TDEE calculator
Your total daily energy expenditure is your BMR multiplied by an activity level. All five levels are shown, so you can see how much the choice moves the answer.
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Result
These are estimates from population-level equations, not a measurement of you and not medical advice. Individual results vary widely. Talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian before making significant changes to how you eat or train.
How this is calculated
BMR × activity multiplierdefault
TDEE = BMR × PAL
sedentary × 1.2
lightly active × 1.375
moderately active × 1.55
very active × 1.725
extra active × 1.9
- Source
- BMR from Mifflin-St Jeor (1990). The multipliers are the conventional consumer-calculator set; they are checked against the physical activity level bands in Institute of Medicine, Dietary Reference Intakes, National Academies Press, 2005, ch. 12, and FAO/WHO/UNU, Human Energy Requirements, 2004.
- Assumes
- That a single multiplier can represent a week of varied activity. It cannot capture non-exercise movement, which varies enormously between people.
- Accuracy
- The weakest link in the chain. The multipliers do not come from a single published paper — they are a convention, and calculators that cite them to Harris-Benedict or Mifflin-St Jeor are citing papers that do not contain them. They sit inside the published IOM bands, and this page says which band each falls in.
Daily energy use by weight and activity level
Mifflin-St Jeor at 175 cm and 30 years old, for men, multiplied by each activity level. Use it to see how much the activity multiplier moves the answer relative to body weight.
| Weight | ×1.2 | ×1.375 | ×1.55 | ×1.725 | ×1.9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55 kg | 1799 | 2061 | 2323 | 2585 | 2848 |
| 70 kg | 1979 | 2267 | 2556 | 2844 | 3133 |
| 85 kg | 2159 | 2473 | 2788 | 3103 | 3418 |
| 100 kg | 2339 | 2680 | 3021 | 3362 | 3703 |
Questions
- Where do the activity multipliers come from?
- Not from a single paper, despite what most calculators imply. The 1.2 to 1.9 set is a convention that spread through fitness literature. The published frameworks are the Institute of Medicine physical activity level categories, derived from doubly labelled water studies, and the FAO/WHO/UNU lifestyle bands. This page tags each multiplier with the IOM band it falls in.
- Which activity level should I pick?
- The one matching a typical week rather than your best one. Most people overestimate. If your weight is stable, your real TDEE is whatever you are currently eating — that is a better starting figure than any multiplier.
- Why is the sedentary multiplier 1.2 when FAO says 1.40 is the floor?
- A genuine discrepancy, and worth knowing about. The conventional 1.2 sits inside the IOM sedentary band, which starts at 1.0, but below the FAO/WHO/UNU floor of 1.40. Neither framework is wrong; they define their categories differently. It is one reason the sedentary figure is the least reliable of the five.
- Does TDEE include exercise?
- Yes — that is what the multiplier is for. Adding a separate calories-burned figure for a workout on top of a TDEE that already assumes you train double-counts it, which is the most common error people make with these two calculators together.
- How accurate is a TDEE estimate?
- Less accurate than the BMR estimate it is built on, because the multiplier adds its own error. Treat it as a starting point: eat at it for two or three weeks, track weight, and adjust from what actually happens.