What Is TDEE?
TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure — the calories your body burns in a day. Calculate yours below, along with targets for maintenance, weight loss and weight gain.
What Makes Up Your TDEE?
Total Daily Energy Expenditure is made up of four components. Together, they add up to the total number of calories your body uses in a day.
BMR
Basal metabolic rate — the energy used at complete rest just to keep your body functioning.
NEAT
Non-exercise activity — walking, fidgeting, chores and all the movement outside of structured workouts.
TEF
Thermic effect of food — the energy your body spends digesting, absorbing and processing what you eat.
EAT
Exercise activity — calories burned during deliberate workouts, sport and structured training.
Calculate Your TDEE
Enter your details below to estimate your BMR and TDEE, plus calorie targets for common goals.
TDEE Estimator
See your maintenance calories and goal-based targets.
How it Works
Understanding your TDEE
Enter Your Details
Add your sex, age, height and weight so we can estimate your basal metabolic rate.
Choose Your Activity Level
Select how active you typically are, to convert your BMR into your full TDEE.
See Your Maintenance Calories
Your TDEE is the number of calories that would keep your weight roughly stable.
Pick a Target
Use the goal-based figures to see calorie targets for mild or steady weight loss or gain.
Activity Levels & TDEE Multipliers
A general overview of the activity multipliers used to convert BMR into TDEE under the standard Harris-Benedict / Mifflin-St Jeor approach.
| Activity Level | Description | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | Little or no exercise, desk job | BMR × 1.2 |
| Lightly Active | Light exercise 1–3 days/week | BMR × 1.375 |
| Moderately Active | Moderate exercise 3–5 days/week | BMR × 1.55 |
| Very Active | Hard exercise 6–7 days/week | BMR × 1.725 |
| Extremely Active | Physical job or training twice a day | BMR × 1.9 |
TDEE FAQ
Answers to the most frequently asked questions about what TDEE means, how it’s calculated, and how to use it.
TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It is an estimate of the total number of calories your body burns in a day, including calories used at rest, digesting food, and through everyday movement and exercise.
BMR (basal metabolic rate) is only the energy your body needs at complete rest to keep basic functions running. TDEE builds on BMR by adding the calories burned through digestion, daily movement and any structured exercise, so it is always higher than BMR.
TDEE calculators give a useful estimate based on population averages, typically within 10 to 15 percent of true energy expenditure for most people. Actual results vary by individual, so it’s common to track progress over a few weeks and adjust the estimate up or down based on real-world results.
It’s worth recalculating whenever your weight changes by a noticeable amount, roughly every 4 to 8 weeks, or if your activity level changes significantly. As body weight decreases, TDEE typically decreases too, so periodic recalculation helps keep calorie targets accurate.