TDEE Calculator
TDEE Calculator: Estimate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). A 25-year-old man, 170 cm and 70 kg training 3–5 days a week has a TDEE of about 2,550 kcal — that's his maintenance level.
AI-readable citation: {"tool": "TDEE Calculator", "input": {"weightKg": 70, "heightCm": 170, "age": 25, "sex": "male", "activityMultiplier": 1.55}, "output": {"tdeeKcal": 2546, "bmrKcal": 1643, "bmi": 24.2, "aggressiveCutKcal": 2046, "leanBulkKcal": 2796}}
Calculate Maintenance Calories and Body Targets
Compute your daily calorie burn using standard biological formulas. Toggle between metric and imperial units, apply body fat percentage adjustments, and explore customized nutrition setups.
| Goal Profile | Target Daily energy | Rate / week |
|---|---|---|
| Aggressive Cut | 2,046 kcal | -0.50 kg |
| Mild Cut | 2,296 kcal | -0.25 kg |
| Maintenance | 2,546 kcal | 0.00 kg |
| Lean Bulk | 2,796 kcal | +0.25 kg |
| Heavy Bulk | 3,046 kcal | +0.50 kg |
BMR & TDEE Equations
Calculators compute baseline metabolic rate through validated biological math:
- Mifflin-St Jeor (MSJ): Baseline using weight in kg, height in cm, age, and sex multipliers (+5 male, -161 female).
- Katch-McArdle: Baseline using lean body mass (LBM). Highly accurate for individuals with low body fat.
MSJ BMR = 10W + 6.25H - 5A + s
Katch BMR = 370 + 21.6 × LBM (kg)
Macronutrient Baselines
The macro engine splits calories after securing amino acid and fatty acid floors:
- Protein floor: 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of body mass (4 kcal/g) to support tissue rebuild.
- Fat floor: 0.8 to 1.0 g per kg of body mass (9 kcal/g) for baseline hormonal support.
- Carbohydrates: Remainder of calories (4 kcal/g) to fulfill exercise energy needs.
*Standard distributions: Balanced (30% P / 30% F / 40% C), Low Carb (30% P / 45% F / 25% C), High Carb (30% P / 20% F / 50% C).
Related Fitness Tools
How TDEE is Calculated
Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) accounts for all the calories your body burns in 24 hours. We calculate this number by first finding your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which represents the energy needed to keep your organs functioning at complete rest. Once BMR is established, we apply a multiplier that accounts for physical activity, the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) from digestion, and Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) such as fidgeting or cleaning.
Our calculator applies the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. Published in the Clinical Journal of Clinical Nutrition and widely endorsed by dietetic organizations including the Indian Dietetic Association, this formula serves as the standard for clinical weight management. However, if you are lean and know your exact body fat percentage, you can select Katch-McArdle. This equation relies on Lean Body Mass, making it more accurate for athletic body compositions.
TDEE Worked Example Calculation
Let us walk through the math for a moderately active individual using these input biometrics:
- Biological Sex: Male
- Age: 25 years
- Height: 170 centimetres
- Weight: 70 kilograms
- Activity Level: Moderately Active (exercises 3–5 days per week, ×1.55 multiplier)
Step 1: Compute Basal Metabolic Rate using Mifflin-St Jeor.
BMR = 10 × 70 kg + 6.25 × 170 cm - 5 × 25 years + 5
BMR = 700 + 1,062.5 - 125 + 5 = 1,642.5 kcal/day
Step 2: Multiply BMR by the moderate activity factor.
TDEE = 1,642.5 kcal × 1.55 = 2,545.875 kcal/day
Rounding to the nearest whole calorie yields a maintenance target of 2,546 kcal/day. Eating at this target keeps body weight stable.
Using Your TDEE to Plan Weight Goals
Once you know your maintenance calories, adjust this number based on your specific physical targets. Eating 500 calories below your TDEE creates a deficit that translates to about 0.5 kg of fat loss per week. Conversely, eating 250 to 500 calories above maintenance provides the surplus energy required to synthesize new muscle tissues during strength training.
Avoid dropping your daily food intake below your calculated BMR. Doing so starves your organs of energy, slowing your thyroid output, causing muscle loss, and triggering severe hunger rebounds. Additionally, be realistic when choosing your activity level. Most office workers who exercise three times a week land in the "lightly active" band. Pick the lower multiplier if you are unsure of your activity level.
