Know your burn.
Own your body.

How Your TDEE Was Calculated

Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is the total number of calories your body burns in a 24-hour period: every breath, every blink, every step, every rep. It is the single most important number in any nutrition plan, because it defines the line between gaining weight, losing weight, and staying exactly where you are.

TDEE is built on a smaller, more fundamental number called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). That's the calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed all day doing absolutely nothing. BMR typically accounts for 60–70% of your total daily burn. Everything you do on top of that (walking, lifting, fidgeting, digesting) gets layered on via an activity multiplier to produce your TDEE.

The Formula We Used For You

Because you didn't enter a body fat percentage, we used the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, the most widely validated BMR formula in modern nutrition science and the one recommended by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for general use.

If you provide a body fat percentage, we automatically switch to the Katch-McArdle equation, which calculates your BMR from your lean body mass (everything that isn't fat). This is more accurate for lean, muscular, or very athletic individuals because muscle burns substantially more calories at rest than fat does.

Your Activity Multiplier

We multiplied your BMR by your selected activity factor to estimate calories burned through movement, exercise, and the thermic effect of food. Higher activity levels carry larger multipliers because consistent training raises your daily burn well beyond what your resting metabolism alone accounts for.

How To Actually Use This Number

To lose weight, eat below your TDEE. A 500-calorie daily deficit produces roughly one pound of fat loss per week. That's fast enough to see real progress, slow enough to preserve muscle and sanity. To maintain, eat right around your TDEE and let your body recompose. To build muscle, eat 250–500 calories above TDEE while training hard; this is the slow lane, but it's the lane that actually works without piling on fat.

Methodology & Sources

This calculator is built on two peer-reviewed equations that are the standard of care in clinical nutrition and sports science:

• Mifflin-St Jeor (1990) is the default BMR equation. It was validated against indirect calorimetry in 498 healthy adults and is the equation recommended by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for estimating resting metabolic rate in non-obese and obese adults. View the original study on PubMed.
• Katch-McArdle is used automatically when you enter a body fat percentage. Because it bases BMR on lean body mass rather than total weight, it produces a sharper estimate for lean or athletic individuals whose body composition diverges from the population average. Background on resting energy expenditure (NIH Bookshelf).
• Activity multipliers (1.2x sedentary through 1.9x athlete) follow the conventions used by the FAO/WHO/UNU Expert Consultation on Human Energy Requirements, and align with the 2002 Institute of Medicine Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy.
• Macro guidance (protein floor of roughly 0.8–1g per pound of bodyweight during a deficit) follows the International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand on protein and exercise.

Limitations & medical disclaimer: Predictive equations cannot capture every variable that influences metabolism (thyroid status, medications, recent dieting history, sleep debt, etc.). This page provides evidence-based estimates for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. If you are managing a health condition, are pregnant, or are recovering from disordered eating, please work with a registered dietitian or your physician before changing your intake.