TDEE Calculator: How Many Calories Do You Actually Burn Per Day?

TDEE is the total number of calories your body burns in a typical day — everything from breathing and digestion to exercise and fidgeting. It's the number that determines whether you gain, lose, or maintain weight.

Eat more than your TDEE consistently: you gain weight.

Eat less than your TDEE consistently: you lose weight.

Eat at your TDEE: your weight is stable.

This is basic physics. The reason it feels complicated is that TDEE is hard to measure and easy to estimate wrong.

The Components of TDEE

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): The calories you burn at complete rest — for breathing, circulation, cell repair, and maintaining body temperature. This is 60-75% of most people's total calorie burn.

Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): Digesting and metabolizing food costs calories — roughly 10% of total calories consumed. Protein costs more to digest than carbs or fat.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): Fidgeting, walking, standing, household tasks. This varies enormously between people — from 200 calories/day for very sedentary people to 1,200/day for active ones. NEAT is why two people with identical exercise habits can have very different calorie burns.

Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT): The calories burned during deliberate exercise. Most people overestimate this — a 45-minute moderate run burns 350-500 calories, not the 800 many assume.

Why Most Estimates Are Wrong

Fitness tracker estimates tend to be too high by 20-40%. Self-reported activity levels are almost always optimistic. When in doubt, start with the calculated estimate and adjust based on actual weight changes over 2-3 weeks.

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This article is for informational purposes only. See our disclaimer.