Estimate your maintenance calories (TDEE) — the daily calories you need to keep your current weight stable. Enter your stats, choose your activity level, and get a clear daily target you can use for maintenance, cutting, or bulking.
We estimate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) using Mifflin–St Jeor and multiply by your activity level to get your maintenance calories (TDEE). If you’re unsure about activity, choose the lower option — you can adjust later using real results.
Maintenance calories are the number of calories you need per day to keep your body weight stable. If you consistently eat above maintenance, you tend to gain weight over time. If you consistently eat below maintenance, you tend to lose weight over time. That simple idea is called energy balance: your body’s weight trend is largely driven by the relationship between energy intake (food and drink) and energy expenditure (what you burn through basic living, digestion, movement, and training).
This Maintenance Calories Calculator estimates your daily maintenance by calculating your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). TDEE is the total calories you burn in a full day, including: (1) your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), (2) calories you burn through activity and exercise, and (3) the thermic effect of food (the energy required to digest and process what you eat). Most calculators roll these pieces together by starting with BMR and multiplying by an activity factor, which is what this tool does.
Your BMR is the energy your body uses at rest to keep you alive—breathing, circulation, temperature regulation, and cellular repair. It is heavily influenced by body size, age, sex, and especially lean mass (muscle). This calculator uses the widely adopted Mifflin–St Jeor equation because it tends to perform well for the general population.
If you choose the “Imperial” unit option, the calculator converts pounds to kilograms and inches to centimeters behind the scenes, then applies the same equations.
To go from “resting calories” to “daily calories,” we multiply BMR by an activity multiplier that represents your typical movement and training. Think of it as a practical shortcut for real life. If you’re mostly sedentary, your multiplier is lower. If you walk a lot, train, or have a physical job, your multiplier is higher.
Your estimated maintenance calories (TDEE) = BMR × activity factor. This is your best “starting number” for maintaining your current weight.
No calculator can be perfect for every person. Your actual maintenance depends on factors like muscle mass, sleep, stress, hormones, medications, and how your body subconsciously adjusts movement (often called NEAT: non-exercise activity thermogenesis). Still, a good calculator gets you close enough to start tracking and fine-tuning with real data.
The best way to validate your maintenance calories is simple: track your body weight trend for 2–3 weeks while eating near your calculated target. If your weekly average weight is stable, you’re near maintenance. If it’s rising, your maintenance is likely lower than you’re eating. If it’s falling, your maintenance is likely higher. Make small adjustments (usually 100–200 calories/day) and reassess.
Once you know your maintenance calories, you can use them as the base for nearly any goal:
A common mistake is making changes that are too aggressive. A moderate deficit tends to preserve performance and lean mass better than crash dieting. A moderate surplus tends to build muscle with less fat gain than “dirty bulking.” Maintenance calories give you a calm, measurable anchor so you can adjust deliberately instead of guessing.
Example 1: 75 kg, 175 cm, 30-year-old male, moderately active (1.55).
Example 2: 60 kg, 165 cm, 28-year-old female, lightly active (1.375).
Example 3: 90 kg, 180 cm, 40-year-old male, very active (1.725).
During prolonged dieting, your body may adapt by reducing movement, lowering resting expenditure slightly, and changing hunger signals. Your maintenance can shift as your weight changes and as your daily activity changes. Recalculate periodically and use real weight trends to guide adjustments.
Maintenance calories are only one variable. Food quality, sleep, hydration, stress, and micronutrients matter too. If you train hard, consider whether your carbohydrate intake, recovery, and sleep are adequate.
Not required. Many people “calorie cycle” (higher on training days, lower on rest days) while keeping the weekly average near maintenance. Your body responds to trends over time, not a single day.
It’s a good starting point, but athletes may need more individualized planning based on sport demands and training volume. If performance is the priority, track outcomes (energy, recovery, training output, weight trend) and adjust accordingly.
Yes. Start with maintenance, then add a small surplus (often +150 to +300 calories/day) and monitor your weekly weight gain rate. Slow and steady typically produces a better lean-to-fat gain ratio than aggressive surpluses.
This calculator provides an estimate for educational purposes. If you have a medical condition or history of disordered eating, consult a qualified clinician before making major diet changes.
If you want to go beyond a simple estimate, here are a few concepts that explain why maintenance calories can feel like a moving target. These aren’t required to use the calculator—but understanding them helps you fine-tune faster.
NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis—all the calories you burn from daily movement that isn’t formal exercise: walking around the house, standing, fidgeting, taking stairs, and general “life activity.” For many people, NEAT can vary by hundreds of calories per day. When you diet hard, NEAT often drops (you move less without realizing). When you’re well-fed, NEAT often rises (you naturally move more). That’s one reason your maintenance can change over time.
Digesting and processing food costs energy. Protein generally has a higher TEF than carbohydrates and fats. That means two diets with the same calories can feel slightly different depending on protein intake. Most TDEE calculators implicitly “bake in” TEF via the activity multiplier, but at the margin it can still matter—especially for people eating very high protein.
Muscle is metabolically active tissue. While the day-to-day calorie impact of adding small amounts of muscle is not magical, building more lean mass can increase BMR over time, and training itself increases expenditure. Even more importantly, strength training improves body composition so that “maintenance calories” can maintain a leaner physique at the same scale weight.
If you want your maintenance plan to be more than just a number, consider a basic macro structure:
You don’t need perfection. A simple approach is: hit protein daily, keep fiber consistent, and let calories be the main driver.
Many people undercount intake (especially oils, snacks, and drinks) or overestimate portion sizes when eyeballing. Track carefully for a week—using a scale if possible—to compare your real intake to the estimate.
Yes. Training days burn more energy, and many people naturally eat more. A smart strategy is to keep your weekly average near maintenance while allowing slightly higher calories on training days and slightly lower on rest days.
Recalculate any time your body weight changes meaningfully (e.g., 5–10 lb), your activity level changes, or every 8–12 weeks if you’re actively training. The goal is to keep your plan aligned with reality.
Your maintenance calories (TDEE) are your “neutral baseline.” From here, most people use small changes to push a goal while keeping the plan sustainable.
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