Activity Adjusted Metabolic Rate
Calculator

It's your resting metabolic rate multiplied by an activity factor that accounts for your typical daily movement and exercise, giving total daily energy expenditure rather than just baseline calorie burn at rest. This is also commonly called Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).

Multipliers typically range from about 1.2 for sedentary (little to no exercise) up to 1.9 for very active (hard daily exercise or a physical job), and most people should be honest and slightly conservative when self-assessing their activity level. Overestimating activity level is a common mistake that inflates the calorie estimate.

Your activity-adjusted metabolic rate represents the calorie intake needed to maintain current weight, so eating consistently below it creates a deficit for weight loss and eating above it creates a surplus for weight gain. It's the reference point around which most nutrition planning is built.

The multiplier is a population-average estimate, and individual metabolic variation, tracking errors in food logging, and changes in non-exercise activity can all cause real-world results to diverge from the calculated prediction. Treat the number as a starting estimate to adjust based on observed results over a few weeks.

Yes, since resting metabolic rate depends on body weight and composition, meaningful weight changes should prompt a recalculation to keep the estimate accurate. A number calculated at the start of a diet becomes progressively less accurate as body weight shifts.