TDEE calculator

TDEE stands for total daily energy expenditure: an estimate of all the calories your body uses in a typical 24-hour day. It bundles together the energy you burn at rest, the energy spent digesting food, and everything you do while moving — from formal workouts to walking, chores, and fidgeting.

Because it reflects your whole day, TDEE is often used as a rough “maintenance” number. Eating around this many calories tends to keep weight stable, while consistently eating fewer may lead to weight loss over time. It's an estimate rather than a precise measurement, and real needs vary from person to person.

This calculator first estimates your basal metabolic rate (BMR) — the calories you'd burn at complete rest — using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which factors in your sex, age, height, and weight. It then multiplies that BMR by an activity factor to account for how much you move.

The activity factors used here are: Sedentary ×1.2 (little or no exercise), Lightly active ×1.375 (exercise 1–3 days/week), Moderately active ×1.55 (3–5 days/week), Very active ×1.725 (6–7 days/week), and Extra active ×1.9 (hard daily exercise or a physical job). Choosing the level that best matches a typical week gives the most useful estimate.

Weight change is largely driven by the balance between the calories you take in and the calories you burn. Since a pound of body fat is commonly estimated at about 3,500 calories, a steady deficit of roughly 500 calories a day works out to about 1 pound per week, and about 1,000 a day to roughly 2 pounds — which is why the tool shows those two targets below your maintenance number.

These are averages. Real-world results vary with muscle mass, sleep, stress, medications, and how your body adapts over time. Very aggressive deficits can be hard to sustain and may not be safe without guidance, so many people do best with a moderate, steady pace. Talk with a licensed provider before starting a weight-loss plan.

TDEE and BMI answer different questions. TDEE estimates how many calories you burn in a day, which helps you set an eating target. BMI (body mass index) is a screening ratio of weight to height that sorts adults into broad categories such as healthy weight or overweight.

One doesn't replace the other — you might use BMI for a general sense of weight status and TDEE to plan daily intake. Neither measures body composition or health directly, and both are population-level estimates, not a diagnosis.