TDEE Calculator what you actually burn
Enter your sex, age, weight, height and how active your week really is. You get maintenance calories, plus the target each goal implies.
Two Numbers, Not One
Basal rate is what you burn at rest; TDEE is that number multiplied by how you live.
An Estimate, Not a Measurement
Prediction equations sit within roughly 10 % for most people — and further out for some.
What is TDEE?
At a Glance
TDEE — total daily energy expenditure — is everything your body spends in twenty-four hours: keeping you alive at rest, digesting food, and every movement from a gym session to fidgeting. It is the number a calorie target has to be built around, because eating below it loses weight and eating above it gains weight.
Two steps, and the second one carries almost all the uncertainty.
Step one: the basal metabolic rate. This calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which a systematic review by the American Dietetic Association found to be the most reliable prediction equation for healthy adults:
BMR = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age + s (s = +5 male, −161 female)Step two: the activity multiplier. The FAO/WHO/UNU report on human energy requirements assigns a physical activity level to each broad lifestyle, from 1.2 for a sedentary desk worker to 1.9 for someone with a physical job or two training sessions a day.
TDEE = BMR × activity multiplierThe multiplier is the weak link. It is a five-point scale standing in for a continuous variable, and according to the same guidelines most people place themselves a level too high. Picking 1.725 instead of 1.55 adds 311 kcal a day to the answer with no change to your actual week.
These are the values the calculator loads by default.
Weight and height terms
10 × 80 kg = 800, and 6.25 × 180 cm = 1,125.
Age and sex terms
−5 × 30 years = −150, and the male constant adds +5.
Add them up
800 + 1,125 − 150 + 5 = 1,780 kcal/day at complete rest.
Apply the activity multiplier
1,780 × 1.55 = 2,759 kcal/day of maintenance energy.
Turn it into a target
A 15 % deficit is 2,345 kcal, a 10 % surplus is 3,035 kcal. The chart shows all five goals at once.
Treat the number as a hypothesis to test for two weeks, not a fact about your body.
The activity level dominates. On the same body, sedentary gives 2,136 kcal and extremely active gives 3,382 — a spread of 1,246 kcal from one dropdown. If you are unsure, choose the lower option and let the scale correct you upward.
Verify with the scale, not with the equation. Eat at the predicted maintenance for two weeks and weigh yourself daily, first thing, and compare weekly averages. If the average is flat, the estimate is right for you. If it moved, adjust by 100 to 200 kcal and repeat. Your real maintenance is whatever holds your weight steady — no equation outranks that measurement.
Deficits have a floor. Very low intakes cost lean mass, energy and adherence. Below roughly 1,200 kcal for women and 1,500 for men, the case for medical supervision is strong, and the aggressive −25 % option is not meant to run for months.
Maintenance moves as you do. Lose 10 kg and both the basal rate and the multiplier's base fall with it, so the target has to be recalculated. That is why plateaus arrive: the number that created the deficit has become the new maintenance.
Once you have a target, Macro Calculator splits it into protein, fat and carbohydrate, and Calorie Deficit Calculator turns a deficit into a timeline.
What a prediction equation cannot know
This calculator is for informational purposes and is not medical advice or a diagnosis.
- Population averages, individual bodies. Mifflin-St Jeor typically lands within about 10 % of measured resting expenditure for healthy adults — which is still ±275 kcal on a 2,759 kcal maintenance.
- Body composition is invisible to it. The equation uses total weight, so it under-reads for very muscular people and over-reads at high body-fat levels. Katch-McArdle, in the BMR Calculator, uses lean mass instead.
- Not validated for everyone. It was derived in healthy adults. Children, pregnancy, athletes at extremes, and people with thyroid or metabolic conditions all sit outside it.
- Medication and illness shift metabolism. Some drugs and conditions move resting expenditure measurably.
- The five-point activity scale is coarse. Real weeks are not five categories.
If you are managing a health condition, pregnant, or planning a substantial change in intake, discuss it with a doctor or a registered dietitian first.