TDEE & maintenance calorie calculator
Estimate your maintenance calories with the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, then see how adaptive tracking refines it from your real weight trend.
BMR
1,758 kcal
at complete rest
Maintenance (TDEE)
2,500 kcal
starting estimate
Lose 0.5%/week
2,060 kcal
How this was calculated: Mifflin-St Jeor BMR × an activity factor for daily movement plus 3 training sessions. Formulas can be off by 10–15% for any individual — the app corrects this by learning from your logged food and weight trend.
Estimates for healthy adults, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, have a medical condition or a history of disordered eating, speak to a qualified professional first.
Worked example
An 80kg, 178cm, 32-year-old man who walks a little and trains 3 times a week has a BMR of about 1,760 kcal and an estimated maintenance of about 2,500 kcal. If he eats 2,500 kcal for three weeks and his 7-day average weight is flat, the estimate was right. If his average drops 0.3kg a week, his real maintenance is closer to 2,830 kcal — which is exactly what adaptive tracking works out for you.
Common questions
- How accurate is a TDEE calculator?
- Formulas like Mifflin-St Jeor are usually within 10–15% for most people, which can be 200–400 kcal either way. Treat the number as a starting point and correct it with two to three weeks of intake and weigh-in data.
- What is the difference between BMR and TDEE?
- BMR is the energy you would burn at complete rest. TDEE adds daily movement, training and digestion. TDEE is the number to eat around.
- Should I eat back the calories my watch says I burned?
- Wearable calorie estimates for exercise are often overstated. It is more reliable to set intake from your trend weight than from device readings.
- Why does my maintenance change over time?
- Lighter bodies burn less, and daily movement tends to drop during a diet. That is why recalculating from your actual trend beats a one-time calculation.
A formula is a guess. Your weight trend is the truth.
BusyGains starts from these numbers, then learns from what you actually log — and tells you why every time it changes something.
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