Find your maintenance calories, BMR, macros, and cut or bulk targets. Add body fat for FitCommit's lean-mass estimate.
Used for Katch-McArdle, lean-mass protein, max fat-loss deficit, and advanced macro guardrails.
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Katch-McArdle
FitCommit's preferred formula when body fat is known.
Best accuracy: use Daily + Training. It separates a physical job from workouts, so a laborer who trains once per week is not treated like a desk worker who trains six days.
Enter your details above to see your TDEE.
TDEE, total daily energy expenditure, is the total number of calories your body burns in a day. It is the single most important number for managing your weight, because it is your maintenance level: eat at your TDEE and your weight holds, eat below it and you lose fat, eat above it and you gain. It is built from four parts.
Most TDEE calculators multiply BMR by a broad activity level. That is useful for a fast estimate, but it hides the difference between daily movement, lifting, and cardio. Advanced mode separates those pieces so a physical job with one workout does not get treated like a desk job with six workouts. Cardio stays visible as a lever, then gets averaged across the week and included in the final food target.
It also uses body fat to estimate lean mass and adjusted FFMI, then adjusts macros by training tier and diet pattern. Advanced results include an FFMI-based natural muscle potential estimate, protein is based on lean mass, fat follows FitCommit's safety floor, and carbs are the remaining calories. If carbs get very low, the calculator warns you instead of forcing a fake minimum.
Katch-McArdle when body fat is known
FitCommit prefers this formula when you have a credible body-fat estimate because it works from lean mass directly.
Mifflin-St Jeor when body fat is unknown
This is the best default when you only know sex, age, height, and weight. It avoids pretending a guessed body-fat number is precise.
Harris-Benedict for legacy comparison
Use this only when you want parity with older calculators that still expose Harris-Benedict.
Your TDEE is a starting estimate, accurate to within about 10%. Eat at the target for your goal for 2 to 3 weeks and watch the scale trend (a weekly average, not day to day). If you are not losing on a deficit, your real TDEE is lower than estimated, so drop 100 to 150 calories. Recalculate every 10 to 15 pounds. Keep protein around 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of body weight in any phase to protect muscle.
TDEE is total daily energy expenditure, the total number of calories you burn in a day. It is your BMR (calories burned at rest) plus the thermic effect of food (digestion), non-exercise activity (NEAT, like walking and fidgeting), and exercise. TDEE is your maintenance calorie level, the amount that keeps your weight stable. Every cut or bulk plan starts from this number.
BMR is what you burn at complete rest, just keeping your organs running. It is roughly 60 to 70 percent of your total burn. TDEE is BMR plus everything else you do in a day: digesting food, moving around, and training. You plan calories off TDEE, never off BMR. Eating at BMR would be a severe deficit for most people.
If you know your body fat percentage, use Katch-McArdle. It is FitCommit's preferred formula because it works from lean mass. If you do not know body fat, use Mifflin-St Jeor. Harris-Benedict is included only for comparing against older calculators.
Be honest and lean conservative. Most people overestimate. Standard multipliers combine daily movement and training, so a laborer who trains once per week can look the same as a desk worker who trains six days per week. For the best estimate, use Daily + Training or advanced mode so daily movement and workouts are separated.
Usually no. Your TDEE target is a weekly average expressed as calories per day, so most people should start by eating the same target daily. Calorie cycling can work for advanced users who want more food around hard sessions, but the weekly average still needs to match the goal.
Recalculate every 10 to 15 pounds of weight change, or every 8 to 12 weeks during an active cut or bulk. Your TDEE falls as you lose weight (a lighter body burns less) and rises as you gain. The calculator gives you a starting estimate; the scale over 2 to 3 weeks tells you the real number.
Most differences come from the activity multiplier and the BMR formula. Many calculators bake daily movement and training into one broad activity factor. FitCommit can separate daily movement, lifting, and cardio, so a physical job with one workout per week does not get treated like a desk job with six workouts. All TDEE numbers are estimates within about 10 percent; treat them as a starting point and adjust from real-world results.
Advanced mode separates daily movement, lifting, and one or more cardio activities, then uses lean mass, adjusted FFMI, diet pattern, and training tier to build calorie and macro targets. Cardio is averaged across the week and included in your food target, while still staying visible as its own lever.
To lose fat, eat below your TDEE: a 500 calorie daily deficit is about 1 pound per week. To gain muscle, eat above it: a 250 to 500 calorie surplus supports lean gains. Keep protein high (around 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of body weight) in either direction. This calculator shows your calorie and macro targets for cutting, maintenance, and bulking.
FitCommit builds your TDEE and macro targets from AI body composition analysis, then tracks intake with camera-based food scanning. Free trial.
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