ToolsMay 3, 2026

Calorie and Macro Calculator: BMR, TDEE, Protein, Carbs, and Fat

Calculate your BMR, TDEE, daily calorie target, and protein, carb, and fat needs with a research-grounded calorie and macro calculator.

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Working out how many calories you should eat each day comes down to four numbers: your BMR (the calories your body burns at rest), your TDEE (your total daily calorie burn including activity), your daily calorie target (TDEE adjusted for your weight goal), and your macros (the protein, carb, and fat split of those calories).

The calculator below runs the equations used in clinical nutrition: Mifflin-St Jeor for BMR, standard activity multipliers for TDEE, and evidence-based macro and micronutrient guidelines from the FDA, AHA, and WHO. Enter your details to get all four numbers, then read on for what each one means and how to use them.

Calorie and macro calculator

Interactive calculator

Estimate your daily calorie and macro targets

Enter your basics once to calculate BMR, TDEE, daily calories, macros, and key nutrient targets.

BMRTDEECaloriesMacros

Your details

Values normalize after you leave a field or press Calculate.

Your numbers

Enter your details to estimate your BMR, TDEE, calories, macros, and nutrient targets.

Important. Calorie targets and macro grams are useful for people with a healthy relationship to food. If you have a history of eating disorders, are in recovery, or notice yourself becoming preoccupied with the numbers, this kind of tool generally isn't the right one. Less structured approaches, like paying attention to hunger, fullness, and how meals make you feel, work better for most people in those situations.

What the four numbers mean

Before the math, the vocabulary that explains every calorie calculator on the internet.

BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)

The calories your body burns at complete rest, just to keep you alive. Breathing, circulating blood, maintaining body temperature, running your brain. According to the National Academies' Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, resting energy expenditure typically accounts for 60 to 70% of total daily energy expenditure in adults¹.

TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)

Your BMR plus everything else your body does in a day, including walking to the kitchen, working out, fidgeting, and digesting food. This is the number that represents what you actually burn on a typical day.

Daily calorie target

Your TDEE adjusted for your goal. To lose weight, you eat below it. To gain, you eat above it. To maintain, you eat at it.

Macros (protein, carbs, fat)

The breakdown of your calories into the three macronutrients. Each plays a different role, and the split affects body composition, satiety, and how you feel, even at the same calorie total.

How to calculate BMR with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation

Several formulas exist for estimating BMR, but the consensus standard is the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, first published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1990². A 2005 systematic review by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics compared four leading equations against measured resting metabolic rates and concluded that Mifflin-St Jeor was the most accurate, predicting within 10% of measured values for the largest proportion of subjects³.

The equation is identical for everyone except for one value that flips based on biological sex:

Men:    BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) minus (5 x age) + 5

Women:  BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) minus (5 x age) minus 161

A 30-year-old man at 80 kg and 180 cm has a BMR of roughly 1,780 calories. A 30-year-old woman at 65 kg and 165 cm sits closer to 1,400. The difference comes mostly from typical sex-based differences in lean body mass because muscle is metabolically expensive to maintain, even at rest.

Limitations of Mifflin-St Jeor. The equation doesn't account for body composition. Two people with identical height, weight, and age but very different muscle mass will get the same BMR estimate, when the more muscular person likely burns more calories at rest. For a more precise number, indirect calorimetry at a metabolic clinic measures BMR directly, but for most people, Mifflin-St Jeor is close enough to be useful.

How to calculate TDEE: BMR x activity multiplier

BMR is the floor. TDEE is the actual number: your BMR multiplied by an activity factor that accounts for everything you do beyond lying still. The standard multipliers used in clinical nutrition tools are:

Activity level	Description	Multiplier
Sedentary	Desk job, little or no formal exercise	1.2
Lightly active	Light exercise 1 to 3 days/week	1.375
Moderately active	Moderate exercise 3 to 5 days/week	1.55
Very active	Hard exercise 6 to 7 days/week	1.725

TDEE = BMR x Activity Multiplier

That same 30-year-old man with a 1,780 BMR and a moderately active routine has a TDEE of roughly 2,760 calories. The 30-year-old woman at 1,400 BMR with a lightly active routine sits closer to 1,925.

The most common mistake in TDEE calculation: overestimating your activity level. A common rule among dietitians is to pick the level that feels right and then drop it by one. "Moderately active" tends to mean "I go to the gym a few times a week and sit at a desk the rest of the time," which is closer to lightly active in calorie terms. If your weight isn't moving the way the math predicts, the activity multiplier is the most likely culprit.

How to set a daily calorie target for your goal

This is where TDEE turns into a number you can act on.

Weight change follows a simple energy-balance principle. A pound of body fat stores about 3,500 calories of energy⁴; a kilogram about 7,700. So a daily deficit of 500 calories produces roughly a pound of fat loss per week, and a 1,000-calorie deficit doubles that.

