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TDEE and BMR Calculator

How many calories you burn at rest and across a whole day, worked out with the same equation the Dalia app uses.

Updated . An estimate for general education, not medical advice.

Sex

The equations have one version for women and one for men.

Height

Optional. If you know it, we add the Katch-McArdle estimate beside Mifflin-St Jeor.

Your result

Fill in the fields and your result shows up here. Everything is worked out in your browser; nothing you type is sent to us.

How the estimate works

TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is the energy you burn in a day. It starts from BMR, the energy your body uses at rest, which is then multiplied by an activity factor to cover everything else you do.

BMR here comes from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation (1990), built from resting measurements of 498 healthy adults aged 19 to 78, both normal-weight and with obesity. A systematic review of the common equations found Mifflin-St Jeor the most reliable, landing within 10% of measured resting burn for more people than the others.

If you add your body-fat percentage, the page also shows the Katch-McArdle estimate, which works from lean mass instead of total weight. It is commonly attributed to McArdle, Katch and Katch's exercise physiology textbook. The Mifflin paper itself found fat-free mass to be the best single predictor of resting energy use, which is the idea behind it.

Mifflin-St Jeor, men
BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age + 5
Mifflin-St Jeor, women
BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age − 161
Katch-McArdle
BMR = 370 + 21.6 × lean body mass (kg)
TDEE
TDEE = BMR × activity multiplier

The activity multipliers

Sedentary is 1.2, lightly active 1.375, moderately active 1.55, very active 1.725 and athlete 1.9. These are the multipliers the Dalia app uses when it sets your first calorie target, so a number from this page matches the app.

They are a rough grouping. The FAO/WHO/UNU expert report on energy requirements describes daily activity as a continuous scale: 1.40 to 1.69 times resting burn for a sedentary or lightly active life, 1.70 to 1.99 for an active one, and 2.00 to 2.40 for a vigorous one. Two people who both call themselves moderately active can differ by a few hundred calories. If your weight holds steady for a few weeks at an intake you know, that intake is a better TDEE than any formula.

Same math as the app

This page reproduces the Dalia app's own calculation: the same equation, the same five multipliers, the same unit constants, and height rounded to the whole inch the way the app enters it. Our tests check it against the server code on hundreds of cases, so the website and the app give the same number for the same person.

Who this is wrong for

  • People with a lot of muscle, whose resting burn tends to run above a weight-based estimate. Katch-McArdle, with a measured body-fat percentage, fits them better.
  • Older adults and US ethnic minorities, who were underrepresented both when these equations were built and when they were tested. The reviewers advise extra suspicion of the estimate for groups the studies left out.
  • Pregnancy and breastfeeding, which change energy needs in ways these equations do not model.
  • Anyone under 18, and anyone with a thyroid condition or taking medication that changes metabolism.
  • The equation has one version for men and one for women. It has not been tested separately in trans or intersex people, and a clinician can help pick the better fit.

Talk to a clinician when

  • You want to use this number to lose weight and you have diabetes, heart, kidney or liver disease, or take medication that affects weight or blood sugar.
  • You are pregnant, breastfeeding, or recovering from illness or surgery.
  • You have had an eating disorder, or counting calories makes eating feel harder.

Read more

What is TDEE, and how is it calculated?

Sources

  1. Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, et al. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1990;51(2):241-247.
  2. Frankenfield D, Roth-Yousey L, Compher C. Comparison of predictive equations for resting metabolic rate in healthy nonobese and obese adults: a systematic review. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 2005;105(5):775-789.
  3. Human energy requirements: report of a joint FAO/WHO/UNU expert consultation (section 5, Table 5.3). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2004.

Other calculators

This calculator gives an estimate for general education. It is not medical advice and it is not a substitute for care from a qualified clinician. Report an error to info@daliahealth.com.