TDEE Calculator

Total daily energy expenditure is the energy burnt on average during an entire day. It reflects the average amount of energy spent during a typical day, but it is not the same each and every day. It is because our TDEE depends on many different factors, including:

  • Basal metabolism, which depends on many factors itself, including: age, sex, height, weight, fat free mass, fat mass. Depending on those factors, BMR represents 45 to 70 percent of TDEE.

  • Metabolic response of food, which is the energy needed to ingest and digest food. It is usually estimated to be 10% of total caloric intake.

  • Physical activity, which can vary every day. After BMR, this is the second-largest component of TDEE.

  • Physiological state: growth, pregnancy, lactation, etc.

How to measure TDEE?

1. Choose a formula to calculate your basal metabolic rate. You can choose from the 5 most popular equations, but we recommend the Katch-McArdle Method - the only formula taking lean body mass into account.

2. Choose your physical activity level. Our graph will help you to visualize the components of TDEE.

TDEE Calculator - Total Daily Energy Expenditure

3. You just found out roughly how many calories your body needs to maintain your body weight. If your body weight is with in a normal range, that's great, just remember that if you want to lose/gain body mass you will need to eat less/more calories respectively.

For weight loss, we recommend a start point of reducing 15% from your TDEE value. For example, if your TDEE is 2700kcal, for weight loss, we would recommend a start point of 2295kcal daily. It’s important to note that this isn’t an exact science, as individual differences mean your actual daily energy expenditure could be higher or lower.

For increasing weight, you would reverse this, starting by increasing TDEE by around 10-15%.