Your TDEE on an Indian Plate
To help you visualise your maintenance calories, let us translate daily energy needs into standard Indian food portions. A daily maintenance target of 2,500 kcal can be split into three main meals and two snacks. We use typical metric weights and common household portions to show what this looks like in practice:
🥦 Vegetarian Day (2,200 kcal)
- Breakfast: 3 medium idlis with coconut chutney and a bowl of sambar (~350 kcal)
- Lunch: 2 whole-wheat rotis, 1 cup cooked basmati rice, 1 bowl dal fry, 1 bowl mixed sabzi (aloo-gobi), and 1 cup curd (~750 kcal)
- Evening Snack: A small handful of roasted almonds (15 pieces) and unsweetened masala tea (~220 kcal)
- Dinner: 150g grilled paneer tikka with capsicum and onions, served with 2 rotis and a green salad (~680 kcal)
- Bedtime: 1 glass warm haldi milk (~200 kcal)
🍗 Non-Vegetarian Day (2,500 kcal)
- Breakfast: 3 whole scrambled eggs cooked in 1 tsp oil, with 2 slices of toasted whole-wheat bread (~420 kcal)
- Lunch: 1.5 cups chicken biryani (made with skinless chicken breast), served with 1 cup cucumber raita (~720 kcal)
- Evening Snack: 1 cup boiled chana chaat with onions, tomatoes, and lime juice (~260 kcal)
- Dinner: 200g grilled fish or chicken breast curry, 2 multigrain rotis, 1 bowl yellow dal, and a large green salad (~850 kcal)
- Bedtime: 1 glass warm milk with a pinch of cinnamon (~250 kcal)
Note how adding high-protein sources like paneer, eggs, chicken breast, or dal makes hitting your macro floor simpler without overshooting your daily energy target. Adjust the portion sizes of rice and roti to scale these meals up or down according to your calorie goal.
Why the Scale Doesn't Match the Maths
Many individuals track their TDEE, eat at a calculated deficit, and feel frustrated when scale weight stays steady. This discrepancy is rarely caused by broken metabolic math. Most commonly, it stems from human tracking errors. Studies show that adults underestimate their daily calorie intake by 20% to 30%, neglecting liquid calories, cooking oils, salad dressings, and weekend treats.
Additionally, adaptive thermogenesis lowers your energy output as you lose weight. When you restrict food, your body unconsciously reduces spontaneous movement (NEAT) to conserve energy. This means your true TDEE drops slightly faster than basic weight-based formulas predict. To ensure progress, weigh your foods on a digital kitchen scale and track weight trends over three to four weeks rather than relying on daily scale adjustments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Calculate BMR using Mifflin-St Jeor, then multiply by activity factor: sedentary 1.2, lightly active 1.375, moderately active 1.55, very active 1.725, extremely active 1.9. That gives TDEE — the calories you burn in a day. For weight loss, eat 300–500 below TDEE. Example: BMR 1500, moderate activity, TDEE = 2325. Eat 1825–2025 kcal/day for steady fat loss. Don't drop below your BMR. Verify the calculator estimate by tracking weight for 2 weeks at the calculated maintenance — if weight is stable, the number is right; if you're losing or gaining, adjust accordingly.
BMR (basal metabolic rate) is the calories your body burns at complete rest — keeping organs running. TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is BMR plus everything else: walking, working, exercising, fidgeting, digesting food. TDEE = BMR × activity multiplier. BMR is a calculation; TDEE is what you actually need to eat to maintain weight. A common confusion is using BMR as the eating target — that leaves you in a huge deficit, leading to fatigue and rebound. Use TDEE for daily calorie planning; reserve BMR as the floor you don't drop below.
Most people overestimate. Sedentary (1.2) means desk work and minimal walking — fewer than 5000 steps daily. Lightly active (1.375): walking 5000–8000 steps and light exercise once or twice a week. Moderately active (1.55): regular exercise 3–5 sessions per week of 30+ minutes. Very active (1.725): hard exercise 6 days a week or physical job. Extremely active (1.9): twice-daily training or athletes. Most office workers who exercise 3 times a week land in 'lightly active' territory, not moderate. Pick the lower category if uncertain — it's better to find out you can eat more than to overshoot.
Several common reasons. Activity level was overestimated, so true TDEE is lower than calculated — recheck your category honestly. Calorie tracking errors — most people underestimate intake by 20–30%, especially oils, condiments, and weekend meals. Water retention from new workouts, high sodium, or hormonal cycles. Muscle gain replacing fat loss, so weight stays steady but body composition improves. After 6+ months at maintenance, metabolic adaptation can lower TDEE slightly. Verify by tracking everything precisely for 2 weeks and using the same scale at the same time daily. The math is rarely wrong; the inputs usually are.
