Free TDEE Calculator – Total Daily Energy Expenditure

How the TDEE Calculator Works and What It Tells You

Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE, is the number of calories your body burns across a full 24 hours: breathing, digesting food, holding your posture, walking to the bus, typing, fidgeting, and whatever training you did. It is the most useful single number in nutrition planning because it marks your maintenance line. Eat below it and you lose weight over weeks; eat above it and you gain. Anyone who has wondered why a diet stalled at 1,800 calories, or why three big meals a day still are not adding muscle, is really asking about TDEE. Dietitians, gym coaches, and people logging food in an app all start with this figure before choosing a deficit or a surplus. This calculator gets there in two moves. First it estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate, the calories you would burn lying still all day, using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation — validated by a 2005 review from the American Dietetic Association as the most accurate predictive equation for the general population, and preferred over the older Harris-Benedict formula. For men, BMR = 10 × weight in kg + 6.25 × height in cm − 5 × age in years + 5. For women the final term becomes − 161 instead of + 5. Second, it multiplies that BMR by an activity factor derived from research published by the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine): 1.2 if you are sedentary, 1.375 lightly active, 1.55 moderately active, 1.725 very active, and 1.9 extra active. That multiplier does a lot of work. It has to cover planned exercise and all the incidental movement of your day, from stairs to housework, which varies enormously between two people with identical gym routines. Run the numbers for a 30-year-old man who weighs 80 kg, stands 178 cm, and trains three or four times a week. Start with 10 × 80 = 800. Add 6.25 × 178 = 1,112.5, which brings the running total to 1,912.5. Subtract 5 × 30 = 150 to get 1,762.5, then add 5 for the male constant: a BMR of 1,767.5, call it 1,768 calories. Multiply by the moderate factor of 1.55 and his TDEE lands at about 2,740 calories a day, so a 500-calorie deficit puts his fat-loss target near 2,240. A 25-year-old woman at 60 kg and 163 cm who walks plenty but rarely trains works out differently: 600 + 1,018.75 − 125 − 161 gives a BMR of 1,333, and the lightly active factor of 1.375 brings her TDEE to roughly 1,833 calories. Four situations where the number changes a decision. A software tester who sits nine hours a day and lifts twice a week picks the lightly active factor rather than moderate, sees a target near 2,100 instead of 2,350, and finally understands why her weight crept up on a 2,300-calorie plan. A 63 kg club runner building toward a half marathon uses it in reverse, eating to TDEE plus 250 on long-run Sundays. A father cooking one dinner for the household works out separate targets for himself and his wife, then portions the same meal differently instead of cooking twice. A nightshift nurse compares her step count on ward days against her days off, finds the gap is nearly 400 calories, and runs two different targets across the week. One mistake dominates: over-rating your activity level. Three gym sessions a week does not make you very active if the other 165 hours are spent sitting. Most people should pick the factor one step lower than the one they want, then let the scale settle the argument. Weigh yourself at the same time each morning, average each week, and adjust by 100 to 200 calories rather than chasing daily noise. The equation is built on population averages, so it cannot see your thyroid, your medication, your sleep debt, or your body composition, and a very muscular person burns more than it predicts. Results are estimates for general planning, not medical or dietary advice, so speak to a doctor or registered dietitian before making big changes. The calculation runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.

TDEE Calculator Formula & Method

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