Introduction
Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is the total number of calories your body burns in a single day. It includes everything, from breathing and digesting food to walking and working out. Knowing your TDEE is one of the most important steps in reaching your fitness goals. Whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle, or maintain your current body, your TDEE gives you a clear calorie target to aim for. If you eat fewer calories than your TDEE, you will lose weight. If you eat more, you will gain weight. Use this TDEE calculator to find out exactly how many calories your body needs each day based on your age, weight, height, and activity level.
How to Use Our TDEE Calculator
Enter your body stats and activity level below to find out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE), the total number of calories your body burns each day.
Age: Type in your current age in years. Your metabolism changes as you get older, so this helps us give you a more accurate calorie estimate.
Gender: Select your biological gender. Men and women burn calories at different rates because of differences in muscle mass and hormones.
Weight: Enter your current body weight. You can use pounds or kilograms. Your weight plays a big role in how many calories your body needs each day.
Height: Enter your height in feet and inches or centimeters. Taller people generally burn more calories than shorter people, even at rest.
Activity Level: Pick the option that best matches how active you are during a normal week. This ranges from sedentary (little or no exercise) to extra active (very hard exercise or a physical job). Be honest with your selection. Picking a higher activity level than your real one will give you a number that is too high.
Results: Once you hit calculate, the tool will show your TDEE in calories per day. This number tells you how many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight. To lose weight, eat fewer calories than your TDEE. To gain weight, eat more calories than your TDEE.
What Is TDEE?
TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It is the total number of calories your body burns in a single day. This includes everything: breathing, digesting food, walking, exercising, and even sleeping. Knowing your TDEE helps you understand how much energy your body needs to get through the day.
How Is TDEE Calculated?
TDEE is found in two steps. First, you calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is the number of calories your body burns just to stay alive while doing nothing at all. Think of it as the energy cost of keeping your heart beating, your lungs breathing, and your brain working. Then, your BMR is multiplied by an activity factor that matches how active you are during the day. The more you move, the higher your TDEE will be.
BMR Formulas Explained
There are several well-known formulas used to estimate BMR:
- Mifflin-St Jeor: This is the most widely recommended formula today. It uses your weight, height, age, and gender, and was derived in 1990 from 498 healthy adults aged 19 to 78.1 A systematic review found it the most reliable of the common equations.6
- Harris-Benedict (Revised): This is an older formula, first published in 1918.2 Roza and Shizgal re-fitted it in 1984.3 The coefficients here are those 1984 values as printed in a 2021 systematic review of prediction equations.4 In the Mifflin-St Jeor study the original equations overestimated measured resting energy expenditure by 5%.1
- Katch-McArdle: This formula is different because it uses your lean body mass instead of total body weight. To use it, you need to know your body fat percentage. Its published form is Cunningham's 1991 equation, 370 + 21.6 × lean body mass in kilograms.5 It can be more accurate for people who are very muscular or who know their exact body composition.
Activity Levels and What They Mean
Your activity level plays a big role in your TDEE. Here is a simple guide:
- Sedentary: You sit most of the day and do little to no exercise. This includes typical desk jobs.
- Lightly Active: You do light exercise or walk a few times per week.
- Moderately Active: You exercise at a medium effort level 3 to 5 days per week.
- Very Active: You do hard workouts 6 to 7 days per week.
- Extra Active / Athlete: You train intensely every day, sometimes twice a day, or have a very physical job.
Using TDEE for Weight Loss, Gain, or Maintenance
Once you know your TDEE, you can set a calorie goal based on what you want to achieve:
- Maintain weight: Eat roughly the same number of calories as your TDEE.
- Lose weight: Eat fewer calories than your TDEE. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's guide says a deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day produces a loss of 1 to 2 pounds per week.7 That is roughly 0.5 to 1 kg a week. Larger deficits are harder to sustain and may not be safe for everyone.
- Gain weight: Eat more calories than your TDEE. A surplus of 250 to 500 calories per day is a common range for building muscle without gaining too much fat.
What About BMI?
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a quick way to check whether your weight falls in a healthy range for your height. It divides your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal, below 18.5 is underweight, 25 to 29.9 is overweight, and 30 or above is classified as obese.8 BMI is useful as a general screening tool, but it does not account for muscle mass, bone density, or where you carry your fat. A very muscular person, for example, may have a high BMI but still be perfectly healthy. Your Waist to Hip Ratio and Waist to Height Ratio give a more complete picture of your body composition, as these metrics better account for fat distribution.
Macronutrients: Protein, Carbs, and Fat
Calories come from three main macronutrients. Protein has 4 calories per gram and is essential for building and repairing muscle.9 Carbohydrates also have 4 calories per gram and are your body's preferred source of quick energy.9 Fat has 9 calories per gram and supports hormone production, brain health, and vitamin absorption.9 Different diet styles split these macros in different ways. A balanced moderate diet might use a 30/40/30 split (protein/carbs/fat), while a ketogenic diet shifts heavily toward fat and cuts carbs very low. The best split depends on your goals, preferences, and how your body responds.
Ideal Body Weight Estimates
Several formulas estimate an ideal body weight based on your height and gender. Formulas like Robinson, Miller, Devine, and Hamwi were developed decades ago and give slightly different results; the coefficients this calculator uses are those printed in a later review of ideal-body-weight equations.10 None of them are perfect because ideal weight depends on factors like muscle mass, frame size, and overall health. They are best used as rough guidelines rather than strict targets.