Estimate your maintenance calories before you cut, bulk, or maintain.
Use this TDEE calculator to estimate how many calories you burn in a normal day, compare common BMR formulas, and set a better starting point for fat loss, maintenance, or lean gain.
Best use case
Find a calorie baseline before you build a diet plan.
Most common error
Choosing an activity multiplier that is too high.
What to do next
Move from TDEE into deficit, macros, and meal timing.
Calculate your maintenance calories, then choose a realistic next step.
TDEE is your best starting estimate for how many calories you burn in a normal day. Use it to set a fat-loss target, hold maintenance, or start a small lean-gain phase without guessing.
Inputs
Profile and measurement details
Choose your activity level
Be conservative here. Most people get a better starting estimate by choosing slightly lower, then adjusting after 2 to 3 weeks of real tracking.
Pick a formula
Your result
Your maintenance estimate will appear here
Enter your age, sex, height, weight, activity level, and formula choice to generate your daily calorie baseline.
Practical calorie targets
Once your result is ready, this panel will show calorie targets for gentle fat loss, moderate fat loss, maintenance, and lean gain.
Use your TDEE
The number matters less than what you do with it next.
TDEE is not a final answer. It is the baseline that helps you set a calorie target with less guesswork and then adjust based on real feedback.
Start with maintenance, not a random deficit
Your TDEE is the anchor number. Once you know it, you can cut or add calories without guessing.
Make one change at a time
For most people, a 10% to 20% deficit is a cleaner starting point than an aggressive crash cut.
Track real results for 2 to 3 weeks
If average body weight does not move as expected, adjust by roughly 100 to 200 calories and retest.
Activity Guide
Choose the multiplier that matches your normal week, not your best week.
People usually miss on TDEE because they overrate daily activity. The cleaner move is to choose the lower tier, then adjust only after you see what happens in practice.
x1.2
Sedentary
Desk-based work, low daily step count, no consistent training routine.
x1.375
Lightly active
A few walks each week or light training sessions on top of a mostly seated day.
x1.55
Moderately active
Structured training 3 to 5 times per week or a generally active daily routine.
x1.725
Very active
Hard training most days, frequent sport sessions, or a physically demanding job.
x1.9
Extremely active
Very high training load plus a manual job or consistently high movement volume.
Formula Guide
Compare formulas if you want more context, but do not overthink the decimal.
Small differences between formulas are normal. Real-world tracking matters more than obsessing over which equation wins by 50 calories on paper.
Mifflin-St Jeor
Usually the strongest default for modern TDEE estimates. If you only use one formula, start here.
Harris-Benedict
An older formula that can still be useful as a comparison point, especially if you want to sanity-check the estimate range.
TDEE calculator FAQ
How accurate is a TDEE calculator?
What is the difference between BMR and TDEE?
Which activity level should I pick if I am unsure?
Should I eat below my BMR to lose fat faster?
How often should I recalculate TDEE?
Research and reference notes
Introduced the Mifflin-St Jeor resting energy expenditure equation that is still widely used in nutrition practice.
The original Harris-Benedict metabolic equation, still commonly referenced as a comparison formula.
A useful reference on constrained total energy expenditure and why activity does not always scale linearly forever.