How is TDEE different from BMR?

BMR is what you burn at complete rest. TDEE is BMR plus everything you do — walking, working, training, even digesting. TDEE is always the larger number, and it is the one you eat against.

Should I eat back the calories I burn training?

No — if you picked an activity level that already includes your training, those calories are counted. Adding them again double-counts and quietly erases your deficit.

How accurate is this?

It is a population estimate, typically within about 10% for most people. Treat it as a starting point: hold the target for two to three weeks, track your weight trend, then adjust by 100-200 kcal.

Why did my TDEE drop as I lost weight?

A smaller body costs less to run, and your activity factor may fall too. Recalculate every few kilos instead of holding the original number.

Health & Fitness

TDEE Calculator

Your TDEE is everything you burn in a normal day: staying alive, moving around and training. It is the number your diet is actually measured against — eat under it to lose, over it to gain.

Your numbers

Result

Your TDEE

2,507

kcal/day to maintain

To lose weightkcal/day: 2,007
To gain weightkcal/day: 3,007
Your BMR (at rest)kcal/day: 1,618

Daily calorie target by goal
Goal	Daily calories
Lose weight (moderate deficit)	2,007
Lose slowly (small deficit)	2,257
Maintain weight	2,507
Gain slowly (small surplus)	2,757
Gain weight (moderate surplus)	3,007

How TDEE is calculated

Two steps. First your BMR (what you burn at rest) from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. Then multiply it by an activity factor: Sedentary ×1.2 · Light ×1.375 · Moderate ×1.55 · Intense ×1.725 · Very intense ×1.9. So TDEE = BMR × factor. Everything else — deficits, surpluses, macros — is built on this number.

Picking the right activity level

This is where most people go wrong, and it is the single biggest source of error in the result. The factor covers your whole week, not your best day. Three gym sessions plus a desk job is "light" to "moderate", not "intense". If your weight is not moving the way the maths says it should after a few weeks, your factor is usually the culprit — not the equation.

Turning TDEE into a goal

Roughly 7,700 kcal is worth a kilogram of body mass, so a 500 kcal daily deficit trends to about half a kilo a week. Bigger deficits are not automatically better: they cost muscle and adherence. The table above lays out conservative and moderate targets in both directions.

Informational and educational result. Not a substitute for professional advice.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST et al. — A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure (Am J Clin Nutr, 1990)
WHO/FAO/UNU — Human energy requirements: physical activity level (PAL) factors

Embed this calculator

Copy the code and paste it into your site or blog. Credit with a link back to Contania is included, and the height adjusts itself.

<iframe src="https://contania.app/embed/health/tdee" title="TDEE Calculator — Total Daily Energy Expenditure" width="100%" height="720" loading="lazy" style="border:1px solid #e5e0d8;border-radius:12px;max-width:640px"></iframe>
<script>window.addEventListener("message",function(e){if(e.data&&e.data.type==="contania:embed-height"){var f=document.querySelector('iframe[src="https://contania.app/embed/health/tdee"]');if(f){f.style.height=e.data.height+"px"}}});</script>

Related calculators