closer than very active. Pair the result with the [calorie deficit calculator](/calorie-deficit-calculator) if you want a deficit target tied to a specific weekly weight-loss goal.

The Mifflin-St Jeor equation has a standard error of about 10% in either direction. So a TDEE of 2,200 might actually be 1,980 or 2,420 for a real human. The calculator is a starting point; your bathroom scale and tape measure are the editor. Eat at the calculated maintenance for two weeks, weigh yourself daily and average the readings. If weight is steady, the number is right. If you have gained 0.5kg, drop the target by 100 to 150 calories. If you have lost without trying, add the same.

Two specific things break the formula. Muscular people are underestimated (the equation assumes average body composition), so a lifter at 80kg often has a higher TDEE than the maths suggests. People with very low body fat after a long diet are over-estimated because metabolic adaptation reduces TDEE by 5 to 15% below predicted. If you have just finished a long cut, expect maintenance to be lower than the calculator says for 8 to 12 weeks. The [BMI calculator](/bmi-calculator) gives a rough sense of whether the standard formula will fit your body, and the [protein intake calculator](/protein-intake-calculator) helps split the calorie target into macros.

The calculator splits your calorie total into protein, carbs and fats. A sensible default for active adults is around 30% protein, 40% carbs, 30% fat. On a 2,200-calorie target that is 165g protein, 220g carbs, 73g fat. Protein and carbs are 4 calories per gram; fat is 9. That ratio works for most people; weight-loss phases lean higher protein (35 to 40%), endurance athletes lean higher carbs (50 to 55%).

If you only track one number, track protein. Hitting the protein target is what protects muscle in a deficit and what fills you up so the deficit is bearable. A useful floor: 1.6g per kg of bodyweight (so 109g for the 68kg woman in the worked example), 2.2g per kg if you are lean and lifting hard. The carb and fat split is mostly preference; some people sleep better with more carbs at dinner, some feel sharper with more fat in the morning. Test both for two weeks and pick the one you actually stick to.