TDEE Calculator: Daily Calorie Needs by Activity Level
Enter sex, age, height, weight and activity level. This TDEE calculator prints your daily calorie needs in kcal with a plus or minus 12.5 per cent band, plus the equations used so the number is checkable.
Five steps
How this TDEE calculator gets your number
Nothing here is hidden behind a spinner. Each step tells you what goes in, what comes out, and what you should do with it afterwards.
Enter your measurements
Sex, age, height and weight, in metric, imperial or stone. Values arriving from our BMI or body fat pages are already filled in. If a field is wrong, the error names the field and the fix.
Pick an activity level honestly
Sedentary, light, moderate, very active or extra active. Judge a normal week, including hours on your feet at work, not the best training block you had last winter.
Add body fat if you know it
A body fat percentage unlocks Katch-McArdle, which works from lean mass instead of total weight. Leave it blank and we stay on Mifflin-St Jeor.
Read the band, not one integer
You get kcal per day with plus or minus 12.5 per cent beside it, the same body at all five multipliers, and what-if rows for 5 kg heavier and 5 kg lighter.
Test it for two weeks
Eat near the estimate for a fortnight and weigh most mornings. A flat trend means the estimate is close. A steady drift means shift your intake by roughly 150 kcal and check again.
03
How we work
A clear path from first conversation to finished work.
Body composition calculators
BMI, Asian BMI, body fat, skinfold, relative fat mass, lean body mass, FFMI, ideal and healthy weight range, frame size and recomposition tools, each printing the classification systems side by side with stated error bands.
Fat distribution calculators
Waist circumference, waist to height ratio, waist to hip ratio, body roundness index and a visceral fat tape proxy, mapped to published thresholds and clearly labelled as tape measures rather than scan volumes.
Calorie and nutrition calculators
BMR, TDEE, calorie deficit and surplus, macros, protein, water, fibre, weight-loss time, check-in, reverse diet and alcohol tools, with intake floors, weekly rate caps and no finish-date countdowns.
Fitness calculators
Calories burned, walking and running energy cost from published MET values, heart rate zones, VO2 max field tests and one rep max estimates, shown gross and net where that distinction matters.
Most calculators print one integer and let you believe it. We print the band, the equation and the arithmetic, so you can check the number instead of trusting it.
Next tool
Which calculator to open after this one
A TDEE figure on its own is not a plan. These carry your values across, so you do not retype your height and weight four times.
Calorie deficit calculator
The next step for most people. It caps loss at 1 per cent of bodyweight a week and holds intake floors, and it will not give you a finish date.
Body fat percentage calculator
Tape method, Hodgdon-Beckett equations, with the error band against DEXA stated. Bring the percentage back here to unlock Katch-McArdle.
BMI calculator
Height and weight only, shown against the WHO standard table and the Asia-Pacific cut-offs side by side rather than one verdict.
Waist to height ratio calculator
Where the weight sits matters more than the total. One tape measurement, checked against the under 0.5 rule.
Every calculator we publish
Body composition, fat distribution, calories and nutrition, fitness and clinical tools, each with its formulas and error bands named.
05 — Questions we get
How accurate is a TDEE calculator, really
Seven honest answers about what this estimate can do, where it fails, and who should leave it alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How accurate is a TDEE calculator?
- Every TDEE figure comes from a prediction equation fitted to groups of people, not a measurement of you. Typical prediction error for Mifflin-St Jeor sits around 10 to 15 per cent for most adults, so we display plus or minus 12.5 per cent beside your result. Treat the middle figure as a starting point and the band as the honest range. Two weeks of weight trend will tell you more than any equation can.
- Which activity level should I choose?
- Pick from a normal week, not your best one. Sedentary means desk work and little walking. Light means one to three easy sessions. Moderate means three to five real sessions. Very active means six or seven, or a job on your feet plus training. Extra active means hard physical work plus training. If you are between two rows, take the lower one and let the weight trend argue you upwards.
- What is the difference between BMR and TDEE?
- BMR is what you burn at complete rest, keeping your organs running. TDEE is BMR plus the energy cost of digesting food, everyday movement such as walking and standing, and deliberate exercise. In the worked example above, BMR is 1,439 kcal and TDEE at a moderate activity level is 2,230 kcal. You eat against TDEE, never against BMR, which is why a BMR figure alone is not a calorie target.
- Should I use Katch-McArdle instead of Mifflin-St Jeor?
- Use it when you have a body fat percentage you actually trust, from a tape method you repeat the same way or a scan. Katch-McArdle works from lean mass, so it reads better for lean, muscular people and for anyone carrying a lot of fat, where weight-only equations drift. If your body fat number is a guess, a wrong input will move the result more than the choice of equation does.
- Where do your equations and sources come from?
- The default BMR equation is Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST and colleagues, A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1990, DOI 10.1093/ajcn/51.2.241. The activity factor framework and energy requirement context come from the Institute of Medicine Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein and Amino Acids, National Academies Press. We cite primary sources only and never another calculator site.
- Why did my TDEE fall while I was dieting?
- Two reasons, both normal. A lighter body costs less to run and to move, so the equation itself returns a smaller figure. On top of that, people move less when they are in a deficit, often without noticing, and NEAT quietly drops. Re-run the calculator every 4 to 5 kg of weight change and re-check your intake against the weight trend rather than assuming the first number holds all the way down.
- Who should not use this calculator, and do you store my data?
- Nothing you enter is stored, saved to an account or sent anywhere. Do not use these estimates for anyone under 18, during pregnancy or breastfeeding, or if you have a history of disordered eating, and do not use them to override advice you have been given for a medical condition. This page is general information, not medical advice. For anything clinical, speak to your GP or an accredited practising dietitian.
Turn your TDEE into a daily calorie target
You have the energy estimate and its band. The deficit calculator takes it from here, with a weekly rate cap and intake floors built into the maths, and no countdown to a goal date.