TDEE Calculator

How is TDEE calculated?

TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure, is the number of calories you burn in a day: your resting metabolism plus daily movement and exercise. Eating about that many calories keeps your weight steady.

Example: a 35-year-old woman who is 5 ft 5 in, weighs 165 lb, and is lightly active burns about 1,986 calories a day.

Your BMR, the calories you burn at rest, comes from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation:

Men: 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age + 5

Women: 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age − 161

Multiplying BMR by an activity factor, from 1.2 for a desk job to 1.9 for hard daily training, gives your maintenance calories: what you burn on a typical day.

The cut target takes 0.25% to 1% of your body weight per week and subtracts about 3,500 calories for each pound of that, spread over seven days. Slower rates are easier to stick with.

This calculator never suggests fewer than 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men.

These are estimates. Your real burn changes with your weight, sleep, and daily steps, so treat the number as a starting point and adjust it after a few weeks of tracking.

Next, the macro calculator splits these calories into protein, fat, net carbs, and fiber.

Sources

• Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, et al. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;51(2):241-247.