u/CoachFreeAll

TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) = the total calories your body burns in a day = your maintenance calories.

When this subreddit started, we were flooded with people trying to lose weight.

The common advice was simple: “Go calculate your TDEE.”

But over time, we realized this approach had a major problem.

Most TDEE calculators are often inaccurate.

Why?

Because a calculator does not know you well enough to predict your calorie expenditure with high accuracy.

In this post, we explained why most TDEE calculators fail and how we built a more accurate approach: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFitnessIndia/comments/1n3q6ph/how_we_built_most_accurate_tdee_calculator_which/

The number a TDEE calculator gives you is only an estimate generated from formulas built using population data and regression models.

For some people, the estimate is close. For others, it can be hundreds of calories off.

But even for people whose maintenance calories initially matched the estimate, another issue appeared:

After a few weeks of dieting, body weight or composition (muscle burn more calories than bodyfat) changed, activity levels changed, metabolic adaptation kicked in, and suddenly the original TDEE estimate was no longer accurate. THIS IS WHEN THEIR WEIGHT GOT STUCK. They couldn't figure out what EXACTLY was wrong, they calculated TDEE, applied correct deficit, yet weight was not moving. Why?

This taught us something important:

TDEE is not a static number.

It changes throughout your journey.

The calories you burn today may not be the same calories you burn 7 days from now.

You may become:

• more active
• more sedentary
• lighter
• heavier
• more adapted to dieting

All of these factors change your energy expenditure.

So the real solution was not just creating another “better formula.”

The solution was building a TDEE calculator that continuously updates itself using your real-world data over time.

That is exactly what the TDEE system inside MacroCodex does: https://macrocodex.app/

It continuously updates estimated maintenance calories, target calories, and macros based on actual progress instead of relying on a one-time static estimate.