TDEE Calculator

What is TDEE?

TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It is the total calories your body uses across a day from four sources: your basal metabolic rate (BMR), everyday non-exercise movement, planned exercise, and the energy used to digest food (the thermic effect of food). For most people, BMR is 60 to 70 percent of TDEE, and the activity factor accounts for the rest. The TDEE figure is your maintenance calorie target: eat that amount and weight tends to stay stable.

BMR vs TDEE

BMR is what your body uses at complete rest, just keeping the lights on. TDEE is BMR multiplied by an activity factor that accounts for everything you do above resting. BMR is always smaller than TDEE for anyone who moves at all. The full comparison lives in the BMR vs TDEE guide. If you only want the resting figure, use the BMR calculator.

Activity levels explained

• Sedentary (1.2): desk job, little or no exercise.
• Lightly active (1.375): light exercise 1 to 3 days per week, or a job with a moderate amount of standing and walking.
• Moderately active (1.55): moderate exercise 3 to 5 days per week.
• Very active (1.725): hard exercise 6 to 7 days per week.
• Extra active (1.9): very hard exercise plus a physical job.

Most people overestimate. A desk job with three exercise sessions per week usually sits at lightly active, not moderate. When in doubt, pick the lower level and verify by tracking weight over a couple of weeks.

Maintenance calories

Maintenance is your TDEE figure: the number of calories that keeps your weight roughly the same week to week. It is the right starting point if you want to hold your current weight, and it is also the reference point you adjust up or down when setting a goal. Body weight bounces around daily from water, sodium, and glycogen, so verify maintenance against a 7 to 14 day weight average rather than a single morning.

TDEE for weight loss

To lose weight, eat below your TDEE. A modest deficit of 250 to 500 calories per day is sustainable for most healthy adults and produces roughly 0.5 to 1 lb of fat loss per week. Aggressive deficits beyond 500 calories per day often backfire through fatigue, hunger spikes, muscle loss, and poor adherence, and should be supervised by a qualified professional. The calculator shows two suggested loss targets, mild (TDEE minus 250) and standard (TDEE minus 500), in the result panel.

TDEE for muscle gain

To build muscle, eat above your TDEE in a small surplus, typically 250 to 500 calories per day, paired with progressive resistance training. Larger surpluses speed scale weight gain but add a higher share of fat. Recompute your TDEE every few months because it shifts as your weight changes. The calculator shows two suggested gain targets, mild (TDEE plus 250) and standard (TDEE plus 500), in the result panel. To translate the surplus into protein, carb, and fat targets, use the macro calculator.

Common mistakes

• Picking a higher activity level than reality. Overestimating activity is the most common error and inflates TDEE.
• Treating TDEE as a hard ceiling rather than a starting point. Verify with two to three weeks of consistent eating, then adjust.
• Combining very large deficits with hard training. Heavy cuts and heavy training do not pair well; build muscle during a maintenance or surplus phase.
• Ignoring weekly averages. Weight fluctuates daily from water and glycogen. Compare 7-day averages, not single-day weights.
• Forgetting to recompute. TDEE shifts with weight, age, and activity, so the same target a year ago may not match your current body.