About
Who we are, why we built this site, and the formulas behind our TDEE estimates.
We built TDEECalculatorFree.org to make maintenance calories easier to understand and easier to use in real life. Our calculator is free, fast, and designed to give you more than just a single number. It provides a helpful breakdown, including TDEE, BMR, BMI, macro targets, and more, so you can actually make decisions with confidence.
Our Story
Hi! I’m Mike, and my wife and I built this calculator while trying to get healthier ourselves. We kept running into the same problem: we could find basic “calorie calculators,” but many didn’t explain what they were doing, and some didn’t properly reflect how activity changes daily energy needs.
We started hand-checking the math and comparing estimates across formulas. That quickly turned into a personal project to build a clean and easy to use calculator that shows a complete picture. You get your maintenance calories (TDEE), a baseline BMR estimate, and practical targets you can use for cutting, maintenance, or bulking.
If you find this helpful, consider sharing it with a friend or training partner. It’s a small thing that helps us grow and keep improving the site.
Any calculator is an estimate. Your best “true TDEE” comes from combining a good formula with a short real-world check: track consistently for 2–3 weeks and adjust based on your trend.
About This Site
Our goal is simple: provide a fast, free TDEE calculator and publish clear guides that help you use your number responsibly. We focus on practical explanations and next steps so your results are not just interesting, but also useful.
- • Free calculator with detailed results
- • Clear explanations of BMR, TDEE, and activity multipliers
- • Practical cutting and bulking targets (starting points)
- • Macro suggestions to help you plan meals
If our calculator helped you, sharing it is the best way to support us. A quick copy/paste link to a friend is huge.
Disclosure: In the future, this site may include ads or affiliate links. If we ever use affiliate links, we’ll clearly disclose them on the page.
Formulas We Use
At the core of our calculator is a BMR estimate, which we then adjust using an activity multiplier to estimate TDEE. When body fat percentage is provided, we can estimate lean mass and use a formula that depends more directly on body composition.
Mifflin–St Jeor (BMR)
This is one of the most commonly used formulas for estimating BMR from height, weight, age, and sex.
BMR (men) = 10×weight(kg) + 6.25×height(cm) − 5×age + 5 BMR (women) = 10×weight(kg) + 6.25×height(cm) − 5×age − 161
Katch–McArdle (BMR, optional)
If you provide an estimated body fat percentage, we can estimate lean body mass (LBM) and use a formula that’s more directly tied to body composition.
LBM (kg) = weight(kg) × (1 − bodyFat%) BMR = 370 + 21.6×LBM(kg)
Body fat estimates vary by method. Treat this as a refinement, not a guarantee.
Revised Harris–Benedict (reference)
Some people like to compare different BMR equations. We may show this as a reference estimate so you can see how formulas vary.
BMR (men) = 13.397×weight(kg) + 4.799×height(cm) − 5.677×age + 88.362 BMR (women) = 9.247×weight(kg) + 3.098×height(cm) − 4.330×age + 447.593
TDEE is estimated by multiplying BMR by an activity factor (for example, sedentary vs. moderate exercise). That multiplier is why two people with the same stats can get different TDEE results if their activity levels differ.