TDEE calculator
Find your maintenance calories, then see what to eat to lose, gain, or hold steady.
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Estimated with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. This is a starting point, not medical advice — adjust based on your real-world results, and check with a doctor before starting a significant calorie deficit or surplus.
If you used the calculator above, you already have a number: your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE. That number is the calories your body burns in an average day, counting everything from lying in bed to your workout. It is the single most useful figure for anyone trying to lose weight, gain weight, or just stop guessing at portion sizes.
The rest of this guide covers what that number actually means, how it was calculated, why it might not match your real-world results exactly, and how to use it to set a calorie target you can stick to.
How to Use the TDEE Calculator Above
Enter your sex, age, height, and weight, then pick the activity level that matches your typical week, not your best week. Most people overestimate this step. "Light" activity means structured exercise one to three days a week on top of an otherwise normal day. If your job has you sitting most of the day and your workouts are three days a week or fewer, pick Light rather than Moderate. Overstating activity is the most common reason a TDEE number ends up too high.
What Is TDEE and Why It Matters
TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It is made up of several components: your Basal Metabolic Rate (the energy your body burns at complete rest, just keeping your organs running), the energy used to digest food, and the energy used by movement, both structured exercise and everyday activity like walking and fidgeting.
Knowing your TDEE turns weight management into arithmetic instead of guesswork. Eat around your TDEE and your weight holds roughly steady. Eat consistently below it and you lose weight. Eat consistently above it and you gain. The calculator does the arithmetic; the guide below covers how to use the result.
TDEE vs. BMR: What Is the Difference
BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is only the resting portion, the calories you would burn if you stayed in bed all day. TDEE takes that BMR and multiplies it by an activity factor to account for movement. For most people, BMR makes up 60 to 75 percent of TDEE, with activity making up the rest. That is why two people with an identical BMR can have very different calorie needs once you factor in how active each of them is.
How TDEE Is Calculated
This calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which is the formula most dietitians and sports nutritionists currently consider the most reliable for estimating BMR in healthy adults. It uses your weight, height, age, and sex:
Men: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) + 5
Women: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) - 161
That BMR figure is then multiplied by an activity factor to produce your TDEE.
The Activity Multipliers Explained
The calculator uses five standard activity levels, each with its own multiplier:
Sedentary (little or no exercise): BMR x 1.2
Light (exercise 1 to 3 days a week): BMR x 1.375
Moderate (exercise 3 to 5 days a week): BMR x 1.55
Active (exercise 6 to 7 days a week): BMR x 1.725
Very active (hard daily training or a physically demanding job): BMR x 1.9
These multipliers are broad by design. They cover a wide range of real activity patterns, which is exactly why the same "Moderate" label can produce noticeably different real-world results for two different people.
A Worked TDEE Example
Take a 32-year-old woman who weighs 150 pounds (68 kg), is 5 feet 5 inches tall (165 cm), and works out three days a week (Light activity). Her BMR works out to (10 x 68) + (6.25 x 165) - (5 x 32) - 161, which comes to about 1,390 calories a day. Multiplying by the Light activity factor of 1.375 gives a TDEE of roughly 1,912 calories a day. For a moderate 500-calorie deficit aimed at losing about a pound a week, she would target around 1,412 calories a day. For a milder, easier-to-sustain pace at a 250-calorie deficit, that target is closer to 1,662 calories a day.
How Accurate Is a TDEE Calculator?
A TDEE calculator gives you an estimate, not a lab measurement. Research on the Mifflin-St Jeor equation generally puts it within about 10 percent of measured energy expenditure for most healthy adults, which is accurate enough to plan around but not exact enough to treat as gospel. The only way to measure your actual TDEE precisely is a metabolic chamber or doubly labeled water test, tools that live in research labs, not kitchens.
Why Your Real TDEE Might Differ from the Estimate
A few things the formula cannot see: how much muscle mass you carry (muscle burns more at rest than fat), genetic variation in metabolic rate, medications and health conditions that affect metabolism, and how precisely you picked your activity level. None of these make the calculator useless. They just mean the number is a starting point, not a verdict.
How to Recalibrate Your TDEE Every Few Weeks
The most reliable fix for an inaccurate estimate is to let your own results correct it. Eat at your calculated TDEE (or your adjusted target) for two to three weeks, weigh yourself under consistent conditions a few times a week, and compare your average weight trend to what the math predicted. If your weight is moving faster or slower than expected, adjust your calorie target up or down by 100 to 150 calories and reassess. After one round of this, your number will be far more accurate for you specifically than the formula's raw output.
Using TDEE for Weight Loss
To lose weight, you eat below your TDEE, creating a calorie deficit. The size of that deficit determines how fast you lose weight and how sustainable it is.