In practice, evidence-based programs recommend keeping the deficit moderate:

Small adjustment (within about 10 kg / 22 lbs of goal weight): 500 calories below TDEE for loss, 300 calories above for gain. Targets about 0.5 kg / 1 lb per week.
Larger adjustment (more than 10 kg / 22 lbs from goal): 750 calories below for loss, 500 above for gain. Targets closer to 0.75 kg / 1.65 lbs per week.
Maintain: eat at TDEE.

The CDC's official guidance, drawn from decades of weight-management research, recommends 1 to 2 pounds per week as the safe and sustainable range⁵. The original NIH clinical guidelines on overweight and obesity reached the same conclusion: a 500 to 1,000 kcal/day deficit produces 1 to 2 lb/week loss for up to six months⁶.

Daily calorie target = TDEE minus deficit (loss)
                     = TDEE + surplus (gain)
                     = TDEE (maintain)

Why not push the deficit higher? Aggressive deficits trigger predictable problems: disproportionate muscle loss, declines in resting metabolism, difficulty hitting protein and micronutrient targets, increased risk of binge episodes, and rebound weight gain. Faster weight loss may be possible but is rarely sustainable.

For weight gain, surpluses are smaller because the body's ability to build lean tissue is rate-limited regardless of calorie intake. Eating 1,000 extra calories per day doesn't double muscle gain. It mostly adds fat.

How to calculate your macros (protein, carbs, fat)

Calories tell you how much. Macros tell you what.

Protein:  4 calories per gram
Carbs:    4 calories per gram
Fat:      9 calories per gram

The right split depends on your goal, but a useful framework is to set protein first, then divide the remainder between carbs and fat.

Protein: the anchor macro

Protein gets calculated first because it's the most consequential macro for body composition and satiety, and because the floor matters more than the ceiling.

A 2018 meta-analysis of 49 randomized controlled trials in the British Journal of Sports Medicine analyzed protein supplementation across 1,863 participants and found that intakes up to about 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day significantly improved gains in lean mass and strength during resistance training, with diminishing returns above that threshold⁷. If you think in pounds, that is about 0.73 grams per pound of body weight per day.

For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult, that's about 112 g of protein per day. For a 90 kg (198 lb) adult, about 144 g. For a 160 lb adult, it lands around 117 g.

A common approach used in modern nutrition apps is a hybrid calculation that takes the maximum of two numbers:

Option A: protein = 30% of total calories / 4
Option B: protein = 1.6 x goal weight in kg

Final protein target = max(A, B)

The percentage-based approach scales protein with calorie intake. The per-kilogram approach prevents the protein floor from collapsing when calories are cut for weight loss. Taking the maximum protects against under-eating protein in either direction.

Carbs and fat: splitting the remainder

After protein is set, the remaining calories get split between carbs and fat based on preference, training, and goal. A balanced default split that works for most people:

Protein: 25 to 30% of calories
Carbs: 40 to 45% of calories
Fat: 25 to 30% of calories

The Institute of Medicine's Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges (AMDR) allow for 10 to 35% protein, 45 to 65% carbs, and 20 to 35% fat as the broad healthy range for most adults⁸, which is wider than most popular diet protocols prescribe.

Athletes doing heavy resistance or endurance training tend to push carbs higher (50%+) for training fuel. People on low-carb or ketogenic protocols push fat higher (50%+) and carbs much lower. The most important variables are total calories and adequate protein. The carb-fat split affects training performance and personal preference more than weight outcomes.

Daily nutrient guidelines: sugar, fiber, sodium, fat

Macros are the headline. A few specific limits within and beyond them are the small print that protects long-term health regardless of weight goals.

Nutrient	Guideline	Source
Saturated fat	Less than 6% of total calories	American Heart Association⁹
Trans fat	As close to 0 g as possible	American Heart Association⁹
Free sugars	Less than 25 g/day (5% of calories)	World Health Organization¹⁰
Fiber	38 g/day men, 25 g/day women	Institute of Medicine / FDA¹¹
Sodium	Less than 2,300 mg/day	FDA Daily Value¹²
Cholesterol	Less than 300 mg/day	FDA Daily Value¹²

These are limits and targets, not strict prescriptions. Going slightly over on a single day is meaningless; consistently exceeding the sodium or saturated fat limits over months and years is what builds cardiovascular risk. Fiber is the one most people miss. Average intake in the U.S. is around 16 g/day, well below the recommended 25 to 38 g range, and it's also the one with the clearest evidence for digestive health, satiety, and metabolic outcomes.

Why these numbers are estimates, not prescriptions

Every equation in this article carries error. Stacking Mifflin-St Jeor for BMR, an activity multiplier, and a calorie deficit means your "personalized" daily calorie target is an educated guess that should land within roughly plus or minus 200 calories of the truth.

That sounds discouraging until you understand the calibration step.

The right way to use a calorie calculator is as a starting estimate, not a final answer:

Calculate your target.
Eat at that target consistently for 2 to 4 weeks.
Track your weight trend over that period and ignore daily fluctuations, which reflect water, sodium, and digestive content rather than fat.
If weight isn't moving the way the math predicts, adjust by 100 to 200 calories and repeat.

