Calorie Calculator
Find the calories you need each day to lose, maintain or gain weight, with the macros to match.
Your details
Moderate exercise 3–5 days a week
Within the National Academies' ranges
These equations predict a population average. Measured resting metabolism varies by 200–300 kcal between two people of identical height, weight, age and sex, so treat this as a starting point and adjust from what the scale actually does over a few weeks.
This works out how many calories you need each day to lose, maintain or gain weight.
It calculates your maintenance level first, then applies the adjustment for your goal.
How a daily calorie target is set
A daily calorie target is built in two steps: work out what you burn, then adjust for what you want to happen.
What you burn is your [TDEE](/health/tdee-calculator). For a 30-year-old man at 70 kg and 175 cm training a few times a week, that is about 2,556 calories. Eating that maintains weight; eating 2,056 creates a 500-calorie deficit and loses roughly a pound a week.
The part that decides whether it works is not the arithmetic. People under-report what they eat by around 20-30%, which is well documented in the research. On a 2,056-calorie target, a 20% error is 411 calories, and most of the deficit disappears without anything obviously going wrong.
Every step multiplies through, so an overstated activity level or an under-reported intake moves the whole result.
What to enter
- Age, sex, height and weight
- These four give your BMR through the Mifflin-St Jeor equation.
- Activity level
- The multiplier applied to BMR. Choose it conservatively; one level too high adds nearly 300 calories a day.
- Goal
- Lose, maintain or gain. A 500-calorie deficit is about a pound a week; a 250-500 surplus supports a lean gain.
Turning the target into food
- [Protein](/health/protein-intake-calculator)
- 4 calories per gram. Set this first: 1.6-2.2 g/kg protects muscle, especially in a deficit.
- Carbohydrate
- 4 calories per gram. Fuels training and is the easiest lever to adjust.
- Fat
- 9 calories per gram. Keep at least 0.5-0.8 g/kg for hormonal function.
- Alcohol
- 7 calories per gram, and it displaces nothing else nutritionally. Often the largest untracked source.
What this assumes
Mifflin-St Jeor is a population equation and varies by around 10% between individuals with identical stats.
The target is a starting hypothesis. Two weeks of real weight data beats any formula.
How to calculate your daily calorie target
BMR, then activity, then goal. Then check it against what actually happens.
- BMR
- Mifflin-St Jeor: 10w + 6.25h − 5a + 5 for men, − 161 for women
- activity multiplier
- 1.2 sedentary through 1.9 extra active
- goal adjustment
- −500 for about a pound a week of loss; +250 to +500 for gain
Calculate BMR. For a 30-year-old man at 70 kg and 175 cm: 700 + 1,094 − 150 + 5 = 1,649.
Apply an honest activity multiplier. 1,649 × 1.55 = 2,556 to maintain. Most people who train three or four times a week are moderate, not very active.
Adjust for the goal. 2,556 − 500 = 2,056 to lose about a pound a week.
Test it for two weeks and adjust. Weigh daily, take a weekly average, and change the target based on what happened rather than what was predicted.
See a worked example: why the target often does not work
- Person
- Male, 30, 70 kg, 175 cm, moderately active
- Goal
- Lose about a pound a week
BMR 1,649, maintenance 2,556, target 2,056.
Now apply typical tracking error. Under-reporting by 20% means actually eating about 2,467.
The intended 500-calorie deficit becomes 89, and the pound a week becomes about a fifth of that.
Nothing here was a discipline failure. It was oil in the pan, a larger portion than estimated, and a drink that was not logged.
2,056 calories a day
Frequently asked questions
Your maintenance level minus about 500 a day, which loses roughly a pound a week. For the example above, 2,556 − 500 = 2,056.
Do not go below roughly 1,200 for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision. Very low intakes make adequate nutrition difficult and are hard to sustain.
The two usual causes are an overstated activity level and under-reported intake, and both are common. Research consistently finds people under-report by 20-30%.
Weigh food rather than estimating for a couple of weeks, and log everything including oils, drinks and tastes while cooking. Most people find several hundred calories they did not know about.
For body weight, largely yes: a deficit is a deficit. For body composition, health and hunger, no.
Protein preserves muscle and is more satiating. Fibre-rich whole foods fill you up for fewer calories. The same 2,000 calories can leave you full or hungry depending entirely on what they are made of.
Not if your activity multiplier already includes your training, which it should. Counting workouts on top double-counts them.
Exercise calorie estimates also skew high, so eating them back in full often erases the deficit. If you do, use a fraction.
No. Portion control, cutting liquid calories, and building meals around protein and vegetables all work without any counting.
Counting is a measurement tool rather than a requirement. It is most useful for a few weeks to calibrate what portions actually look like, after which many people stop.
Below roughly 1,200 for women and 1,500 for men, meeting nutritional needs becomes difficult and adherence drops sharply.
Very aggressive deficits also cost more muscle and slow metabolic adaptation sets in faster. A moderate deficit held for months beats an extreme one abandoned in weeks.
Problems people actually run into
Under-reporting without knowing it
Cooking oil, sauces, drinks, a handful of nuts and portion sizes estimated by eye add up quickly. Research puts the typical error at 20-30%.
On a 2,056-calorie target, 20% is 411 calories, which turns a 500-calorie deficit into 89. Weigh food for two weeks to calibrate, then estimate from a better baseline.
Treating the target as fixed
The number comes from a population equation and your own expenditure falls as you lose weight. A target that worked in month one will not in month four.
Use it as a starting hypothesis, track weekly average weight, and adjust from what actually happened. Real data beats the formula every time.
Results are estimates for general information only and are not professional financial, medical, or legal advice. Read our full disclaimer.
Last updated: September 4, 2026