TDEE calculator

Total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE, is the energy your body uses over a whole day. It includes resting metabolism, movement and the energy involved in processing food. Maintenance calories describe an intake that roughly matches that expenditure.

Enter age, body weight, height and overall activity, then choose Calculate TDEE. Use metric measurements or pounds and total inches. Your result separates estimated resting energy from estimated daily expenditure so you can see the effect of the activity multiplier.

How many calories should I eat?

The maintenance estimate is a starting point for that question, not a complete answer. Body composition, health, medications and individual variation can affect your needs. An equation is less informative than measured energy expenditure and your own longer-term patterns.

If you want to explore the arithmetic of eating below maintenance, use the calorie deficit calculator. For modeling weight change over time, see the NIDDK Body Weight Planner, which also has adult eligibility limits.

Mifflin–St Jeor resting energy

The calculator uses the commonly rounded form of the Mifflin–St Jeor equation. It estimates resting energy expenditure from body size, age and a sex coefficient. Resting energy is often labeled BMR in calculators, although laboratory BMR and resting-energy measurements differ.

Resting kcal/day = 10 × weight in kg + 6.25 × height in cm − 5 × age + coefficient
Male coefficient: +5. Female coefficient: −161.
Estimated TDEE = resting kcal/day × activity multiplier.

Choose activity for your whole day

The activity levels below are this tool’s rough planning assumptions. They are separate from the published resting-energy equation and do not measure your personal energy expenditure.

• 1.2: mostly seated, little intentional exercise.
• 1.375: some regular movement or light exercise.
• 1.55: regular exercise plus ordinary daily movement.
• 1.725: substantial daily movement and frequent training.
• 1.9: unusually demanding physical work or training.

A sedentary job with a few workouts can still produce a different total from a physically active job. If you are unsure, compare nearby levels rather than treating one result as exact.