TDEE Calculator — Total Daily Energy Expenditure (2026)
Calculate exactly how many calories you burn daily using the Mifflin-St Jeor formula. Get your BMR, TDEE, and macros for any goal.
Daily Calorie Burn (TDEE)
2,693 cal
BMR
1737 cal
Protein
170g
Carbs
335g
Fat
75g
Calories by Goal
Macronutrient Split (Maintenance)
170g
680 cal
335g
1340 cal
75g
675 cal
Goal Calorie Targets
Analysis & insights
Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is 2,693 calories/day — your resting BMR (1,737) plus 956 calories from daily activity and exercise. This is the maintenance level — eat at this number to stay the same weight. Adjust by ±500 calories for ~1 lb/week weight change. Re-measure quarterly or after major bodyweight changes.
High expenditure
Above-average — common in active lifestyles or larger frames.
Risk & benchmark gauge
Current band
High
2,693 cal/day TDEE
Industry benchmarks
- Your TDEE2,693 cal/day
- BMR (resting)1,737 cal/day
- Activity calories956 cal/day
- US adult average~2,200 cal/day
Key insights
BMR is ~60-75% of TDEE
Your BMR (1,737) is the energy your body burns at complete rest — keeping organs running, generating heat, basic cellular function. Everything you do on top adds to TDEE.
Track NEAT separately
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (fidgeting, walking, standing) can vary by 800+ calories between two people. If you sit most of the day, simply standing more is a "free" 200-400 cal/day.
Recommended actions(3)
Set a goal-aligned calorie target
High prioritySubtract 500 for ~1 lb/week loss; add 500 for ~1 lb/week gain.
Impact: A consistent 500 cal/day deficit yields roughly 1 lb/week loss for most people.
Re-calculate after 10+ lb of change
Medium priorityTDEE moves with bodyweight. Recalculate when you've gained or lost 10+ lbs to keep your targets accurate.
Hit your protein target first
Medium priority0.7-1.0 g per lb bodyweight. Critical during weight loss to preserve muscle; critical during weight gain to build it.
Health & Wellness Resources
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Related Calculators
This tool is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a healthcare professional for advice specific to your situation.
What is TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)?
Total Daily Energy Expenditure is the number of calories your body burns in 24 hours, counting everything — keeping you alive, digesting food, walking to the kitchen, and any deliberate exercise. It is the maintenance line: eat at it and weight stays broadly stable, eat consistently above or below it and it moves.
The word doing the most work in that sentence is "estimate". TDEE is calculated by predicting your resting metabolic rate from a population equation and multiplying by an activity factor. Both steps carry error, and they compound — two people with identical height, weight, age and sex can genuinely differ by several hundred calories a day.
That is not a reason to ignore the number. It is a reason to treat it as a starting hypothesis, run it for two or three weeks, and let your actual weight trend correct it. Your own data beats any equation within a fortnight.
The formula — how to calculate TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)
- BMR
- = basal metabolic rate — what you would burn lying still all day
- Activity factor
- = 1.2 sedentary, 1.375 light, 1.55 moderate, 1.725 very active, 1.9 extremely active
Mifflin-St Jeor predicts resting energy expenditure more accurately than the older Harris-Benedict equation for most people. Neither can see body composition, so both misestimate at the extremes — under for very muscular people, over at high body fat.
Step-by-step example
- 01A 30-year-old man, 180 cm, 82 kg, training four times a week.
- 02BMR = (10 × 82) + (6.25 × 180) − (5 × 30) + 5
- 03BMR = 820 + 1,125 − 150 + 5 = 1,800 calories.
- 04Moderate activity factor of 1.55: TDEE = 1,800 × 1.55 = 2,790 calories.
- 05To lose roughly 0.5 kg per week, subtract about 500: ≈ 2,290 calories.
- 06To gain lean mass slowly, add 250–350: ≈ 3,040–3,140 calories.
- 07Now note the uncertainty honestly. If the BMR estimate is off by 10% and the activity factor is one step wrong, the true maintenance could sit anywhere from about 2,400 to 3,100 — which is why the two-week weight trend matters more than the calculation.
The four components, and which you can actually change
The practical implication is counter-intuitive: for most people, daily movement outside the gym influences TDEE more than the gym session does. An hour of moderate training might burn 400 calories; the difference between a sedentary day and an active one can exceed that without any formal exercise at all.
What makes up your daily burn
| Component | Share | How much control you have |
|---|---|---|
| Basal metabolic rate | 60–70% | Limited — mostly set by body size and lean mass |
| Non-exercise activity (NEAT) | 15–30% | Substantial, but largely unconscious |
| Thermic effect of food | ~10% | Minor; protein has the highest cost to digest |
| Exercise | 0–15% | Direct, but smaller than most people assume |
NEAT — fidgeting, posture, walking around — varies enormously between individuals and falls measurably during calorie restriction. That adaptive drop is a major reason weight loss slows over time.
Choosing an activity factor honestly
This is where most TDEE estimates go wrong, because people choose the level they aspire to rather than the one they live. The gap between "light" and "very active" on the same BMR is several hundred calories — enough to turn an intended deficit into a surplus.
Describe an average week including the days you do nothing. Someone who trains hard four times a week and sits at a desk otherwise is "moderate", not "very active". "Extremely active" means twice-daily training or heavy manual labour on top of training, and genuinely applies to very few people.
Do not add tracker calories on top
If your activity factor already reflects your training, adding the calories a watch reports for a workout double-counts it. Wearables and cardio machines are also known to overestimate energy expenditure, sometimes substantially, so eating back the full reported figure is a reliable way to erase a deficit.
Why TDEE falls as you lose weight
A smaller body costs less to run. Basal rate drops as mass falls, moving around burns less, and unconscious daily movement tends to decline during restriction. The deficit you calculated at your starting weight therefore shrinks as you succeed.
This is normal physiology, not failure. The response is to recalculate every four to six kilograms rather than assuming the original number holds indefinitely.
Aggressive restriction accelerates the problem, because very large deficits increase the share of weight lost as lean tissue, which lowers metabolic rate further. A moderate deficit of roughly 15–25% below maintenance, with adequate protein and resistance training, preserves considerably more lean mass and leaves you in a better position at the end.
Key considerations
- Treat the figure as a two-to-three week experiment, then adjust from your weight trend.
- Judge progress on weekly averages, not daily weigh-ins dominated by water and food in transit.
- Recalculate after every few kilograms of change.
- Prioritise protein in a deficit to protect lean mass.
- Do not eat back tracker-reported exercise calories if your activity factor already covers training.
- If you have a thyroid condition, diabetes, a history of disordered eating, or are pregnant or breastfeeding, work with a clinician rather than a calculator.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Picking an aspirational activity level, which can wipe out the intended deficit.
- Treating the estimate as exact when the realistic range spans several hundred calories.
- Double-counting exercise by both raising the activity factor and eating back tracker calories.
- Cutting far below maintenance on the assumption faster is better.
- Never recalculating after significant weight change.
- Ignoring protein and resistance training, which decides how much of the loss is fat.
Frequently asked questions
Sources & references
Written and fact-checked by the CalcProLabs Editorial Team. Read our calculation methodology and editorial policy.
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