Free TDEE calculator
What do you actually burn in a day?
Your total daily energy expenditure — maintenance calories — from the Mifflin–St Jeor equation. Unlike most TDEE calculators this one prints every activity level at once, because the activity factor is where nearly all of the error lives and seeing the spread is the fastest way to understand how soft the number is.
General wellness guidance, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, under 18, or managing a medical condition, talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian before acting on any of these numbers.
BMR, TDEE, and the gap between them
Basal metabolic rate is what your body spends doing nothing: heartbeat, breathing, temperature, brain, tissue repair. For most people it is sixty to seventy per cent of the daily total, which surprises people who assume exercise dominates. It does not.
Everything else — walking to the bus, standing up, typing, fidgeting, training, digesting — is bundled into a single multiplier. That bundle is why two people with identical bodies can need six hundred calories a day more or less than each other, and it is the reason this page shows all five multipliers rather than only the one you picked.
| Activity level | Factor | Who it actually fits |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 1.20 | Desk job, no deliberate training, under about 5,000 steps |
| Lightly active | 1.375 | 1–3 sessions a week, or a lot of walking and no gym |
| Moderately active | 1.55 | 3–5 real sessions a week |
| Very active | 1.725 | 6–7 sessions a week, or a physical job plus training |
| Extra active | 1.90 | Manual labour, or training twice a day |
The part a calculator cannot do
A TDEE estimate is a hypothesis. The test is what your weight does over the next three weeks while you actually eat to it. If the trend is flat and you wanted loss, your real TDEE is lower than the estimate — not by magic, usually by a mixture of an over-generous activity factor and unlogged food. Adjust by a hundred or two and test again.
That loop is the whole job, and it is the one thing a one-off calculation cannot do for you. NutriLog AI runs it automatically: it re-refines your target every time you log a weight, so the estimate converges on your actual expenditure instead of staying frozen at day one. The deficit calculator takes the same numbers and turns them into a rate and a date, and the macro calculator splits the result into grams.
Common questions
What is TDEE?
Total daily energy expenditure: everything your body spends in twenty-four hours. It is your basal metabolic rate — what keeps you alive at rest — multiplied by an activity factor that covers moving, working and training. TDEE is the number you eat against. Eating at BMR while living a normal life is a large accidental deficit.
How accurate is a TDEE calculator?
The equation is accurate to roughly ten per cent either way for most people, and the activity factor is where nearly all of the rest of the error lives. Two people who both call themselves "moderately active" can differ by six hundred calories a day. Treat the output as a starting point and correct it against three weeks of real weight data.
Which activity level should I pick?
The honest one, not the flattering one. The factor is meant to cover your whole week, including the days you do nothing. If you train hard three times a week and sit down the rest of the time, that is moderately active — not very active. When in doubt, pick the lower row: a target that is slightly too low shows up as faster progress, while one that is too high shows up as no progress at all and no obvious reason why.
Should I add my exercise calories on top of TDEE?
No — that double-counts, because the activity factor already contains your training. Add exercise separately only if you set activity to sedentary and log every session by hand. Watch and tracker estimates for calories burned are also generous, frequently by a third or more, so eating all of them back is a common reason a deficit quietly disappears.
Does TDEE change as I lose weight?
Yes, and this is the part most calculators never mention. A lighter body costs less to move and less to maintain, so the same target becomes a smaller deficit over time. Some of the drop is simply mass, and some is adaptation — you move less without noticing. Recalculate every four to six kilos, or let something recalculate it for you.
What formula does this use?
Mifflin–St Jeor for BMR — 10 × weight in kg + 6.25 × height in cm − 5 × age, then +5 for men and −161 for women — times the activity factor shown next to each row. It is the same equation the NutriLog AI Android app uses to build a plan, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Other free calculators
Estimate it once. Then let it correct itself.
NutriLog AI re-refines your maintenance estimate every time you log a weight, and logs the food against it in under a minute. Free, no ads, Android. Free on Google Play.