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TDEE Calculator

Calculators · Added 15 August 2026

Work out the energy you use in a day — your BMR multiplied by an activity factor — and see how much that answer depends on the activity level you chose. The gap between sedentary and very active is usually larger than the difference between any two BMR equations, which makes it the most important input on the page.

Units
Sex
kg
cm
yrs

How to use the tdee calculator

  1. 1Enter your sex, age, height and weight in metric or imperial units.
  2. 2Pick the activity level that honestly describes a typical week.
  3. 3Choose which BMR equation to base the estimate on.
  4. 4Read your TDEE, and the table showing what every other activity level would give.
  5. 5Pick a macronutrient split to see the protein, carbohydrate and fat breakdown.

Examples

Moderately active

Input
75 kg, 178 cm, 30-year-old man, exercise 3–5 days a week
Result
About 2,662 kcal a day

BMR of 1,717 multiplied by the 1.55 moderate activity factor.

The same person, sedentary

Input
The same figures with a desk job and no exercise
Result
About 2,060 kcal a day

A 600 kcal difference from one dropdown — which is why choosing it honestly matters.

Macro split

Input
2,662 kcal on a balanced 30/40/30 split
Result
200 g protein · 266 g carbs · 89 g fat

Protein and carbohydrate provide 4 kcal per gram, fat 9.

About the tdee calculator

The four components of daily energy use

Total daily energy expenditure is conventionally broken into four parts. Basal metabolic rate is the largest, at roughly 60 to 70 percent for most people — the cost of simply being alive. The thermic effect of food, the energy spent digesting and processing what you eat, accounts for around 10 percent and varies with what you eat, being highest for protein.

Exercise activity thermogenesis is deliberate physical activity, and for most people it is a smaller share than expected — an hour of moderate exercise might be 300 to 500 kcal, perhaps 15 percent of a day's total for someone training regularly.

The fourth is non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT: everything else you do while awake. Walking to the shop, standing, cooking, fidgeting. NEAT varies enormously between individuals — studies have found differences of several hundred calories a day between people of similar size — and it is the main reason two people with identical calculated TDEEs can have genuinely different real needs.

Why the activity multiplier dominates the uncertainty

The choice between BMR equations moves the answer by perhaps 50 to 100 calories. The choice of activity level moves it by 600 or more across the range offered. Any effort spent agonising over which formula to use is misplaced next to the effort of choosing the multiplier honestly.

The systematic bias is upward. Self-reported activity consistently exceeds measured activity in research, and people tend to select the category describing how they would like to think of themselves. Compounding this, self-reported food intake is systematically under-reported, often by 20 percent or more. The two errors point the same way, which is why a plan built on both can fail while appearing arithmetically sound.

This is also why NEAT deserves attention. It responds to circumstances in ways people do not notice — a period of dieting often produces an unconscious reduction in spontaneous movement, which shrinks the deficit without any conscious change. Someone whose weight loss stalls despite unchanged eating is frequently experiencing this rather than a broken metabolism.

Using the number, and its limits

The right way to treat a calculated TDEE is as a first estimate to be corrected by observation. Eat at the estimate for two to three weeks, weigh yourself consistently, and look at the trend rather than individual days — daily fluctuations of a kilogram or two from water, food volume and glycogen are normal and mean nothing. If weight is stable, the estimate was good. If it drifts, adjust by a couple of hundred calories and repeat.

That feedback loop is more valuable than any refinement of the calculation, because it measures you rather than a population you resemble. After a few weeks of honest tracking, your observed maintenance intake is far better information than any equation can provide.

One caution about the macro figures: they are arithmetic, not nutritional advice. They divide an energy target into three parts using the Atwater factors that food labels are built on, and they say nothing about food quality, micronutrients, fibre or how any of it fits a medical condition. Anyone with diabetes, kidney disease, an eating disorder history or any condition affected by diet should be working with a healthcare professional rather than a calculator.

Frequently asked questions

How is TDEE different from BMR?
BMR is what your body uses at complete rest. TDEE is everything: BMR plus the energy used digesting food, moving around during ordinary daily life, and any deliberate exercise. TDEE is always the larger number, typically between 1.2 and 1.9 times BMR, and it is the figure that corresponds to what you actually need to eat to maintain weight.
Which activity level should I pick?
Almost certainly a lower one than you first reach for. The multipliers are meant to describe a whole week, not your best days, and most people overestimate — an hour at the gym three times a week alongside a desk job is 'lightly active' rather than 'very active'. If in doubt, choose the lower option and adjust upward if your weight drifts down at that intake. The comparison table exists so you can see what the alternatives would give.
Where do the activity multipliers come from?
They are the conventional Harris-Benedict activity factors, in use since the mid-twentieth century and adopted by most calculators. They are rough categories rather than precise measurements, and the true variation between two people who would both describe themselves as 'moderately active' is considerable — non-exercise activity, the fidgeting and standing and walking that fills a day, varies by hundreds of calories between individuals.
Do I need to hit my macros exactly?
No. Total energy intake is what drives weight change; macronutrient distribution affects satiety, training performance and body composition at the margins. Protein has the strongest evidence behind it, particularly for retaining muscle in a deficit. Beyond hitting a reasonable protein target, the split that works is the one you can maintain, and the presets here are starting points rather than prescriptions.
How is this different from the calorie calculator?
The calorie calculator takes your TDEE and applies goal offsets — deficits for losing weight, surpluses for gaining. This one stops at maintenance and focuses on how the activity multiplier drives the answer, with the full comparison table and a macro breakdown. Use this to understand what you burn; use that one to plan a change.

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