TDEE Calculator
Calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, the calories you burn per day, using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation.
In years
What Is TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)?
Your TDEEis the total number of calories your body burns in a day. It's the sum of four parts: the energy you burn at rest (your BMR), the calories used to digest food, the calories burned during planned exercise, and the calories burned through everyday movement like walking, typing and fidgeting. Added together, this is the amount of energy you'd need to eat to keep your weight perfectly stable.
That makes TDEE the foundation of any nutrition plan. To lose fat, build muscle, or hold steady, you first need to know roughly how much you burn. This is why a TDEE calculator is usually the first tool people reach for. It turns a rough guess into a concrete starting number.
BMR vs TDEE: How the Calculation Works
The calculator works in two clear steps. First it finds your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the calories you'd burn lying in bed all day. It uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, the most reliable general formula for healthy adults. Your BMR depends on your weight, height, age and sex.
Then it multiplies that BMR by an activity factor ranging from 1.2 (sedentary) to 1.9 (athlete) to capture how much you move. BMR is your baseline; TDEE is your real-world total once daily life and exercise are included. The table above breaks down your TDEE at every activity level so you can see exactly how much movement changes the number.
Validated examples: a 30-year-old man at 80 kg and 180 cm who trains moderately has a BMR of 1,780 and a TDEE of 2,759 kcal. A 30-year-old woman at 65 kg and 165 cm who is lightly active has a BMR of 1,370 and a TDEE of 1,884 kcal.
Choosing the Right Activity Level
The activity multiplier has a big impact on your result, so it's worth getting right. The most common mistake is overestimating, counting a gentle daily walk as "very active." A useful rule of thumb: your activity level should reflect your averageweek, not your best week. If you train hard three days and rest the other four, you're "moderately active," not "very active."
Remember that this setting is meant to cover your formal exercise. If you already track your daily steps separately, you can sanity-check the activity factor against your real movement. Our steps to calories calculator shows roughly how many calories your daily walking adds, which can help you decide whether to bump your activity level up or down.
Using Your TDEE to Reach Your Goals
Once you know your TDEE, the next step depends on your goal. To maintain your weight, eat right around your TDEE. Our maintenance calories calculator frames the same number specifically for staying steady. To lose fat, eat below it: the calorie deficit calculator builds a safe deficit ladder from your TDEE and shows the weekly loss each one produces.
Calories tell you how much to eat; macros tell you whatto eat. Once you've settled on a daily calorie target, drop it into the macro calculator to split it into protein, carbs and fat. From there, the real work is consistency: tracking what you eat and watching the trend in your weight. The Velpa app makes it easy to log your weight and steps in one private place so you can see whether your TDEE estimate matches reality and adjust with confidence.
Frequently asked questions
- What is TDEE and why does it matter?
- TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It's the total number of calories your body burns in a typical 24-hour period, from breathing and digestion to walking, working out and fidgeting. It matters because it's the single most important number for managing your weight. Eat at your TDEE and your weight stays stable. Eat below it and you lose weight. Eat above it and you gain. Almost every nutrition goal starts by knowing this number.
- How is TDEE calculated?
- This calculator uses a two-step method. First it estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which is the most accurate general formula for healthy adults: for men, BMR = (10 × weight kg) + (6.25 × height cm) − (5 × age) + 5; for women the final term is −161 instead of +5. Then it multiplies your BMR by an activity factor (1.2 for sedentary up to 1.9 for athletes) to account for movement and exercise. The result is your TDEE.
- What's the difference between BMR and TDEE?
- BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is the energy your body burns at complete rest just to keep you alive: heart beating, lungs breathing, cells repairing. It typically accounts for 60 to 70% of the calories you burn. TDEE is your BMR plus all the additional calories you burn through daily activity, exercise and digesting food. In other words, BMR is your baseline and TDEE is your real-world total. You should always base your eating targets on TDEE, not BMR.
- Which activity level should I choose?
- Be honest and slightly conservative. Most people overestimate. Choose 'Sedentary' if you have a desk job and little to no formal exercise. 'Lightly active' suits light exercise 1 to 3 days a week. 'Moderately active' fits 3 to 5 days of real training. 'Very active' is for hard exercise 6 to 7 days a week, and 'Athlete' is for twice-daily training or a physically demanding job. If you're unsure, pick the lower option; you can always increase your intake if you're losing weight faster than intended.
- How accurate is a TDEE calculator?
- TDEE formulas are estimates, typically within about 10% of your true expenditure. Two people with identical stats can have different real-world TDEEs because of muscle mass, genetics, hormones and non-exercise movement (NEAT). Use your calculated TDEE as a starting point. Eat at that level for 2 to 3 weeks and track the trend in your weight. If the scale isn't moving the way you expect, adjust by 100 to 200 calories. A real-world feedback loop beats any single formula.