Free Calorie Calculator (TDEE calculator)
Need to know how many calories you should be eating to lose 1 pound a week?
How about 2 pounds per week?
Or maybe what your calorie intake should be to start a lean bulk?
Use our calorie calculator to calculate your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) - an estimate of how many calories you burn each day.
We then provide recommendations for how many calories to eat for your goal.
What is TDEE?
TDEE =
Total Daily Energy Expenditure
AKA where you burn calories in a day
And it’s made up of four parts:
Basal metabolic rate (BMR): Your BMR is the number of calories your body burns at complete rest. The energy needed to keep your heart beating, lungs breathing, your brain thinking, your temperature regulated, and just about every other non-concious bodily function that’s running 24/7. It accounts for about 70% of the total calories you burn in a day. This is the part that is subject to being suppressed with certain metabolic diseases (like Hypothyroidism which can down regulate the BMR by 5-15%).
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): NEAT is the number of calories you burn from any physical activity that isn’t formal exercise (the calories you burn going about daily activities, basically). This includes your daily step count, fidgeting, standing vs. sitting throughout the day, etc. Depending on the lifestyle this can either make up the smallest chunk, or the second largest and is one of the best sections to focus on for burning more calories throughout the day (but more on that later)
Thermic effect of food (TEF): TEF is the number of calories you burn by digesting food. Yeah, you burn the 3rd most calories per day just simply digesting the food you eat, pretty cool huh? On average, TEF can account for about 10-15% of your TDEE, but it can vary depending on the types of food you eat. For instance, protein has the highest TEF of all foods at around 20-30%, meaning if you eat 100 calories of protein, you burn 20-30 calories just digesting it. Where fats for example have a TEF of 0-3%, meaning if you eat 100 calories of fat, you only burn about 0-3 calories digesting it.
Exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT): EAT is the number of calories you burn doing formal exercise. Shockingly, for most people, EAT is the smallest section and contributes about 5% to TDEE.
Why is this calculator different?
To calculate TDEE, you need to do two things:
Your BMR (basal metabolic rate/how many calories your body burns at complete rest)
And then based on your BMR, you estimate your TDEE by taking your activity level into account
Most calculators base BMR off 1 of 3 equations:
The Harris-Benedict Formula: (which is the oldest, and generally least accurate)
Men: BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 x weight in kg) + (4.799 x height in cm) - (5.677 x age in years)
Women: BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.098 x height in cm) - (4.330 x age in years)
The Mifflin-St Jeor Formula: (which is generally more accurate than Harris-Benedict, but isn’t as accurate basing its estimate off of total body weight instead of lean body mass, and with recent research over the past decade confirming that age does not have any impact on overall metabolism)
Men: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age in years) + 5
Women: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age in years) - 161
Or the Katch-McArdle Formula: (which is generally the most accurate with it based on lean body mass and not total body weight)
BMR = 370 + (21.6 x lean body mass in kg)
After you have BMR, the next step is usually quite simple…
You multiply that number based on one’s activity level.
Here is how that’s usually done:
Sedentary (little or no exercise):
TDEE = BMR x 1.2
Lightly Active (light exercise 1-3 days a week):
TDEE = BMR x 1.375
Moderately Active (moderate exercise 3-5 days a week):
TDEE = BMR x 1.55
Very Active (hard exercise 6-7 days a week):
TDEE = BMR x 1.725
Extra Active (very hard exercise or training twice a day):
TDEE = BMR x 1.9
And POOF! You have your TDEE!
But we aren’t the biggest fans of that method…
But our calculator has 2 main differences compared to others:
First,
We use the Katch-McArdle formula as a base to estimate BMR, but blend it with the gender part of the equation that Mifflin-St Jeor has.
We do this because even with all other information identical (lean body mass, total body size, age, etc.), there still seems to be a small difference in metabolic rate when comparing males to females.
And although most differences in male vs. female metabolism do in fact come down to the overall size of the frame and total lean body mass, it’s still worth taking into account the minor differences that are generally due to endocrine (or hormonal) differences.
And second,
It massively oversimplifies the remaining parts of your TDEE after calculating your BMR.
Here’s an example:
Person A:
Works out 7 days per week, but has a pretty sedentary lifestyle other than that and only gets about 3,000 steps per day.
Person B:
Works out 3 days per week, but has a very active lifestyle and usually ends up with 12,000+ steps per day.
With the basic equation other calculators use:
Person A would calculate to burn anywhere from 500-1,000+ more calories per day than Person B (assuming they have the same BMR)
This is because they combine your EAT (exercise) and NEAT (non-exercise activity) throughout the day like this:
But we know that how active your lifestyle is the 23 hours outside of the gym plays a much larger role than the 1-2 hours per day you spend in the gym.
So we adjusted our calculator to take both your exercise through the week and your non-exercise activity (measured in avg. daily step count) into account to give you a more accurate estimation like this:
But at the end of the day, even the best calculation is still just a calculation.
A calculation takes several metrics into account when in reality countless things influence how many calories you burn in a day (your sleep, hormone health, dietary intake, etc.)
But it’s a great place to start.
If you want to learn more about how to dial in your metabolism, and how to use TDEE in your dietary approach for losing fat, building lean muscle, or a combination of the two…
Listen to our podcast Episode 87: Understanding Your Metabolism and let us know if you have any questions afterward.
And if you want to optimize the training/exercise section of your metabolism, you can try out one of our advanced training programs that are free to all FS Premium members (which is just $5 a month to be a part of).