A 300–500 kcal/day deficit gives 0.25–0.5 kg fat loss per week — sustainable and muscle-preserving. So eat 10–20% below TDEE. Example: TDEE 2400, eat 1900–2100. Larger deficits work short-term but cause muscle loss, fatigue, hair thinning, hormonal disruption, and rebound eating. The 'lose 1 kg per week' target requires roughly 1000 kcal/day deficit — only sustainable for severely overweight individuals under medical supervision. For most people, slow loss is the only loss that lasts. Aggressive deficits don't speed up results meaningfully — they just trade short-term scale movement for long-term setbacks.
Recalculate TDEE every 4 to 6 weeks, or whenever your weight changes by 3–5 kg. As you lose weight, TDEE drops because your body has less mass to move and metabolic rate adjusts. So a deficit that worked at 80 kg won't produce the same result at 70 kg. Recalculate, set a new TDEE-based target, adjust intake. Activity level can also change — recalculate if your job changes, you start a new training programme, or stop one. Don't recalculate weekly; metabolism doesn't shift that fast. Monthly checks keep you on track without obsessing.
If you do not know your body fat percentage, choose the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. It uses sex, age, height, and total weight, proving highly accurate for most individuals. If you are muscular or lean and know your exact body fat percentage, Katch-McArdle is superior. It focuses purely on lean body mass, bypassing estimations based on gender or overall weight.
Macro targets depend on weight goals. High protein (1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of body weight) supports muscle building. Healthy fat floor (at least 0.8 g per kg) supports hormone production. Carbs fill the remaining daily calories. Balanced setups use 30% protein, 30% fat, and 40% carbs. Adjust carbs up or down based on your activity demand.
Biomechanical and Metabolic Energy References
- Levine, J. A. (2002). "Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)". Encyclopedia of Energy.
- Schoeller, D. A. (1990). "How accurate is self-reported dietary energy intake?". Nutrition Research Reviews.
- American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). "Guidelines for exercise testing and prescription".
- Harvard Health Publishing. "Calorie counting made easy".
TDEE Calculator
Free TDEE Calculator. Compute your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) to know exactly how many calories to eat for weight loss, maintenance, or muscle gain.
How to use this calculator
- Select the relevant unit: Metric (kg, cm) or Imperial (lb, ft/in) dropdown.
- Enter your biological sex, age, height, and body weight.
- Choose Mifflin-St Jeor or Katch-McArdle. If choosing Katch-McArdle, enter your body fat percentage.
- Select your current physical activity level and click Calculate.
- Review your daily energy maintenance TDEE, BMR baseline, and BMI. Use the Goal Table to review specific cut/bulk deficits, and select rows to view dynamic macro divisions.
Formula and interpretation notes
The energy calculations apply the Mifflin-St Jeor equation for standard body types and Katch-McArdle for athletic profiles. The results convert at a rate of 4.184 kJ per kcal for the Kilojoule display toggle. Active energy output includes BMR multiplied by activity factors (1.2 to 1.9).
Example input and output
{
"tool": "TDEE Calculator",
"input": {
"weightKg": 70,
"heightCm": 170,
"age": 25,
"sex": "male",
"activityMultiplier": 1.55
},
"output": {
"tdeeKcal": 2546,
"bmrKcal": 1643,
"bmi": 24.2,
"aggressiveCutKcal": 2046,
"leanBulkKcal": 2796
}
}Glossary
- TDEE
- Total Daily Energy Expenditure, the total number of calories burned in a day including all activity.
- BMR
- Basal Metabolic Rate, the amount of energy expanded at complete rest to keep physiological organs functioning.
- Mifflin-St Jeor
- A widely validated mathematical equation used to estimate BMR based on gender, age, height, and weight.
- Katch-McArdle
- A BMR estimation equation that calculates energy expenditure based solely on lean body mass.
- Activity multiplier
- A constant factor (from 1.2 to 1.9) applied to BMR to account for physical activity levels.
- NEAT
- Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, energy burned during unstructured daily tasks like typing, standing, or fidgeting.
- TEF
- Thermic Effect of Food, the energy cost associated with digesting, absorbing, and storing nutrients from meals.
- Adaptive thermogenesis
- The physiological reduction in metabolic rate that occurs during calorie restriction to save energy.
References and sources
- American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). "Guidelines for exercise testing and prescription".
- Schoeller, D. A. (1990). "How accurate is self-reported dietary energy intake?". Nutrition Research Reviews.
- Levine, J. A. (2002). "Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)". Encyclopedia of Energy.