Enter your sex, age, height, weight, and activity level to calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure.
How to Use the TDEE Calculator
Fill in sex, age, height, and weight, then choose an activity level from the dropdown — that last choice is what actually separates this from the BMR calculator, since it's the multiplier applied on top.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure takes basal metabolic rate and scales it up for everything else a day involves — walking around, working out, just generally not lying motionless. It's the number that actually answers "how many calories do I burn in a day."
TDEE = BMR × Activity MultiplierThe multiplier is doing the real work here, and it's inherently a rough category rather than a precise measurement: 1.2 for sedentary, 1.375 for light activity (exercise 1-3 days a week), 1.55 for moderate (3-5 days), 1.725 for active (6-7 days), and 1.9 for very active — hard training plus a physically demanding job. Most people round down when self-assessing this, since "moderately active" tends to feel more accurate to describe than it turns out to be in practice.
TDEE is the maintenance number — eat this many calories and weight holds roughly steady. Consistently eat less and weight trends down; consistently eat more and it trends up. That's the whole mechanism behind calorie-based weight management, once this baseline is established.
An estimate, not a prescription. Both the BMR formula underneath this and the activity multiplier on top of it are population averages — actual energy needs vary by individual. Talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before using TDEE to plan a significant calorie deficit or surplus.