TDEE calculator — total daily energy expenditure
Find your maintenance calories from BMR and an honest activity multiplier, with cut, maintain and bulk targets and the full working shown.
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These equations were built from male and female reference groups — pick the one closest to your physiology.
5 ft 10.1 in
172 lb · 12 st 4 lb
Activity multipliers are broad averages. Expect your true maintenance to sit within about 10 to 15 percent of this figure — two weeks of daily weigh-ins will pin it down far better than any equation.
Where the calories go
| Goal | Change | Calories / day | Expected rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aggressive cutFast loss. Hard to sustain past 8–12 weeks and costs more lean mass. | -25% | 2,031 | -0.62 kg/wk |
| Standard cutThe usual recommendation — noticeable progress, still liveable. | -20% | 2,167 | -0.49 kg/wk |
| Mild cutSlow, low-friction loss. Good alongside heavy training. | -10% | 2,438 | -0.25 kg/wk |
| MaintainHold current weight while you recomposition or take a diet break. | ±0% | 2,709 | no change |
| Lean bulkEnough surplus to build muscle without much fat gain. | +10% | 2,979 | 0.25 kg/wk |
| BulkFast gain for hard gainers; expect a meaningful share as fat. | +20% | 3,250 | 0.49 kg/wk |
The formula, with your numbers
- BMR (Mifflin-St Jeor)
- (10 × 78) + (6.25 × 178) − (5 × 30) + 5 = 1748 kcal
- TDEE
- 1748 × 1.55 (moderately active) = 2709 kcal/day
- Rate of change
- (daily surplus or deficit × 7) ÷ 7,700 kcal per kg of fat
The activity multiplier already includes your workouts — do not add a fitness-tracker exercise burn on top.
What this means
Eat about 2,709 kcal a day and your weight should hold steady. That figure is your basal rate of 1,748 kcal multiplied by 1.55 for a moderately active lifestyle.
For fat loss, a 20 percent cut — 2,167 kcal — is the sweet spot for most people: fast enough to see progress in a fortnight, slow enough that training quality and mood survive. For muscle gain, a 10 percent surplus is plenty; anything bigger mostly adds fat, because muscle can only be built so fast.
Track it honestly for two weeks and weigh yourself every morning. If your seven-day average is flat, this number was right. If it moved, adjust by 100 to 150 kcal and repeat — that empirical figure beats every equation on this page.
How to work out your TDEE
- Enter sex, height, weight and age so the calculator can estimate your basal rate.
- Choose an activity level. Read the descriptions rather than the labels — this is where almost all the error comes from.
- Optionally add your body fat percentage to switch the underlying BMR from Mifflin-St Jeor to Katch-McArdle.
- Read your maintenance number, then pick a target from the goal table depending on whether you want to lose, hold or gain.
What TDEE is made of
Total daily energy expenditure is everything your body spends in 24 hours. It breaks into four parts:
| Component | Share of TDEE | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Basal metabolic rate (BMR) | 60 – 70% | Keeping you alive at complete rest |
| Thermic effect of food (TEF) | about 10% | Digesting and storing what you eat; protein costs the most, around 20–30% of its own calories |
| Non-exercise activity (NEAT) | 15 – 30% | Walking, fidgeting, standing, housework, commuting — the most variable component by far |
| Exercise activity (EAT) | 0 – 15% | Deliberate training. Usually smaller than people expect |
NEAT is the wild card. Between two people of the same size it can differ by 2,000 kcal a day, and it drops quietly when you diet — you sit more, take the lift, gesture less. That is a large part of why weight loss decelerates faster than arithmetic predicts.
Activity multipliers, honestly described
| Level | Multiplier | What it actually looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 1.2 | Desk job, drive everywhere, under 5,000 steps, no training |
| Lightly active | 1.375 | Desk job plus 1–3 workouts a week, or 7,000–10,000 steps a day |
| Moderately active | 1.55 | 3–5 real training sessions a week, or a job on your feet all day |
| Very active | 1.725 | Hard training 6–7 days a week, or manual work plus regular sessions |
| Extra active | 1.9 | Two sessions a day, or an athlete in a heavy block, or heavy labour plus training |
If you are hesitating between two levels, pick the lower one. Over-estimating activity is the single most common reason a calculated deficit produces no weight loss.
Two mistakes that break the number
Double-counting exercise. The multiplier already includes your training. Adding the 600 kcal your watch reported for a run on top of a 1.55 multiplier counts the same run twice. Fitness trackers also over-report exercise burn by 20 to 90 percent depending on the device and the activity, so the double-count is worse than it looks.
Ignoring the calories you did not log. Cooking oil, the milk in three coffees, a few bites while making dinner. Under-reporting of intake in free-living adults averages 20 percent in controlled studies, and it is not deliberate. If a deficit is not working, this is usually the reason before metabolism is.
How to find your real TDEE
Any equation is a starting guess. The empirical version takes three weeks and is far better:
- Weigh yourself every morning, after the bathroom, before eating. Log all seven days.
- Log everything you eat, weighed where practical, without changing your habits.
- After 14 to 21 days, compare the first and last seven-day weight averages. If weight is flat, your average intake is your TDEE.
- If it moved, adjust: each kilogram of change over a week corresponds to roughly 1,100 kcal a day of surplus or deficit (500 kcal per pound per week ÷ 7 ≈ 500 per day per pound).
From then on, recalculate whenever your weight moves by about 5 percent, because maintenance moves with it.
Choosing a target from your TDEE
- Fat loss: 10 to 25 percent below maintenance. Twenty percent suits most people. Below 25 percent for long stretches costs muscle, training quality and adherence.
- Maintenance: useful between diet phases. Two to four weeks at maintenance after a long cut restores appetite hormones and training performance.
- Muscle gain: 5 to 15 percent above maintenance. Beginners can build muscle near maintenance; experienced lifters need the surplus but gain more slowly, so a bigger surplus mostly adds fat.
Once you have a target, the macro calculator turns it into grams of protein, carbohydrate and fat, and the calorie calculator projects how long a goal weight will take.
Questions
How accurate is a TDEE estimate?
Expect plus or minus 10 to 15 percent. The equation is the easy part; picking the right activity multiplier is where most of the error lives. Treat the number as a starting point, then adjust it after two weeks of real weight data.
Which activity level should I pick?
Most people overestimate. Three or four gym sessions a week on top of a desk job is "lightly active" to "moderately active", not "very active". Very active means hard training six or seven days a week, or a physically demanding job on top of training.
Should I add my workout calories on top of TDEE?
No — the activity multiplier already contains them. Adding a fitness-tracker burn on top double-counts the same exercise and is the most common reason a "deficit" stops working.
How do I check my real TDEE?
Track intake carefully for two to three weeks and weigh yourself every morning. If the weekly average is flat, your intake is your TDEE. That empirical number beats any equation.