Estimate daily maintenance calories from metabolism and activity.
Overview
Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) estimates how many calories you burn in a typical day after accounting for resting metabolism and activity.
Most TDEE workflows calculate basal metabolic rate (BMR) first, then multiply by an activity factor. The result is a practical maintenance-calorie baseline for nutrition planning.
This calculator gives an evidence-based starting point for calorie targets, which should then be adjusted using real body-weight trends over multiple weeks.
Steps
Provide sex, age, weight, and height for BMR estimation.
Choose sedentary to very active category based on lifestyle.
Tool multiplies estimated BMR by activity factor.
Apply deficit, maintenance, or surplus adjustment to TDEE.
Compare predicted versus real trends and update targets.
Math
TDEE = BMR x Activity Factor (BMR often estimated via Mifflin-St Jeor equation)
BMR estimates resting energy expenditure. Activity multipliers account for movement, training, and non-exercise activity across daily life.
Worked cases
1650 x 1.55
TDEE about 2558 kcal/day.
2558 - 500
Cut target about 2058 kcal/day.
2300 + 250
Gain target about 2550 kcal/day.
Why use this
Questions