Calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure — how many calories you burn per day. Get targets for weight loss, maintenance, and muscle gain.
Your Stats
Gender
If provided, uses the more accurate Katch-McArdle formula
Age, gender, height, and weight. We calculate your BMR using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation.
How active are you? This multiplier adjusts your BMR to reflect real daily calorie burn.
See calories and macros for cutting, maintaining, and bulking. Adjust your diet with confidence.
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Your TDEE is the single most important number for any diet. Whether you're cutting for summer, bulking for strength, or just trying to stop gaining weight — it starts with knowing how many calories you burn.
This calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, recommended by the American Dietetic Association as the most accurate BMR formula. Free. Instant. No email required.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure — the total calories your body burns in a day including all activity. It combines your basal metabolic rate (calories burned at rest) with calories from exercise, daily movement, and digesting food.
We use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate from your age, gender, height, and weight. Then we multiply by an activity factor based on your exercise frequency. The result is your TDEE.
BMR is the calories you burn just staying alive (breathing, heart beating, brain functioning). TDEE adds everything else: exercise, walking, fidgeting, and digesting food. TDEE is always higher than BMR.
Eat 15–25% below your TDEE. A moderate deficit of 500 calories/day leads to roughly 1 pound of fat loss per week. Going too aggressive (more than 25% deficit) risks muscle loss and metabolic slowdown.
Eat 10–20% above your TDEE. A moderate surplus of 200–300 calories/day supports muscle growth without excessive fat gain. Pair this with resistance training and adequate protein (0.8–1g per pound of bodyweight).
The Mifflin-St Jeor equation is considered the most accurate BMR formula by the American Dietetic Association. However, all estimates have a margin of error of roughly 10%. Use your calculated TDEE as a starting point, then adjust based on real-world results after 2–3 weeks.
Most people overestimate their activity level. If you have a desk job and exercise 3–4 times per week, choose “Moderate.” Only select “Very Active” if you have a physical job AND exercise intensely daily. When in doubt, choose one level lower.
Your TDEE is a daily average. Some people prefer eating the same every day for simplicity. Others use calorie cycling — eating more on training days and less on rest days. Both approaches work as long as your weekly average matches your goal.
Recalculate every 10–15 pounds of weight change, or every 2–3 months. As you lose weight, your TDEE decreases because your body has less mass to maintain. As you gain muscle, your TDEE may increase slightly.