How Big a Calorie Deficit Should You Use
A deficit of about 500 calories a day below TDEE produces roughly one pound of weight loss a week, since one pound of body fat is approximately 3,500 calories. A milder 250-calorie deficit produces closer to half a pound a week and is easier to maintain over months. Larger deficits of 750 to 1,000 calories a day speed things up but are harder to sustain and carry a higher risk of muscle loss and fatigue. The results table on the calculator above shows all of these side by side so you can pick a pace that fits your life rather than just the fastest number.
As a general safety floor, most guidance recommends not going below roughly 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision, regardless of what a deficit calculation suggests. If your calculated target for an aggressive deficit lands below that, choose a milder deficit instead.
Signs Your Deficit Is Too Aggressive
Persistent fatigue, irritability, poor sleep, constant hunger, or a weight loss stall despite sticking to the plan are common signs that a deficit is too large or has been maintained too long without a break. When these show up, a short period of eating at maintenance calories (a "diet break") often helps both adherence and results in the long run.
Using TDEE for Weight Gain and Muscle Building
To gain weight, you eat above your TDEE. A surplus of 250 to 500 calories a day supports steady, mostly lean weight gain when combined with resistance training. Larger surpluses speed up the scale but increase the share of the gain that comes from fat rather than muscle. As with weight loss, the calculator's results table shows both a mild and a standard gain target.
TDEE for Women vs. Men
The Mifflin-St Jeor equation already accounts for sex directly in the formula, since women generally carry a higher percentage of body fat than men at the same weight and height, which affects resting metabolic rate. Beyond that baseline difference, the same accuracy caveats apply equally to both. One additional factor for women: energy needs can shift slightly across the menstrual cycle, typically rising in the days before a period. This is usually too small to plan around directly, but it can help explain a week that does not match the formula's prediction.
Common TDEE Calculator Mistakes to Avoid
Rounding your activity level up rather than picking the honest average of your week is the single biggest source of inflated results. Recalculating your TDEE every time your weight shifts by a pound or two is unnecessary. It is worth updating every 10 to 15 pounds of change, or every few months, not every day. Chasing an aggressive deficit indefinitely rather than cycling in maintenance periods is a common cause of stalled progress and rebound weight regain. And treating the calculator's number as fixed rather than as a starting point to adjust from a few weeks in is the mistake that causes most of the "this calculator is wrong" frustration people run into.
TDEE and Your Macros
Once you have a calorie target from your TDEE, splitting it into protein, carbohydrates, and fat turns the number into an actual eating plan. A reasonable starting point is protein at roughly 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight, going toward the higher end if you are in a larger deficit to help protect muscle mass, fat at around 20 to 30 percent of total calories to support hormone health, and the remaining calories from carbohydrates. Protein is the piece most worth prioritizing during a deficit, since it is the nutrient most closely linked to preserving muscle and controlling hunger between meals.
TDEE Calculator vs. Fitness Apps and Wearables
Many fitness apps and wearables report their own calorie burn or TDEE estimate, often built on different formulas or supplemented with heart rate data. These numbers will not always match a formula-based calculator like this one, and that mismatch is normal rather than a sign that either tool is broken. Wearable estimates carry their own margins of error, sometimes larger than a formula-based calculation, particularly for step-based or heart-rate-based calorie tracking. Treat any single number, including this calculator's, as a starting estimate to refine using your own weight trend over a few weeks rather than a fixed figure to reconcile across every app on your phone.
Medical disclaimer: This calculator and guide provide general estimates for healthy adults and are not medical advice. Calorie needs vary with health conditions, medications, pregnancy, and other individual factors. Consult a doctor or registered dietitian before starting a significant calorie deficit or surplus, especially if you have an existing health condition. For general guidance on daily calorie needs, see the NHS guide to daily calorie intake.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good TDEE for weight loss?
There is no single "good" TDEE, since it depends entirely on your body and activity level. What matters is your deficit relative to your own TDEE, not the raw number. A 250 to 500 calorie deficit below your personal TDEE is a reasonable starting point for most people.
Is BMR or TDEE more important for weight loss?
TDEE is the more useful number for setting a calorie target, since it already includes your activity level. BMR alone tells you the minimum your body needs at rest, not how much you should actually eat.
How often should I recalculate my TDEE?
Recalculate after a meaningful weight change of 10 to 15 pounds, or roughly every three months, whichever comes first. Recalculating more often than that usually just adds noise rather than useful information.
Can I use kilograms instead of pounds in a TDEE calculator?
Yes. The calculator above includes a metric toggle for kilograms and centimeters, alongside the default pounds and feet and inches option.
Do I need to eat exactly at my TDEE every day?
No. What matters is your average intake over a week or two, not any single day. Normal day-to-day variation in eating and activity is expected and does not undo progress.
Is the TDEE calculator accurate for very active people?
The formula is generally reliable, but very active people and athletes tend to see more variation between the estimate and their real needs, since training volume can swing widely week to week. Athletes often need to lean more heavily on the recalibration process described above.
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