TDEE Calculator
Total daily energy expenditure: BMR (Mifflin-St Jeor) times five standard activity levels, in one full table — plus calorie targets for losing, maintaining or gaining.
Also available as a desktop app for Windows.
About this tool
TDEE — total daily energy expenditure — is the number of calories you burn in a normal day: your basal metabolic rate multiplied by an activity factor. Eat close to it and your weight holds; eat below it and you lose; eat above it and you gain. It is the reference point every calorie target is measured against.
This tool computes your BMR with the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, then applies all five standard activity levels — from sedentary (1.2) to extra active (1.9) — in one table. Seeing the whole table matters: the honest uncertainty in "how active am I really" spans hundreds of calories, far more than the precision any single number suggests.
Below the table are calorie targets at fixed offsets: ±250 and ±500 kcal per day against your chosen level. They are arithmetic anchors, not medical advice — a ±500 kcal/day gap corresponds to roughly 0.45 kg (1 lb) of body weight per week, because a kilogram of body fat stores about 7,700 kcal. Everything runs locally in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
- Which activity level should I pick?
- Most people overestimate. Desk job plus planned exercise 3–5 days a week is "moderately active", not "very active" — the levels describe your whole week, not your best day. If torn between two levels, take the lower one and adjust after two weeks of real weight data.
- Why do the five numbers differ so much?
- Because the factors compound. For a 2,000 kcal BMR, sedentary (×1.2) and extra active (×1.9) differ by 1,400 kcal/day — nearly a pound of body weight a week. That spread is not noise; it is the honest range of what "more active" can mean, and it is why picking a level carefully matters more than the BMR itself.
- Is eating 500 kcal below TDEE safe?
- A ±500 kcal/day offset is the standard, moderate anchor — about 0.45 kg (1 lb) per week for most adults. But very low total intakes, extended deficits, or any diet with a medical condition in play are things to discuss with a professional. This tool does arithmetic; it does not know your health history.
- Does it work in pounds and feet?
- Yes — switch the unit selector to imperial and enter height in feet + inches and weight in pounds. The conversion uses full-precision factors (1 lb = 0.45359237 kg) and matches the metric result.
- Why Mifflin-St Jeor and not another BMR formula?
- It is the current general recommendation and tested most accurately against measured values. The activity multiplier dominates the uncertainty here anyway: formulas disagree by ~5%, while your true activity factor can swing the total by 40%+. Comparing formulas is what the BMR calculator is for.