About KnowYourTDEE
KnowYourTDEE is a free TDEE and macro calculator that shows its working. It estimates what you burn in a day, names the formula and the activity multiplier it used to get there, and draws an honest error band around the answer instead of presenting one confident number.
- Written by
- Madhu Kinnera
- Published by
- Marava Tech
- First published
- August 30, 2026
- Last reviewed
- August 30, 2026
- Clinical qualification
- None. Not a doctor or dietitian.
- Funding
- None. No ads, no affiliates, no sponsors.
The three rules
- Rule 01
Show the arithmetic
Every result opens onto the equation that produced it, with your own numbers substituted into it. If you cannot check a figure, you have to trust it — and there is no reason you should.
- Rule 02
Show the error band
The answer is an estimate carrying roughly ±16% of real uncertainty, so it is drawn as a range. A single figure to four digits is not more accurate; it is the same estimate with the tolerance filed off.
- Rule 03
Hand you back to your own data
After two or three weeks of weekly weight averages, your own trend beats any equation here. The tool says so, and tells you how to make the swap. The goal is a calculator you stop needing.
Why it exists
Every calculator on this topic gives you a single figure to four significant digits. That figure is an estimate with real uncertainty attached — roughly ±16% before you account for how people actually behave — and hiding the uncertainty makes the tool feel more authoritative while making it less useful. When your weight does not move the way the number promised, you have no way to tell whether you mis-measured your food or the estimate was simply off.
So this site does the opposite. It shows the range, names the formula, substitutes your own numbers into the arithmetic, and tells you how to replace the estimate with a measurement of your own after two or three weeks.
Who writes it
KnowYourTDEE is built and written by Madhu Kinnera, a software engineer, and published by Marava Tech. One person writes every page, checks every equation against its source, and answers the email.
I am not a doctor, dietitian, nutritionist, or exercise physiologist, and I hold no clinical qualification of any kind. I am not in a position to give you medical or nutritional advice, and nothing on this site is offered as such. What I can do is implement well-documented equations correctly, state plainly where they came from, and be honest about how much they can actually tell you.
That is why every figure on this site traces to a published source rather than to another calculator or a fitness blog, and why the calculator refuses to display a calorie target below roughly 1,200 kcal for women or 1,500 for men without saying why. If you have a condition that affects your metabolism, are pregnant, are recovering from an eating disorder, or are weighing a large change in how much you eat, please talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian. A calculator is not a substitute for either.
How the pages are written and checked
There is no content pipeline behind this site and nothing is generated in bulk. The standards are short enough to list:
- Equations and accuracy figures come from the primary literature — Mifflin and St Jeor, Roza and Shizgal, Cunningham, Katch-McArdle, Frankenfield's review — and are named on the page that uses them, not cited to a secondary blog.
- Numbers are stated as the ranges the evidence supports. Where a figure is contested or the evidence is thin, the page says so rather than picking the tidier answer.
- The calculation engine has its own tests. A wrong result is the one failure this site cannot recover from, so arithmetic bugs outrank everything else.
- Every page carries a visible last-reviewed date, bumped when the substance changes and not when the build runs.
- Every language on this site is a written translation of these same pages, held to the same numbers. The figures, the equations and the citations do not change between languages; if a translated page ever disagrees with the English one on a number, the number is the bug.
How it handles your data
The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your age, height, weight and body fat figures are never transmitted anywhere, because the site has no server, no account system, and no database — it is a set of static files, and the arithmetic happens on your own device. If you copy a result link, your inputs are encoded in that URL, so treat it as personal before sharing it.
There is no signup, no paywall, and no gated result. No affiliate links, and no supplement sponsor with a say in what a page recommends. See the privacy policy for the full detail.
Corrections
If you find an error in the arithmetic, a misrepresented study, or a claim that has not aged well, I would genuinely like to know — email hello@knowyourtdee.com, or use the contact page, which sets the subject line for you.