Glossary
What is TDEE?
Total Daily Energy Expenditure: the calories you burn in a day — keeping your body running, digesting food, and moving around. It is the “burn” half of every calorie balance.
How it’s estimated.
You can’t measure TDEE outside a lab, so it is estimated in two steps. First, a formula computes your basal metabolic rate — what you’d burn doing nothing. The most widely used is Mifflin-St Jeor, published in 1990 and generally preferred over the older Harris-Benedict equation:
BMR = 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age, +5 for men / −161 for women
Then the BMR is multiplied by an activity factor:
| Activity level | Multiplier | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | × 1.2 | Desk work, little exercise |
| Lightly active | × 1.375 | Light exercise 1–3 days a week |
| Moderately active | × 1.55 | Moderate exercise 3–5 days a week |
| Very active | × 1.725 | Hard exercise 6–7 days a week |
| Extra active | × 1.9 | Physical job or twice-daily training |
What the number is worth.
It is an estimate. Population formulas put the average person close to the truth, and individuals routinely land 10% or more away from it — metabolism, muscle mass, and how honestly the activity level was picked all move it. The multipliers are coarse on purpose.
That is why the estimate should never be the final word. Your weigh-in trend is the measurement; the formula is only the starting point. If the trend and the formula disagree for a few weeks, trust the trend and adjust intake.
How Caaals uses it.
Caaals computes your burn with exactly the formula above, from your profile — and states so instead of calling it magic. It feeds the weight projection: burn minus your 14-day average intake, at 7,700 kcal per kilogram, becomes your pace and your projected goal date. The projection then anchors on your actual 7-day weigh-in trend, which is what keeps a formula estimate honest.
Questions
How accurate is the Mifflin-St Jeor formula?
It is a population formula — the best-validated of the common ones, but individuals routinely land 10% or more away from it. Treat the number as a starting estimate. The real test is your weigh-in trend: if it disagrees with the projection for a few weeks, your actual burn differs from the formula, and your intake target is what you adjust.
Which activity level should I pick?
When in doubt, pick the lower one. Most people overestimate their activity, and an overestimated burn hides a surplus. Log for two weeks and let the weight trend arbitrate.
Does Caaals adapt my TDEE automatically?
No — deliberately. The burn is the formula applied to your profile, and it changes only when your profile does. Some apps instead estimate expenditure adaptively from your logged data; that is a legitimate approach. Caaals chose a number you can recompute yourself.
Related: why 7,700 kcal per kilogram and how the projection works.
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