Calorie Calculator (TDEE)
Estimate your daily maintenance calories (TDEE) and targets for weight loss or gain.
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This calorie calculator estimates your maintenance calories, the energy you burn in a typical day, known as TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). From your gender, age, weight in kg, height in cm and one of five activity levels, it works out your BMR and then shows daily targets for maintaining, losing or gaining weight.
Step 1: resting burn with Mifflin-St Jeor
Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is what your body uses at complete rest. The tool calculates it with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, published in 1990 and generally found to be the most reliable of the common prediction formulas for healthy adults:
Men: BMR = 10 × weight(kg) + 6.25 × height(cm) − 5 × age + 5 Women: BMR = 10 × weight(kg) + 6.25 × height(cm) − 5 × age − 161
Step 2: the activity multiplier
| Activity level option | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Sedentary (little exercise) | 1.2 |
| Light (1–3 days/wk) | 1.375 |
| Moderate (3–5 days/wk) | 1.55 |
| Active (6–7 days/wk) | 1.725 |
| Very active (physical job) | 1.9 |
TDEE is simply BMR multiplied by the factor you choose. The multiplier already includes your workouts, walking and daily movement.
A full worked example
A 30-year-old man weighing 70 kg, 175 cm tall, who trains on 3–5 days a week:
- BMR = 700 + 1,093.75 − 150 + 5 = 1,648.75, shown as 1,649 kcal
- TDEE = 1,648.75 × 1.55 = 2,555.6, shown as 2,556 kcal/day
- Mild loss (−0.25 kg/wk): 2,306 kcal · Weight loss (−0.5 kg/wk): 2,056 kcal · Mild gain (+0.25 kg/wk): 2,806 kcal
Change only the activity level and his maintenance ranges from 1,978 kcal (Sedentary) to 3,133 kcal (Very active), a spread of over 1,100 calories. The activity choice moves the answer far more than a kilo or two of body weight. For comparison, a 28-year-old woman at 58 kg and 160 cm with Light activity gets a BMR of 1,279 kcal and a TDEE of about 1,759 kcal.
Where the 250 and 500 calorie targets come from
A kilogram of body fat holds roughly 7,700 kcal. A 500 kcal daily deficit adds up to 3,500 kcal a week, close to half a kilo; a 250 kcal deficit gives about a quarter. Real progress is usually a little slower than this arithmetic because water weight fluctuates and energy use drops slightly as you get lighter.
Turning the estimate into a number you can trust
- Pick the lower level when unsure. A desk job plus three gym sessions is usually Light or Moderate, not Active.
- Test it for two or three weeks. Eat at the suggested maintenance, weigh yourself at the same time each morning and compare weekly averages. If the average holds steady, that intake is your real TDEE.
- Don't count exercise twice. Adding the output of a calories burned calculator on top of an Active multiplier double-counts your workouts.
- Recalculate after every 4–5 kg of change, since BMR falls as weight falls.
Once you have a target, the macro calculator splits it into protein, carbs and fat. All of these figures are population-based estimates, not personal medical or dietetic advice.