TDEE Calculator

Estimate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure based on activity level and goal

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What Is TDEE?

TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure: the total number of calories your body burns in a day, including everything from breathing and digesting food to walking, working, and exercising. It is the single most useful number for anyone trying to lose weight, gain weight, or simply maintain their current weight, because it tells you exactly how many calories you need to eat to stay at, go below, or go above energy balance.

TDEE is built from three real components:

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – the calories your body burns at complete rest just to keep your organs, brain and muscles running. This is usually the biggest single piece of your TDEE, often 60–70% of the total.
• Activity level – calories burned through exercise, walking, your job, and everyday movement (formally, thermic effect of activity and non-exercise activity thermogenesis).
• Thermic effect of food (TEF) – the energy your body uses to digest and process the food you eat, typically around 10% of intake.

How This Calculator Works

Our TDEE calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, widely regarded by nutrition researchers as the most accurate BMR formula for the general population. It first calculates your BMR from your sex, age, height and weight, then multiplies that figure by your chosen activity level to get your maintenance TDEE:

• Men: BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) – 5 × age (years) + 5
• Women: BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) – 5 × age (years) – 161

From there, your BMR is multiplied by an activity multiplier:

• Sedentary (little or no exercise) × 1.2
• Light (exercise 1–3 days/week) × 1.375
• Moderate (exercise 3–5 days/week) × 1.55
• Active (exercise 6–7 days/week) × 1.725
• Very Active (hard daily exercise or a physical job) × 1.9

Finally, we show you three real targets around that maintenance number: a −500 kcal/day deficit for weight loss, your maintenance calories, and a +500 kcal/day surplus for weight gain, since a 500 kcal/day change is the standard, well-established starting point for a roughly 0.5 kg (1 lb) per week change in weight.

TDEE vs BMR: What’s the Difference?

Your BMR is only one ingredient of your TDEE, not the same number. BMR tells you what you’d burn lying in bed all day with nothing to digest. TDEE adds your real activity and food digestion on top of that, so it is always higher than your BMR (or equal, in the rare case of someone completely sedentary and eating nothing). If you only want your resting BMR figure on its own, with no activity picker, use our dedicated BMR Calculator. For a fuller breakdown of how the two numbers relate and which one actually matters for your goal, see BMR vs TDEE: Which Number Actually Matters?

Using Your TDEE to Lose or Gain Weight

Once you know your maintenance TDEE, weight change becomes a matter of real, consistent energy balance: eat less than your TDEE to lose weight, eat more to gain, and eat at your TDEE to hold steady. For a full walkthrough, including how to adjust your target over time as your weight changes, read our guide, How to Calculate Your TDEE (and Use It to Lose or Gain Weight). Once you have your daily target, you can look up any of the 5,200+ UK foods in our Food Calorie Calculator to track exactly what you eat against it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good TDEE for weight loss?

There is no single “good” TDEE – it depends entirely on your own body and activity level. What matters is eating below your own personal TDEE, typically by 300–500 kcal/day for a sustainable, roughly 0.5 kg (1 lb) per week rate of loss.

Is TDEE the same as maintenance calories?

Yes. Your TDEE and your maintenance calories are the same number – the amount of energy you’d need to eat each day to keep your weight exactly where it is.

How accurate are TDEE calculators?

A TDEE calculator gives a genuinely useful starting estimate, not a lab-measured figure. The Mifflin-St Jeor formula this calculator uses is considered one of the most accurate available, but real-world TDEE still varies by individual metabolism, muscle mass, and how honestly your own activity level is reported. Track your actual weight over 2–3 weeks and adjust your target up or down if real results don’t match the estimate.

Should I eat exactly at my TDEE every single day?

No – your TDEE is a useful weekly average target, not a number to hit exactly every day. Real day-to-day eating naturally varies, and what matters most for weight management is your average intake over a week or more.

Does TDEE change as I lose or gain weight?

Yes. As your body weight changes, your BMR (and therefore your TDEE) changes with it, since a lighter body generally burns somewhat fewer calories at rest. Recalculate your TDEE every few weeks, or whenever your weight has moved by more than a few kilograms, to keep your target accurate.

Want the full step-by-step maths behind this number? Read What Is TDEE? A Complete, Plain-English Guide.

Related Calculators

• BMR Calculator – your resting metabolic rate on its own, with a full activity-level reference table
• Food Calorie Calculator – search 5,200+ UK foods and build a meal against your daily target