This is what makes calorie targets work in practice. The math gets you to a reasonable starting point, and the feedback loop closes the gap between estimate and reality. Over time, your numbers become genuinely personalized to you rather than to the demographic average you fit into.

A few apps handle this calibration step in different ways. MacroFactor is the most prominent example of automated weekly target adjustments based on weight trend; Mindful brings the same core calculations into onboarding and meal logging so your calorie and macro targets stay connected to what you actually eat.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is a calorie calculator?

Mifflin-St Jeor predicts BMR within 10% of measured values for about 82% of healthy non-obese adults³. Stacked errors from BMR estimation, activity multipliers, and metabolic adaptation during weight loss typically put the final calorie target within about 200 calories of true maintenance. Use the output as a starting point and adjust based on your weight trend over 2 to 4 weeks.

What's the difference between BMR and TDEE?

BMR is the calories your body burns at complete rest. TDEE is your BMR plus calories burned through activity, exercise, and digesting food. TDEE is typically 20 to 90% higher than BMR depending on how active you are.

How do I calculate calories for weight loss?

Subtract a calorie deficit from your TDEE. The CDC and major clinical guidelines recommend a 500 kcal/day deficit for about 1 lb/week loss, or up to 1,000 kcal/day for about 2 lb/week. Faster weight loss is rarely sustainable and often reverses.

Is the Mifflin-St Jeor equation better than Harris-Benedict?

Yes for most people. The 2005 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics systematic review found Mifflin-St Jeor predicted resting metabolic rate within 10% of measured values more often than Harris-Benedict, the WHO/FAO/UNU equation, or the Owen equation³. Harris-Benedict, originally published in 1919, tends to overestimate BMR for modern populations.

How much protein do I need per day?

For people focused on strength training or body composition, 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day is a useful anchor, which is about 0.73 grams per pound. A 160 lb person would land around 117 g/day. The 2018 British Journal of Sports Medicine meta-analysis found gains plateau around 1.6 g/kg for people doing resistance training⁷. The Institute of Medicine's AMDR allows up to 35% of calories from protein for healthy adults.

Can I lose weight without counting calories?

Yes. Many people lose weight successfully through approaches like portion control, eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages, increasing protein and fiber, or following structured eating windows like time-restricted feeding. Calorie counting is one tool among several, and isn't appropriate for everyone, particularly anyone with a history of disordered eating.

How Mindful uses these calculations

Mindful uses the same general nutrition principles during onboarding: BMR estimation, activity-based calorie targets, macro targets, and public-health guidelines for key nutrients. The difference is that Mindful does the setup automatically, surfaces the numbers in a way that's easy to glance at, and connects them to quick meal logging through photos, typed meal descriptions that calculate nutrition data, barcode scans, label scans, and manual entry.

If you'd rather have these calculations live alongside your meal logging without needing to remember the equations above, that's what Mindful is for.

Try Mindful

References

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. "Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy." Chapter 4, Factors Affecting Energy Expenditure and Requirements. The National Academies Press, 2023. Source ↩
Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, Hill LA, Scott BJ, Daugherty SA, Koh YO. "A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 51(2):241 to 247. February 1990. DOI ↩
Frankenfield D, Roth-Yousey L, Compher C. "Comparison of predictive equations for resting metabolic rate in healthy nonobese and obese adults: a systematic review." Journal of the American Dietetic Association 105(5):775 to 789. May 2005. DOI ↩ ↩² ↩³
Wishnofsky M. "Caloric equivalents of gained or lost weight." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 6(5):542 to 546. 1958. The "3,500 calories per pound" rule is a clinical heuristic. Actual energy density of adipose tissue varies, but it remains the standard reference used in weight management. ↩
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Steps for Losing Weight." Source ↩
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults: Summary of Evidence-Based Recommendations." Source ↩
Morton RW, Murphy KT, McKellar SR, Schoenfeld BJ, Henselmans M, Helms E, Aragon AA, Devries MC, Banfield L, Krieger JW, Phillips SM. "A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults." British Journal of Sports Medicine 52(6):376 to 384. March 2018. DOI ↩ ↩²
Institute of Medicine. "Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids (Macronutrients)." National Academies Press, 2005. DOI ↩
American Heart Association. "Saturated Fats" and "Trans Fats." Source. AHA recommends less than 6% of total calories from saturated fat and avoiding trans fat entirely. ↩ ↩²
World Health Organization. "Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children." 2015. WHO recommends reducing free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake, with a conditional further reduction to below 5% for additional health benefits. Source ↩
Institute of Medicine. "Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids." 2005. The Adequate Intake for fiber is 38 g/day for adult men under 51 and 25 g/day for adult women under 51, based on 14 g per 1,000 kcal. The FDA Daily Value for fiber on the Nutrition Facts label is 28 g. ↩
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Daily Value on the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels." FDA lists the Daily Value for sodium as 2,300 mg and cholesterol as 300 mg. Source ↩ ↩²