TDEE Calculator
Estimate the calories you burn in a day from your size, age and activity, and see where they go.
About 1,780 kcal keeps your body running at rest, about 276 kcal goes on digesting food and about 703 kcal on movement. Activity is a large slice, so on rest days you burn noticeably less than this. The equations give 2,759 kcal to 2,873 kcal for you; add your body fat below for a lean-mass estimate.
Where the calories go
Tap a row to set your levelBar length is the day's total in kcal. Resting stays at 1,780 kcal on every row; digestion is a tenth of each total, and activity is the rest. Sedentary: 2,136 kcal; Light: 2,448 kcal; Moderate: 2,759 kcal; Very active: 3,071 kcal; Extra active: 3,382 kcal.
TDEE at each activity level
| Activity | TDEE | Moving | Factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 2,136 | 142 | × 1.2 |
| Light | 2,448 | 423 | × 1.375 |
| Moderate | 2,759 | 703 | × 1.55 |
| Very active | 3,071 | 983 | × 1.725 |
| Extra active | 3,382 | 1,264 | × 1.9 |
Working
- 1Resting energy (Mifflin-St Jeor)10 × 80 + 6.25 × 180 − 5 × 30 + 5 = 1,780 kcal
- 2Times the activity factor (moderate)1,780 × 1.55 = 2,759 kcal
- 3Digesting food: about 10% of the total0.1 × 2,759 = 275.9 kcal
- 4Activity: what is left2,759.0 − 1,780.0 − 275.9 = 703.1 kcal
- 5Check: the three parts add back to the total1,780.0 + 275.9 + 703.1 = 2,759.0 kcal
TDEE as your weight changes
Drag the brass point to try a weightWeight in kg runs across and kcal a day up, at your height, age and activity level. The brass point is 80 kg at 2,759 kcal (Mifflin-St Jeor). Mifflin-St Jeor and Harris-Benedict agree at about 58.4 kg (2,424 kcal, marked); above that weight Harris-Benedict gives more. Each grid square is 10 kg wide and 500 kcal tall.
Equations side by side
- Mifflin-St Jeor
- 2,759 kcal
- Revised Harris-Benedict
- 2,873 kcal
Off by default. With a body fat figure from a scan or calipers, the tool adds Katch-McArdle and uses it for the main answer.
Check it against what you eat
If you logged your food for two weeks or more and your weight stayed level, that intake is your real TDEE. Enter it to see which activity level it matches.
2,700 kcal sits between light (2,448) and moderate (2,759). If your weight held steady, your real activity level is in that range.
Before you rely on this result. This is a screening estimate for healthy adults, not a diagnosis. Talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before acting on it, especially if you are pregnant, under 18, an athlete or managing a health condition. Sources used on this page.
How it's worked out
Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is every calorie you burn in a day. The tool builds it in two steps. First it estimates your basal metabolic rate (BMR): the energy your body uses lying still, to breathe, pump blood and keep warm. Then it multiplies that by an activity factor:
For BMR it uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, with weight W in kg, height H in cm and age A in years:
Here s is +5 for men and −161 for women. A 2005 review found this equation came within 10% of measured resting energy for more people than the older equations. If you add your body fat, the tool switches to Katch-McArdle, which uses lean mass L (your weight minus your fat) instead of sex, height and age:
The activity factors run from 1.2 for a desk job with little exercise to 1.9 for a physical job plus training:
- × 1.2: desk job, little exercise
- × 1.375: exercise 1 to 3 days a week
- × 1.55: exercise 3 to 5 days a week
- × 1.725: hard exercise 6 to 7 days a week
- × 1.9: physical job plus training
The tool then splits the total. About 10% goes on digesting food (the thermic effect of food). What is left after resting and digestion is activity: workouts, walking, chores and fidgeting.
Worked examples
Marco: 30, 180 cm, 80 kg, gym four days a week
His BMR is 10 × 80 + 6.25 × 180 − 5 × 30 + 5 = 1,780 kcal. At the moderate factor of 1.55, his TDEE is 2,759 kcal a day. About 276 kcal of that is digestion and 703 kcal is activity. If he drops to 70 kg, his TDEE falls to 2,604 kcal, so his maintenance number goes down as he loses weight.
Grace: 40, 5 ft 5 in, 140 lb, desk job
The tool converts her to 63.5 kg and 165.1 cm. Her BMR is 1,306 kcal, and at the sedentary factor of 1.2 her TDEE is 1,567 kcal a day. Exercising one to three days a week would move her to the light level and a TDEE of 1,796 kcal.
Jon: a lifter at 12% body fat
Jon is 24, 178 cm and 75 kg, and trains hard six days a week. A scan put his body fat at 12%, so he has 66 kg of lean mass. Katch-McArdle gives a BMR of 1,796 kcal and a TDEE of 3,097 kcal a day. Mifflin-St Jeor would have said 3,014 kcal, because it cannot see that his weight is mostly muscle.
Reading your result
Your TDEE is your maintenance level. Eat about this much on average and your weight should hold steady. Eat less and you lose weight; eat more and you gain.
Treat it as a starting point with a margin of about 10% either way. Two people with the same height, weight and age can differ by hundreds of calories. Much of that gap is everyday movement outside the gym, called non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). In Levine's research, NEAT varied by up to 2,000 kcal a day between people of similar size.
The equations also drift apart at the edges. For an average build they land close together, but the gap grows with weight, as the weight chart on this page shows. When they disagree for you, start with the one that fits your build (Katch-McArdle if you are muscular and know your body fat), then check it against your scale.
The best test is your own data. Log what you eat and weigh yourself each morning for two to four weeks. If your weight holds steady, your average intake is your real TDEE. Put that number into the intake check on this page to see which activity level it matches.
Common mistakes
- Picking the activity level for your best week. Choose the level for a typical week. Going from moderate to very active adds about 11% to your TDEE, which can wipe out a planned deficit.
- Counting workouts twice. The activity factor already includes your exercise. If you also add back the calories your watch says you burned, you count them twice.
- Never recalculating. TDEE falls as you lose weight. After every 5 kg (about 10 lb) of change, run the numbers again.
- Using a guessed body fat. Katch-McArdle is only as good as the body fat figure. A bathroom-scale reading can be off by several points; leave the field off unless you have a scan or a careful caliper test.
- Treating TDEE as a target for a teen or during pregnancy. Growth, pregnancy and breastfeeding raise energy needs beyond these equations. Ask a doctor or dietitian for a figure.
Questions people ask
Sources
- Mifflin, M. D. et al. (1990). A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 51, 241-247
- Roza, A. M. and Shizgal, H. M. (1984). The Harris Benedict equation reevaluated. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 40, 168-182
- McArdle, W. D., Katch, F. I. and Katch, V. L. Exercise Physiology: Nutrition, Energy, and Human Performance. Wolters Kluwer
- Levine, J. A. (2002). Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). Best Practice and Research Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 16, 679-702
- Frankenfield, D., Roth-Yousey, L. and Compher, C. (2005). Comparison of predictive equations for resting metabolic rate in healthy nonobese and obese adults: a systematic review. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 105, 775-789
- Westerterp, K. R. (2004). Diet induced thermogenesis. Nutrition and Metabolism 1, 5
Maintained by Anil ShahUpdated October 28, 2026Checked against 10 reference values