Your TDEE — Total Daily Energy Expenditure — is the total number of calories your body burns in a day. To calculate it, first find your BMR with the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, then multiply by an activity factor (1.2 to 1.9) that matches how much you move. For example, a moderately active 30-year-old man at 185 lbs (84 kg) has a TDEE of roughly 2,820 calories per day. This guide walks you through the exact math so you can find your own number.
Answer a few questions and our TDEE calculator will estimate your BMR and daily calorie burn automatically.
Calculate My TDEETDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure: every calorie your body burns in 24 hours, added together. It has four components. The biggest is your basal metabolic rate (BMR) — the energy cost of keeping you alive at rest — which accounts for roughly 60–70% of the total. Next comes NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis): the calories burned through walking, fidgeting, standing, and daily chores. Then deliberate exercise: gym sessions, runs, sports. Finally, the thermic effect of food (TEF): the energy your body spends digesting what you eat, roughly 10% of intake.
Why does this number matter so much? Because it is the anchor for every calorie goal. Eat below your TDEE and you lose weight; eat at it and you maintain; eat above it and you gain. Nearly every diet, meal plan, and fitness program is really just a strategy for positioning your intake relative to this one number.
Two steps: find your BMR, then scale it by your activity level. We will work through a full example so you can plug in your own numbers.
The most widely validated formula is Mifflin-St Jeor (metric inputs):
Example: a 30-year-old man weighing 185 lbs (84 kg) at 5 ft 11 in (180 cm):
BMR = 10 × 84 + 6.25 × 180 − 5 × 30 + 5 = 840 + 1,125 − 150 + 5 = ≈ 1,820 calories/day
(If you prefer not to convert units by hand, you can calculate your BMR directly in pounds and feet/inches.) An older alternative, the revised Harris-Benedict equation, gives similar results; Mifflin-St Jeor is generally considered the more accurate of the two for most adults.
Your BMR is what you would burn lying in bed all day. Real life burns more, so multiply by the factor that best describes your typical week:
Example continued: our 30-year-old exercises moderately 4 days a week, so TDEE = 1,820 × 1.55 = ≈ 2,820 calories/day. That is his maintenance level — the intake at which his weight should stay roughly stable.
The single most common mistake here is overestimating activity. If you sit most of the day and work out three times a week, you are "lightly active," not "very active" — choosing too high a tier can inflate your TDEE by 300–500 calories and quietly erase a weight-loss deficit. When in doubt, pick the lower tier and adjust based on what the scale does over 2–3 weeks. You can calculate your TDEE with your own stats to see where you land.
This is the most common point of confusion, so here it is plainly: BMR is what you burn at rest; TDEE is what you burn in real life. BMR is a component of TDEE, never a substitute for it.
| BMR | TDEE | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Calories burned at complete rest | Total calories burned in a full day |
| Includes activity? | No | Yes — movement, exercise, digestion |
| Our example | ≈ 1,820/day | ≈ 2,820/day |
| Use it for | A floor — rarely eat below this for long | Setting calorie targets for any goal |
The practical rule: always set calorie targets from TDEE, never from BMR alone. Someone who eats at their BMR while living a normal active life is accidentally running a large deficit — which sounds fine until hunger, fatigue, and muscle loss show up. If you want the BMR number on its own for reference, our BMR calculator gives it alongside your TDEE.
Your TDEE is a starting line, not a finish line. What you do with it depends on your goal:
Whichever direction you go, treat your TDEE as a living number: recalculate every 4–6 weeks or after gaining or losing about 5 lbs (2–3 kg), because a smaller or larger body burns a different amount.
Honest answer: within about ±10–15% for most people. The formulas are population averages — validated on large groups, but any individual can run hotter or colder thanks to muscle mass, genetics, hormones, and plain daily variation. Two people with identical stats can have TDEEs a few hundred calories apart.
That does not make the number useless; it makes it a calibrated starting point. Run your calculated TDEE for 2–3 weeks while tracking weight: if the scale does not move in the expected direction, adjust intake by 100–200 calories and reassess. The people who get the best results are not the ones with the perfect formula — they are the ones who treat the first number as a hypothesis and refine it with real data.
One refinement worth knowing: if you want a more precise exercise estimate than a flat multiplier, you can estimate workout burn from MET values (metabolic equivalents) — our MET calculator converts activities and durations into calories, which you can then add to a sedentary-base TDEE instead of guessing a multiplier.
For the bigger picture — how TDEE fits into overall nutrition planning — browse our full set of body and nutrition calculators.
You know the math now — let the calculator do the arithmetic with your exact stats.
Calculate My TDEEWritten by the Live Fitness Check editorial team · Reviewed against our calculator methodology · Last updated October 2026
Disclaimer: This guide is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Calorie needs vary by individual; consult your doctor or a registered dietitian before starting a weight-loss plan, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, managing a medical condition, or have a history of disordered eating.
