Calorie counting - understanding BMR, TDEE, NEAT, and how they influence your totals

Calorie counting is a sure way to use hard data to monitor your eating behaviours and how they affect your physical being. Many fitness apps include calorie counting software, and you can even download free ones like myfitnesspal that do the job brilliantly.

You input your personal data (age, height, weight, physical activity level) and it calculates your daily calorie usage - it’s not a precise science, as it doesn’t know your genetic body type or amount of muscle tissue etc, but makes a pretty good guess. You then input your food and drink as accurately as possible to calculate your real-world total intake of calories.

It also works out a macro split that suits your goals (fats, carbs, proteins) and you can see if your food choices create the correct balance. Macro splits will vary depending on your goal and genetics, active strong people looking to build muscle will likely have higher levels of carbohydrates to fuel them, whilst people looking for weight loss may have higher protein and fat whilst reducing carbohydrates etc.

But how do these numbers get calculated? And what purpose does each part serve?

BMR - Basal Metabolic Rate

This is the number of calories you require each day to stay alive and function if you do nothing at all. There is a great simple, free calculator online at Calculator.net. Go try it out, we’re not affiliated with them in any way.

TDEE - Total Daily Energy Expenditure

This is the total calories your body uses when your activity levels are factored in. For example, an office worker would be considered fairly inactive and classed as sedentary, meaning they don’t burn many extra calories above their BMR, whilst a person that goes to the gym every day would be extremely active and would burn far more calories each day than their BMR.

TDEE also estimates how many calories your body requires to process the macronutrients in your diet.

Here is a great free-to-use online TDEE calculator you can try. 

NEAT - Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis

This one is pretty tricky to work out, although a good fitness tracker like an Apple watch or Garmin monitors your heart rate through the day and knows when you are walking, etc.

So NEAT is the energy your body uses in general daily movement - walking, fidgeting, housework etc - and can make a big difference in helping avoid weight gain etc.

An average person for example will burn 115 calories per mile when maintaining a reasonable pace of around 3mph (the larger the person, the more calories due to the added weight load being carried). The more movement you do, the more it helps with body composition.

I hope this helps you understand how this all works and, as always, I am happy to take your questions any time.