TDEE calculator

What the TDEE Calculator Does

Need a reliable TDEE figure in under a minute? You are in the right place. The TDEE calculator below applies the standard formula instantly — and this page is its complete owner’s manual: what TDEE means, how to enter your numbers, the maths under the hood, and a worked example. Eat below this number and you lose weight; eat above it and you gain — a TDEE calculator finds your total daily energy expenditure from BMR plus real activity.

You may also need our Calorie Deficit calculator, Protein Intake calculator, Ideal Weight calculator — they cover the neighbouring calculations people usually run alongside TDEE.

Quick note: this guide is for general information only and is not medical advice. If you have a health condition or a result worries you, talk to a qualified clinician.

How to Use This Calculator

Enter your figures into the fields below. Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is every calorie you burn in 24 hours: your basal metabolic rate (60–70%), the thermic effect of food (~10%), exercise, and NEAT — the non-exercise activity of walking, fidgeting, chores and work.

• Weight, height, age, sex: To compute BMR via Mifflin-St Jeor first.
• Activity level: Honest daily movement plus structured exercise.
• Goal: Lose, maintain or gain — sets the calorie target.
• Body-fat % (optional): Refines the estimate for very lean or muscular builds.

The result appears instantly, with a breakdown of each step. If a figure looks unexpected, double-check your units first — metric versus imperial mix-ups are the most common cause of surprising results.

The TDEE Formula

The calculator applies this standard formula:

TDEE = BMR × Activity factor
Sedentary 1.2 · Light 1.375 · Moderate 1.55 · Very active 1.725 · Extreme 1.9
Target = TDEE − 500 (cut) · TDEE (maintain) · TDEE + 250–500 (gain)

• BMR: At-rest burn from Mifflin-St Jeor.
• Activity factor: Multiplier for your real movement level.
• Target: Calories to eat for your goal.

A 500 kcal daily deficit ≈ 1 lb (0.45 kg) of fat loss per week — 3,500 kcal per pound.

Worked Example

Here is the method applied to realistic figures:

1. Man, 80 kg, 180 cm, 35 → BMR ≈ 1,755.
2. Moderately active (trains 3–5×/week): × 1.55.
3. TDEE ≈ 1,755 × 1.55 = 2,720 kcal/day.
4. Fat-loss target: 2,720 − 500 = 2,220 kcal/day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good TDEE?

There is no universal good — it scales with size, muscle and activity. Typical ranges run ~1,800–2,200 for small sedentary adults to 3,000+ for large active ones. Yours is personal.

How accurate are TDEE calculators?

Within roughly 10–15% for most people. Treat the output as a starting hypothesis, then adjust based on 3–4 weeks of scale and measurement trends.

Should I eat back exercise calories?

If your activity factor already includes the exercise, no — that double-counts. Fitness trackers also tend to overestimate burn by 20–40%.

Why am I not losing weight at my target?

Common causes: overestimated activity, untracked bites and drinks, water retention masking fat loss, or a TDEE that fell as you got lighter. Track meticulously for two weeks, then reassess.

Does TDEE change with age?

Yes — BMR drifts down ~1–2% per decade and activity often falls too. Recalculating yearly keeps targets honest.

Units deserve a final word of caution, because they cause more TDEE errors than any other single factor. Metric versus imperial, monthly versus annual, percentages versus decimals — pick one system and convert everything before you start. The calculator is literal: it will compute a flawless answer to whatever you typed, right or wrong.

Rounding is another quiet trap. Round only the final result, never the intermediate steps — early rounding compounds through multi-step calculations and can shift the answer by more than you would expect. Let the calculator keep full precision internally and present the tidy number at the end.

Share the method, not just the answer. When TDEE comes up in discussion — with a partner, an adviser, a colleague — walking through the inputs and the worked example builds agreement far faster than quoting a bare figure. People trust numbers they have seen derived; the example section above is your ready-made walkthrough.

Finally, remember that TDEE is one instrument on the dashboard, not the whole dashboard. The related guides below connect it to the neighbouring calculations that complete the picture. Readers who follow those links consistently report the same thing: each individual figure makes more sense once you see how they fit together.

It is also worth stressing what TDEE cannot do. No calculator captures every nuance of a real situation — unusual circumstances, edge cases and judgement calls still need a human. Use the figure as a strong, evidence-based starting point, and apply common sense (or professional advice) for the last mile. That balance is the mark of someone who uses tools well.

Bookmark this page alongside the calculator itself. Most readers return to TDEE calculations at decision points — a change in income, a new goal, an annual review — and having both the tool and the explanation one click away turns each revisit into a thirty-second task instead of a research project.

A useful habit is re-running the TDEE calculation whenever your circumstances change — new figures in, fresh answer out. Stale numbers are one of the quietest sources of bad decisions: the maths was right once, but the world moved on. A quick recalculation takes seconds and keeps every downstream decision honest.

If your result surprised you, treat the surprise as information rather than error. Unexpected TDEE figures usually point at an input you have been estimating optimistically, a rule you did not know applied, or a genuine change worth investigating. Dig into the breakdown the calculator provides — the ‘why’ is almost always sitting in one specific line.

Consistency beats precision in tracking. Measuring TDEE the same way, under the same conditions, on a regular schedule produces trends you can trust — even if any single reading carries a little noise. Pick a routine (monthly, quarterly, whatever fits) and stick to it; the pattern that emerges over time is the real insight.