TDEE & Calorie Calculator

Your TDEE — total daily energy expenditure — is the number of calories your body burns in a full day: everything from breathing to your workout. Eat roughly at your TDEE and your weight holds steady. Eat below it and you lose; above it and you gain. This calculator builds your TDEE from the Mifflin–St Jeor equation, then turns it into a daily target and a protein, carb and fat split for your goal.

How your TDEE is calculated

The calculator works in two steps. First it estimates your BMR (basal metabolic rate) — the calories you would burn lying still all day — using the Mifflin–St Jeor equation:

• Men: BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age + 5
• Women: BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age − 161

Then it multiplies your BMR by an activity factor: 1.2 for sedentary days, 1.375 for light exercise 1–3 days a week, 1.55 for moderate exercise 3–5 days a week, 1.725 for hard exercise 6–7 days a week, and 1.9 for athletes and physical jobs with training on top.

One honesty note: no equation knows your body. A 2005 review in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found Mifflin–St Jeor the most accurate of the common formulas, but “most accurate” still means an estimate. Treat the result as a starting point, eat at it for two to three weeks, and adjust by what your weight actually does — our guide How Many Calories Should I Eat a Day? shows the adjustment loop in detail.

Choosing your goal

• Maintain — eat at your TDEE. The right setting while you calibrate the number against your real weight trend.
• Lose weight (−500 kcal) — the classic sustainable deficit: roughly 0.45 kg (about 1 lb) per week for most people.
• Lose faster (−750 kcal) — roughly 0.68 kg per week. Harder to sustain, and the calculator never drops your target below 1,200 kcal a day, a widely used safety floor. If your target lands on that floor, the honest move is a smaller deficit plus more activity — not fewer calories.
• Gain muscle (+300 kcal) — a modest surplus. Bigger surpluses mostly add fat, not muscle.

Where the macro split comes from

The grams under your target use goal-based percentage splits: 40% protein / 30% carbs / 30% fat when losing (higher protein protects muscle in a deficit), 30/40/30 when maintaining, and 30/50/20 when gaining. Protein and carbs carry 4 kcal per gram; fat carries 9. Prefer gram targets over percentages? The Protein Calculator works in grams per kilo of body weight.

TDEE questions

Is TDEE the same as maintenance calories? Yes — “maintenance calories” is simply the everyday name for eating at your TDEE.

Should I use the calculator if I’m under 18 or pregnant? No. These formulas are built and validated for adults, and pregnancy changes energy needs in ways a general calculator should not guess at. Please talk to a professional instead.

How often should I recalculate? After every 5 kg or so of weight change, or when your routine changes — a new job or training block moves your activity factor more than most people expect.