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How many calories do I need per day? TDEE calculator

Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is the number of calories you burn on a normal day: basal metabolism plus activity. It is the starting number for any goal, whether that is losing fat, maintaining or building muscle.

Enter your details and get your estimated maintenance plus calorie targets adjusted to each goal. No sign-up, no email, instant result.

How this tool calculates your calories

We use the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, rated the most reliable estimation equation for the general population in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics review. It estimates your basal metabolic rate (the calories you burn at complete rest) from sex, age, height and weight, then multiplies it by an activity factor.

On top of maintenance we apply conservative adjustments: −15% to lose fat and +10% to build muscle. These are ranges most people can sustain without going hungry or gaining unnecessary fat.

How to read your result

Maintenance: eating this amount, your weight should stay stable over the medium term.
Deficit (−15%): gradual, sustainable fat loss; pair it with enough protein to preserve muscle.
Surplus (+10%): extra energy to build muscle while minimising fat gain; requires strength training.

Limitations you should know about

Estimation formulas ignore body composition: a muscular person burns more than their weight predicts, and someone with less lean mass burns less. They also miss the metabolic adaptation that follows long diets.

That is why the right number is not the one the calculator prints: it is the one your data confirms. If your weight drops after three weeks at "maintenance", your real maintenance is higher. Biokode automates exactly that adjustment: it computes an adaptive TDEE by crossing what you eat with how your weight actually moves.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly is TDEE?

Total Daily Energy Expenditure is the sum of your basal metabolic rate, the energy spent digesting food and all your physical activity (workouts plus everyday movement). It is your total calorie burn on a normal day.

Which activity level should I pick if I have a desk job but train?

Count only actual exercise: with 3–5 weekly workouts and an office job, "Moderate" is usually right. The most common mistake is overestimating activity and eating too much as a result.

How often should I recalculate my calories?

Recalculate when your weight changes in a sustained way (around 4–5 kg / 10 lb) or your training routine changes. With an adaptive-TDEE app like Biokode, the adjustment happens automatically from your real data.

Is this calculator valid if I have a medical condition?

It is designed for healthy adults. Pregnancy, thyroid disorders, diabetes and other conditions change energy needs; in those cases your reference should come from a healthcare professional.

Why am I not losing weight eating below my calculated TDEE?

It is almost always one of two things: your real TDEE is lower than the estimate, or your real intake is higher than you think (unlogged calories add up fast). A few days of accurate logging usually solves the mystery.

Knowing your calories is easy. Hitting them every day is the hard part.

Biokode logs what you eat from a photo, your voice or a sentence, and tells you how you are tracking against your target, with a TDEE that adapts to your real data, not a formula.

Keep going

What a calorie deficit is and how to apply it Macro calculator How much protein do I need?Lose fat without obsessing over calories

This calculator provides guideline estimates for healthy adults and does not replace advice from a healthcare professional or registered dietitian.