Find out exactly how many calories your body burns every day. Set your calorie target for weight loss, maintenance, or muscle gain.
TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is the total number of calories your body burns in a day, accounting for all activity. It includes your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) — the calories needed for basic functions like breathing and circulation — plus the energy burned through movement, exercise, and digestion.
TDEE = BMR × Activity Multiplier
Example: A 30-year-old male, 80 kg, 180 cm, moderately active has a BMR ≈ 1,863 kcal/day and a TDEE ≈ 2,888 kcal/day.
Your Basal Metabolic Rate is the minimum calories your body needs to survive at rest — organs functioning, breathing, circulation. You should never eat below your BMR.
TDEE adds activity on top of BMR. It's the number you actually use for setting calorie goals — eat at TDEE to maintain, below to lose, above to gain.
Going from sedentary to active can increase your TDEE by 40–50%. This is why two people with the same height and weight can have very different calorie needs.
Your TDEE changes with weight loss or gain, more or less activity, age, and muscle mass. Recalculate every 4–6 weeks for best accuracy.
Sedentary
Desk job, no structured exercise. Most office workers.
Lightly Active
Light exercise or sport 1–3 days/week. Weekend walkers.
Moderately Active
Moderate exercise 3–5 days/week. Most gym-goers.
Very Active
Hard exercise 6–7 days/week or physical job.
Extra Active
Physical job plus daily training, or 2x/day athlete.
When in doubt, choose the level below what you think. Most people overestimate activity.
Numbers on a screen only work if you act on them. Let an AI coach on WhatsApp track your meals and keep you within your calorie target — no manual logging.
Join 200+ people tracking smarter with Calorichat
