TDEE
Calculator

What is TDEE?

TDEE — total daily energy expenditure — is the complete picture of how many calories you burn in a day. It's your maintenance level: eat that many calories and your weight holds steady, eat fewer and you lose, eat more and you gain. Almost every evidence-based diet starts here, because a calorie target only makes sense relative to the calories you actually use.

The four parts of your daily burn

TDEE is made up of four components. BMR (your resting burn) is the largest, usually 60–70%. NEAT — non-exercise activity thermogenesis — is everything you do that isn't formal exercise: walking, fidgeting, chores, standing, and it varies hugely between people. TEF — the thermic effect of food — is the energy used to digest meals, roughly 10% of intake. And EAT — exercise activity — is your deliberate workouts. The activity multiplier in the calculator bundles NEAT, TEF and EAT on top of your BMR.

How TDEE is calculated

The method is simple: TDEE = BMR × activity factor. We compute BMR with the accurate Mifflin-St Jeor equation, then multiply by a factor that reflects your weekly movement:

Activity level	Factor	Example*
Sedentary — little or no exercise	×1.2	1,979 kcal
Light — exercise 1–3 days/week	×1.375	2,267 kcal
Moderate — exercise 3–5 days/week	×1.55	2,556 kcal
Very active — exercise 6–7 days/week	×1.725	2,844 kcal
Extra active — hard daily exercise + physical job	×1.9	3,133 kcal

*Example for a 70 kg, 175 cm, 30-year-old man (BMR 1,649 kcal).

Choosing your activity level honestly

The most common mistake is overestimating activity. A few gym sessions a week plus a desk job is usually "light" (1.375) or "moderate" (1.55), not "very active." Remember the multiplier already accounts for all your movement, so don't double-count a daily walk you've also logged elsewhere. If you're unsure, pick the lower option — it's easier to add calories later than to discover you've been overeating for a month.

Using TDEE for your goal

Once you know your TDEE, your target follows directly. To lose weight, eat below it; a deficit of 300–500 calories a day produces a steady loss of about 0.25–0.5 kg per week, drawing on the rule that a pound of fat is roughly 3,500 calories. To maintain, eat at TDEE. To gain — muscle, ideally — eat a modest surplus of 200–300 calories alongside strength training. The calculator shows each of these targets the moment you enter your details.

Why crash deficits backfire

Bigger isn't better when it comes to deficits. Very aggressive cuts are hard to sustain, tend to sacrifice muscle along with fat, and can leave you exhausted and ravenous — which usually ends in rebound eating. A moderate deficit you can hold for months beats an extreme one you quit in two weeks. Protein intake and resistance training help preserve muscle while you lose, so the weight you drop is mostly fat.

How accurate is TDEE?

TDEE is an educated estimate, not a precise meter. The BMR equation can be off by around 10% for any individual, and activity multipliers are broad buckets, so your true maintenance might differ from the number here. The fix is to treat it as a starting point: eat at the estimated target for two to three weeks, track your weight trend, and adjust. If you're not losing on a deficit, nudge calories down a little; if you're losing too fast or feeling drained, nudge them up.

Adjusting your TDEE from real results

The calculated number is a starting estimate; your body provides the real data. Pick your target, hold it consistently for two to three weeks, and watch your weekly average weight — single days are noisy thanks to water, food in transit and hormones. If your weight is stable on what you think is a deficit, your true TDEE is lower than estimated, so trim a little. If you're losing faster than planned or feeling drained, add some back. This feedback loop beats any formula, because it accounts for the parts of metabolism no equation can see. After a month, your adjusted number is far more trustworthy than the original estimate.

Metabolic adaptation: why a deficit gets harder

As you lose weight, your TDEE naturally falls — a smaller body burns fewer calories, and the body also becomes a little more efficient under a sustained deficit (a phenomenon sometimes called adaptive thermogenesis). This is why progress that starts quickly often slows, and why the deficit you began with may stop working. The answers aren't drastic: recalculate your TDEE at your new weight, consider periodic maintenance breaks (eating at maintenance for a week or two), and keep protein high and resistance training in to protect muscle. Plateaus are usually adaptation, not failure.

After calories come macros

Total calories drive weight change, but how you split them affects how you feel and what you lose. Protein is the priority — it preserves muscle in a deficit and keeps you full; a common guide is around 1.6–2.2 g per kg of body weight. Fats support hormones and shouldn't drop too low, and carbohydrates fuel training and fill the remainder. You don't need perfect macros to lose weight, but getting enough protein makes a given calorie target noticeably more effective and more comfortable.

Eating in a surplus the smart way

TDEE isn't only for losing weight — it's just as useful for gaining it well. To build muscle, you want a modest surplus above your TDEE, around 200–300 calories a day, paired with progressive resistance training. The temptation is to eat far more for faster results, but a large surplus mostly adds fat, not muscle, because muscle can only be built so quickly. A lean, controlled surplus puts the extra energy toward muscle while keeping fat gain in check. As with a deficit, recalculate as your weight rises, keep protein high, and let the scale and the mirror tell you whether to adjust.

TDEE and steps

Your daily steps feed directly into the NEAT and exercise parts of TDEE — which is why moving more raises your maintenance calories and makes a deficit easier to achieve through activity rather than just eating less. To see how steps translate into calories, pair this with our steps to calories calculator and calories burned walking calculator.