TDEE Calculator
Instant results as you type.
Total daily energy expenditure is what your body actually burns in a day: your resting metabolism plus everything you do on top of it. It is the number every calorie target is built from — eat below it and you lose weight, above it and you gain. This calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which clinical practice prefers, then applies an activity multiplier and shows what a sensible deficit or surplus looks like.
How to use it
- Pick your units — kilograms and centimetres, or pounds with feet and inches.
- Enter your age, sex, height and weight — all four change the result.
- Pick the activity level that matches a normal week, not your best one.
- Read your maintenance calories, and the targets for losing or gaining.
Examples
- Female, 30, 165 cm, 70 kg, lightly active: about 1,953 calories a day to maintain.
- The same woman in imperial — 5 ft 5 in, 154 lb: about 1,952 calories a day.
- Eating around 1,453 would lose close to half a kilo a week.
Frequently asked questions
- What is TDEE and how is it different from BMR?
- BMR is what you would burn lying still all day — the cost of simply being alive, usually 60 to 70 per cent of the total. TDEE adds movement, exercise and the energy used digesting food. BMR is a floor you should not eat below; TDEE is the number your diet is actually built around.
- Which activity level should I pick?
- Choose for a typical week rather than an ambitious one — this is where most people overestimate. A desk job with two gym sessions is lightly active, not very active. If your weight does not move as predicted after a fortnight, the multiplier is almost always the part that was wrong.
- How accurate is a TDEE estimate?
- The equation itself is good to within about 10 per cent for most people. The activity multiplier is far cruder, and it is applied to the whole figure — so treat the result as a starting point, weigh yourself over two to three weeks, and adjust based on what actually happens rather than what the formula predicted.
- Should I eat back the calories I burn exercising?
- Not if you selected an activity level that already includes that exercise, or you would be counting it twice — a very common way a deficit quietly disappears. Fitness trackers also tend to overstate exercise calories. If you want to count workouts separately, choose the sedentary multiplier and add them deliberately.