Calculating your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is one of the most important things to consider when it comes to reaching your fitness goals.

In today’s article, we’re going to teach you how to calculate your TDEE and how to verify the accuracy of the number.

First of all, however, you need to know what TDEE is.

Remember that this is only a small part of the equation when it comes to reaching your dream body. Get a more complete picture in our book about fitness and nutrition HERE.

What is TDEE?

TDEE is an acronym for «Total Daily Energy Expenditure » and refers to how many calories your body burns on a daily basis.

If you consumed exactly this amount of calories on a daily basis, your weight would (apart from some natural fluctuations) stay the same over a span of multiple weeks and months. Consuming more calories than your TDEE would result in weight gain – consuming less in weight-loss.

We’re sure that you can probably see why the number is important when it comes to your fitness goals. Essentially, the TDEE serves as an important starting point for you to plan your next phase.

Planning a Bulk or a Cut requires you to know your TDEE

If you’re planning to build some muscle, you obviously have to be in a caloric surplus. But how the hell are you supposed to know how much to eat, if you don’t have a (more or less) accurate starting point ?

Progress (especially as a natural) is predicated on how many variables you get right when it comes to training, nutrition and recovery. In neglecting TDEE, people will fuck up their nutrition, which leads to less than desirable outcomes when it comes to progress.

This is also why people look the same for years on end, put on copious amounts of fat during their bulk or run up against a wall when it comes to fat loss.

How to calculate your TDEE

After making these points, we can now finally tell you how to calculate the TDEE and – more importantly – verify it.

While there are many TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculators for caloric intake on the internet, each of those are based on popular formulas. These include factors like age, weight, height, the type of work you do and the amount of exercise you perform on a weekly basis. The three most established of these formulas are:

The Harris benedict formula (invented 1919 / revised 1984)

The Mifflin-St Jeor formula (introduced in 1990 being more accurate than harris benedict)

The Katch-McArdle formula (requires body fat percentage, which most people don’t know)

All these formulas work in two steps

They calculate your basic metabolic rate (BMR), which is the amount of energy your body requires while resting in order to maintain vital bodily functions

They add several calories on top, depending on what work / exercise you perform.

Due to the reason that most people don’t know their body fat percentage, we will use the Mifflin-St Jeor formula:

For men: BMR = (10 x weight in KG) + (6.25 x height in cm) – (5 x age) + 5

For women: BMR = (10 x weight in KG) + (6.25 x height in cm) – (5 x age) – 167

If you’re American, make sure to convert your numbers to the right unit first!

Then you multiply your result with the most accurate number in the following table.

Exercise: 15-30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity.

Intense exercise: 45-120 minutes of elevated heart rate activity.

Very intense exercise: 2+ hours of elevated heart rate activity.

Example of calculating a TDEE

Let’s take myself as an example:

BMR = (10 x 90) + (6.25 x 189) – (5 x 25) + 5 = 2001.25

My BMR is therefore 2001.25. Now we multiply this number with 1.55 (I exercise 5 times a week but work at a desk) and get a TDEE of 3101.9375

Keep in mind that every online calculation of your total caloric intake is a pure estimation. Use your brain people, how can this be accurate? Everyone is different and everyone moves differently throughout the day. You therefore have to find a method to (more or less) accurately determine your TDEE.

How to verify the TDEE calculation

1: Verify the number calculated by using other (around two) calculators on the internet.

2: Calculate the means of all three TDEE numbers

3: Eat the amount of calories that you calculated in step 2 every day.

4: Track the calories you’re eating on a daily basis as thoroughly as you can.

5: You track EVERYTHING. Even the oil with which you cook and the salad you eat. The sauces, too. Everything means everything. Using milk in your coffees? Track that, too. Everything, people!

6: Get a proper scale and then weigh yourself daily after waking up and after going to the toilet. Also, don’t eat or drink anything before you step on the scale.

7: Write down the weights in a spreadsheet with the following columns:

8: Calculate the average weight of each week and compare the weekly averages to determine if you really maintain, lose or gain weight at the proper rate. This is done through the % change of your weight per week. I trust in your excel and math skills regarding this.

If your weight stays the same after comparing two to three weekly averages, you have found your TDEE. If you lose weight, your TDEE is higher. If you gain weight, your TDEE is lower

From here, you can then decide if you want to start a lean bulk, or begin a cut, depending on your current body composition and your goals.

• If you want to lean bulk, add 200-300 calories to your now verified TDEE per day.
• If you want to cut, subtract 550 calories from your TDEE (which will result in a fat-loss of 0.5 KG per week)

Quick digression: How do you make sure you’re on track ?

The weight goal on a weekly basis in above table is your prognosis for how much you should weigh at the end of the week.

Example :

If you want to lose 1% of your bodyweight per week for 16 weeks total, you would calculate the corresponding weekly weights in this column.

For me, starting at 90 KG and wanting to lose 1% of my bodyweight per week, the goal after the first four weeks would be:

• Week 1: 89.1 KG
• Week 2: 88.2 KG
• Week 3: 87.3 KG
• Week 4: 86.4 KG

And so on.

By comparing your average weekly weight with the weight goal on a weekly basis, you always know whether you’re on track or not.

Final Thoughts on calculating your TDEE

Calculating your TDEE is one of the most important things when it comes to achieving your dream body. Without doing this step and tracking all the variables you can, you rob yourself of progress you could’ve made.

People who get this point wrong usually don’t progress over YEARS, because they don’t have any idea when it comes to planning.

If you don’t want to end there, we highly recommend you to invest a small amount of money in our E-Book. There you will have a comprehensive and yet detailed guide to achieving your goals when it comes to fitness.

Don’t waste time and start now!

We’re cheering for you,

Conquer and Elevate