About the TDEE Calculator
Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is the total number of calories your body burns in a day — your resting metabolism (BMR) plus everything on top of it: walking, exercise, digesting food, and even fidgeting. It's the number that actually determines whether you gain, lose, or maintain weight at a given calorie intake.
This calculator first estimates your BMR using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, then multiplies it by an activity multiplier based on how active you typically are — a scale commonly used alongside both the Mifflin-St Jeor and the older Harris-Benedict equations. Someone who's sedentary multiplies their BMR by 1.2, while someone doing hard exercise most days multiplies by as much as 1.9 — a difference that can mean several hundred extra calories burned per day.
TDEE is your maintenance level: eating close to it keeps your weight roughly stable over time. Eating consistently below it tends to produce weight loss; eating above it tends to produce weight gain. Like BMR, TDEE is a population-average estimate, not a precise measurement of your individual metabolism — real day-to-day energy burn varies with sleep, stress, illness, and how accurately you've judged your own activity level. Recalculate it periodically as your weight or routine changes, and treat it as a starting point for adjustment rather than a fixed target.
BMR based on the Mifflin-St Jeor equation; activity multipliers from the standard scale commonly paired with it.