TDEE Calculator — Total Daily Energy Expenditure with Cut / Bulk Targets

Real-world use cases

• Set a cut target that won't stall a smaller lifter

  A 58 kg woman plugs in her stats, picks "moderate" activity and gets a TDEE of ~1950. The classic advice "eat 500 below" would drop her to 1450 — a 26% deficit that crushes training and crosses the safe floor. Instead she picks the −15% cut, lands at ~1660, sees the floor warning stays off, and reads the projected −0.29 kg/week. Steady, sustainable, and she screenshots the share URL into her coach's DM.

• Plan a lean bulk without guessing the surplus

  You finished a cut and want to add muscle without spilling into fat gain. Enter your stats, set activity to your real training volume, pick "lean bulk +10%". The tool shows TDEE 2700 → target 2970, a +270 daily surplus, and ~+0.25 kg/week. Flip on macros to see the 30/40/30 grams, set protein at the bottom of the range, and ride that number for three weeks before re-checking the scale.

• Reconcile two apps that disagree on your maintenance

  Your fitness watch says you burn 3100 a day; a generic web calculator says 2400. Run both BMR formulas here: Mifflin gives one TDEE, Harris reads 5–10% higher. Seeing the spread explains the gap — the watch counts every step, the formula assumes an average. Take the formula number as your eating baseline, hold it two weeks, and let the scale arbitrate rather than trusting either app blindly.

• Hand a client a calorie plan over chat

  A remote coach sets up a client's numbers, picks the goal and macro split, then copies the page URL. The client opens the link and sees the exact same TDEE, target, weekly projection and macros — no PDF, no spreadsheet, no account. Because the inputs live in the URL, the whole plan travels in one paste, and the client can tweak activity if their week changes and re-share the updated link back.

• Convert a metric plan to imperial for a US client

  You built a plan in kg/cm for yourself but your client uses lb and feet. Toggle imperial: every field switches units, the weekly weight change re-displays in pounds, and the calorie math is identical underneath (the tool always computes in metric internally). Read off the new weekly number — e.g. −0.64 lb/week for a mild cut — and hand it over in the units they actually weigh themselves in.

Common pitfalls

• Picking an activity factor that's too high. Counting an intended schedule instead of your real weekly training is the number-one reason a deficit doesn't produce loss. If the scale won't budge after three weeks, drop one activity tier before cutting calories further.

• Treating TDEE as a fixed number forever. As you lose weight your BMR and TDEE both fall, so a target that worked at the start can become maintenance two months in. Re-run the calculator every 4–6 kg of change.

• Chasing too steep a deficit. A −500 flat cut looks the same on paper but is a far deeper percentage for a small person — that's why this tool uses percentages and warns below ~1500 (men) / ~1200 (women) kcal. Deeper isn't faster; it just costs you muscle and training quality.

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