Calorie Calculator: Your Daily Target for Any Goal

How Many Calories Should I Eat a Day?

Maintenance calories are the calories that hold your weight steady at your current activity. This calorie calculator calls that number your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). It is free, and it runs in the browser. No account is required.

1. Find basal metabolic rate: BMR is the calories you burn at complete rest. Mifflin-St Jeor is (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) − (5 × age) + 5 for men, or −161 for women. This page rounds that result before it goes any further. A separate BMR calculator compares formulas.
2. Multiply by activity: The rounded BMR times the activity level is your TDEE. Maintain uses that TDEE as the daily target.
3. Apply the goal: Lose Fat subtracts 250, 500 or 750 kcal. Build Mass adds the same three paces. If a deficit would drop the target under BMR, the target stays at BMR.
4. Read the weekly line: The page divides the daily gap by 7,700 kcal per kilogram. That is the weight-change estimate, not a promise.

The activity choice moves the whole target. The same opening person at Lightly Active (× 1.375) has a TDEE of 2,376 kcal instead of 2,678. The equation did not change.

Worked example with the form defaults

The form opens on a 28-year-old man, 75 kg, 178 cm, Moderately Active (× 1.55), and Maintain. BMR before rounding is 1,727.5 kcal, which this page rounds to 1,728 kcal. Times 1.55, rounded again, is a maintenance target of 2,678 kcal.

The macro bar on this page is fixed at 30% protein, 40% carbohydrate and 30% fat. On 2,678 kcal that is 201 g protein, 268 g carbs and 89 g fat. Other splits, including keto and a higher-protein preset, are on the macro calculator.

Calorie deficit for weight loss

A calorie deficit is a daily target below maintenance. Choose Lose Fat. Moderate, the pace already highlighted, subtracts 500 kcal. For the opening inputs the weight-loss target is 2,178 kcal, and the weekly line shows about 0.45 kg (1.0 lb). The 30/40/30 split on that day is 163 g protein, 218 g carbs and 73 g fat.

Mild subtracts 250 kcal, so the same person eats 2,428 kcal and the line shows about 0.23 kg (0.5 lb) a week. Aggressive subtracts 750 kcal, which is 1,928 kcal and about 0.68 kg (1.5 lb) a week. 1,928 is still above this person's BMR of 1,728, so the floor does not move the target. On a smaller TDEE, an aggressive deficit can hit that floor, and the result card says so.

Water, glycogen and a food log that does not match the target can hide a real deficit for a week or more. Recalculate after about 4–5 kg of weight change, because BMR falls as body weight falls.

Why am I not losing weight in a calorie deficit?

• Water and glycogen: A salty meal, a hard workout or a menstrual cycle can hide a week or two of fat loss. Compare weekly averages.
• Logging gaps: Cooking oil, sauces, drinks and weekend meals are the usual missing calories. Weigh food for a week to check.
• Activity set too high: If the activity level overstates your week, maintenance is lower than the form says. Try one level lower.
• Lower expenditure after loss: Expenditure falls as weight falls, and sometimes a little more. The reverse dieting guide explains this.
• Health and medicines: Thyroid conditions, some medicines and other conditions can change weight. If nothing moves after several careful weeks, ask your doctor.

Maintenance calorie calculator

Maintenance calories are the TDEE itself, with no deficit and no surplus. Leave the goal on Maintain. For the opening inputs that answer is 2,678 kcal a day. Eat that, at the activity level you selected, and the estimate says weight stays about where it is. If training days and rest days differ a lot, the single activity pick is the weak point, not the percentage split.

How many calories are in a pound?

This calculator does not store a separate "calories per pound" constant. It uses 7,700 kcal per kilogram. Weekly kilograms are the daily gap times 7, divided by 7,700. Pounds are that kilogram figure times 2.20462. A 500 kcal deficit is 3,500 kcal across seven days, and 3,500 / 7,700 is about 0.45 kg, which prints as 1.0 lb. That is why people still say a pound of body weight is about 3,500 kcal.

Treat that line as a short-term guide. Kevin Hall at the US National Institutes of Health showed the 3,500-calorie rule roughly fits people carrying more than about 30 kg of body fat; leaner people lose a larger share of lean tissue, which stores less energy, so their scale weight can move faster but less of it is fat (Hall, 2008). His later model found that body weight responds to a lasting change in intake slowly, with a half-time of about a year, because expenditure falls as weight falls (Hall et al., 2011). A straight line therefore overstates loss after the first few months. Recalculate as your weight changes; NIDDK's free Body Weight Planner simulates the slowing curve if you want a longer forecast.

Typical daily calorie needs by age and activity

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans publish population estimates for people of typical height and weight. Use them as a sanity check on the result above, not as a target:

Needs rise until about age 20 and drop slowly after that. The estimates do not cover pregnancy or breastfeeding, which raise needs, and neither does this calculator.

Is 1,200 calories a day enough? Minimum calories

There is no single official minimum for everyone. The 2013 AHA/ACC/TOS obesity guideline lists 1,200–1,500 kcal a day for women and 1,500–1,800 kcal for men as one way to set a weight-loss diet, or alternatively a 500 or 750 kcal daily deficit, which are this page's Moderate and Aggressive paces. It reserves very-low-calorie diets, under 800 kcal a day, for medical settings with monitoring (Jensen et al., 2014).

This calculator never sets a target below your BMR. For the opening woman that floor is 1,370 kcal, already above 1,200. A smaller, older or less active person can have a BMR near or below 1,200, so if your target lands that low, talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before following it.

How many calories to lose 2 pounds a week?

By the 3,500-calorie rule, 2 lb (0.9 kg) a week needs a deficit of about 1,000 kcal a day. This page stops at 750 kcal, the upper deficit in the AHA/ACC/TOS guideline. For the opening man, a 1,000 kcal deficit would be 1,678 kcal, already below his BMR of 1,728, and for the opening woman it would be 1,124 kcal, well below her 1,370. People with more weight to lose have higher maintenance calories, so the same deficit leaves more room above BMR, and the slowing effect described above still applies.

Calorie calculator for women

Choose Female. The equation changes one constant, from +5 to −161. A 30-year-old woman, 65 kg, 165 cm, Moderately Active, has a raw BMR of 1,370.25 kcal, which this page rounds to 1,370 kcal. Times 1.55, rounded, maintenance is 2,124 kcal. Moderate fat loss is 2,124 − 500 = 1,624 kcal, about 0.45 kg (1.0 lb) a week, with 122 g protein, 163 g carbs and 54 g fat.

Calories for muscle gain

Choose Build Mass. Moderate adds 500 kcal, so the opening man goes from 2,678 to 3,178 kcal, about 0.45 kg (1.0 lb) a week on the same 7,700 kcal rule. That rule was built for fat, so read it as total weight, not muscle: new muscle comes much more slowly, and many lifters use a smaller surplus, such as the 250 kcal Mild pace, to limit fat gain. The fixed split is 238 g protein, 318 g carbs and 106 g fat. At 75 kg, 238 g protein is about 3.2 g per kilogram, above the 1.6–2.2 g/kg band many lifters use as a check. This page does not cap protein. The macro calculator can move the percentages if that gram figure is higher than you want.

Tracking food, and calories burned

This page sets the day's budget. A food's own calories come from its label or a food database, then you add the day up and compare it with the target. A log such as Cronometer can hold that list. This page does not look up restaurant meals, and it is not a food diary.

Calories burned in a workout are a different question. The activity level you already picked is inside the TDEE, so subtracting a deficit and also adding a large exercise burn on top can double-count the same movement. A single session belongs on the workout calorie calculator.