TDEE Calculator
Calculate daily energy expenditure
TDEE Calculator tool
TDEE Calculator
TDEE Calculator: key facts
- What it does
- Calculate daily energy expenditure
- Category
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Cost
- Free, with no account, sign-up, or install.
- Your data
- Runs entirely in your browser — the files and text you enter are never uploaded to a server.
- Last reviewed
- . Report an incorrect result.
About the TDEE Calculator
Total daily energy expenditure is the number of calories you actually burn in a day once movement and exercise are added to your resting metabolism. This calculator takes your BMR and multiplies it by an activity factor to give that full-day figure — the number that drives any sensible eating plan.
Anyone managing weight uses TDEE as the dividing line: eat below it to lose, around it to maintain, above it to gain. By keeping BMR as a separate input, the tool lets you slot in a value from a BMR calculation and instantly see how different activity levels change your daily burn.
How to use it
- Enter your BMR in calories per day (calculate it first with a BMR calculator if you don't know it).
- Choose your activity level from the dropdown, from sedentary to extra active.
- Read your TDEE — the estimated calories you burn in a full day.
- Use it as your maintenance baseline, adjusting up or down for your goal.
BMR multiplied by an activity factor
Total daily energy expenditure is what you actually burn across a full day, and this tool builds it the conventional way: take a resting rate and scale it up by a multiplier that stands in for how much you move. The multipliers offered run from 1.2 for a sedentary day through to 1.9 for very hard training or heavy physical work.
Those factors are broad brackets rather than precise measurements, and the gaps between them are large. Moving one step up the list — from lightly active to moderately active, say — adds several hundred calories to the daily figure, which is more than most people's actual difference in activity between those two descriptions. When in doubt, choose the lower bracket: overestimating activity is the most common reason a calorie target quietly fails.
The tool takes BMR as a direct input rather than recomputing it, so you can paste in a figure from a Mifflin–St Jeor calculation, from a DEXA or metabolic cart measurement, or from a previous estimate you have already validated against your own results.
- A 1,500 kcal BMR at the default lightly-active factor of 1.375 gives a TDEE of 2,062.50 kcal.
- The same BMR at the moderate 1.55 factor gives 2,325 kcal — a 262 kcal jump for one bracket.
- At the top 1.9 factor it reaches 2,850 kcal, nearly double the resting figure.
Why use this version
- It uses the standard activity multipliers — 1.2 sedentary, 1.375 lightly active, 1.55 moderately active, 1.725 very active, and 1.9 extra active — so the estimate follows established methodology.
- Each activity option spells out what it means (exercise frequency), so you can pick honestly rather than guessing.
- Taking BMR as a direct input keeps it flexible — pair it with any BMR source and compare activity scenarios instantly.
- It calculates locally with no sign-up.
Why the number moves day to day
Daily expenditure is made of four parts and the activity multiplier lumps three of them together. Beyond the resting rate there is the energy used digesting food, roughly a tenth of intake; deliberate exercise; and non-exercise activity — fidgeting, walking, standing, housework — which varies enormously between people and often more than training does.
That last component also adapts. Sustained dieting tends to reduce spontaneous movement without any conscious decision, so measured expenditure drifts below what the equation predicts as a deficit continues. This is a well-documented effect and it is the reason weight loss slows before arithmetic says it should.
Treat the figure as a hypothesis. Eat at it for two or three weeks, track weight honestly, and adjust from what the scale actually did — that feedback loop is far more accurate than any multiplier. For meaningful weight change, or if you have a condition affecting metabolism or appetite, involve a qualified professional rather than working from an estimate alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is TDEE calculated?
TDEE is your BMR multiplied by an activity multiplier that reflects how active you are. For example, a BMR of 1,600 at a moderately active level (×1.55) gives a TDEE of about 2,480 calories per day.
Which activity level should I choose?
Be honest and account for your whole week. "Sedentary" suits desk jobs with little exercise; "moderately active" fits training three to five days a week; the highest levels are for daily hard training or physically demanding jobs. Overestimating activity is a common reason calorie plans stall.
How do I use TDEE to lose or gain weight?
Eat below your TDEE to lose weight and above it to gain, with a moderate gap of a few hundred calories being sustainable for most people. Your TDEE is the maintenance point around which you set that deficit or surplus.
Why does this ask for BMR instead of my height and weight?
This calculator focuses on the activity step and expects a BMR figure as input, which keeps it simple and lets you reuse a BMR from any source. Calculate your BMR first from your age, sex, height, and weight, then enter it here.
