Calorie Calculator

Your activity choice has a big impact on your suggested targets, but it can feel frustratingly imprecise. Think about your whole day, including work, walking, chores, and exercise. An hour at the gym doesn't tell us what happens during the other 23.

Here's a rough guide to the options in the form:

Desk job, light exercise

Most of your day is seated. You get some walking or occasional exercise, but there's relatively little movement in your usual day.

Lightly active, workout 3-4 times/week

You work out several times a week, or spend a fair amount of time on your feet. This can fit a desk job with regular workouts and some everyday walking.

Active daily, frequent exercise

Exercise is part of most days, and you're regularly moving outside those workouts too. Consider your commute and workday as well as your training schedule.

Very athletic

Hard training takes up a substantial part of your week, or you combine regular exercise with a physically demanding job. A few tough workouts surrounded by mostly seated days usually don't fit here.

Extremely athletic

Your routine involves unusually high amounts of physical work or training, such as long endurance sessions or multiple daily workouts. It's a demanding schedule to sustain, not just a busy week.

If you're genuinely between two levels, lean toward your goal: choose the lower one for weight loss or the higher one for weight gain. Keep both choices realistic. Don't select a sedentary routine when you're training hard just to get a smaller number.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Try a target for a few weeks, then adjust based on your weight trend, hunger, energy, and training performance.

We use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation to estimate resting energy use from your age, sex, height, and weight. For Non-Binary, we average the male and female equation results. Our BMR calculator explains the resting estimate.

We multiply that estimate by an activity factor, from 1.2 to 1.9 across the five activity options, and round down to whole Calories to get maintenance. Your selected goal and weekly rate then adjust that number.

Err in the direction of your goals when deciding between plausible estimates: a little lower for weight loss, a little higher for gain. Keep the adjustment modest. The calculator already includes your chosen deficit or surplus, so don't automatically subtract or add it again.

“Maintain weight” keeps the target at estimated maintenance. “Lose fat” and “Build muscle” adjust it using the weekly weight-change rate you choose, from ¼ to 2 lb per week:

• For loss: we subtract 3,400 Calories per pound of requested weekly loss, divided by seven. At 1 lb per week, that's about 486 fewer Calories a day.
• For gain: we add 3,500 Calories per pound of requested weekly gain, divided by seven. At 1 lb per week, that's 500 extra Calories a day.

We cap the cut at half of estimated maintenance. That cap is a limit in the calculation, not a recommendation to eat that little or a guarantee that the resulting intake is suitable for you. These adjustments set a starting target, not a promised rate of weight change. The calorie deficit calculator goes into more detail.

If you're building muscle, lift weights and eat enough protein. Extra Calories alone don't provide the training stimulus that builds muscle (MedlinePlus on nutrition and training). Choosing a faster gain rate doesn't mean you'll build muscle faster.

It's a starting estimate, not a measurement of your metabolism. Your activity choice and individual energy needs can put your actual needs above or below it. Another calculator's number isn't necessarily more accurate just because it's different.

Here's how to check whether the starting target works for you:

1. Keep a consistent record. Note your meals, portions, drinks, and usual activity so you can compare what you actually eat with the target.
2. Compare trends over several weeks. Weigh yourself under similar conditions and compare weekly averages rather than individual weigh-ins. Also note hunger, energy, and training performance.
3. Check the inputs before changing the number. Review your units, activity selection, and portion estimates. If your intake has been close to the target but the trend doesn't match your goal, make a modest adjustment and give it time before changing it again.

Tracking food, activity, and weight together is also part of NIDDK's weight-management guidance. If the target leaves you persistently hungry, tired, or struggling with training, get help reviewing it rather than pushing through.

Recalculate when your weight or routine changes meaningfully. Energy expenditure can change during weight loss, so one target won't produce the same pace indefinitely (Hall et al., 2011).

You don't need a measured percentage. Low, Medium, and High are rough categories used in the protein calculation, not a body-fat measurement. At the same weight, choosing a lower category generally starts with a higher protein suggestion. The choice doesn't change your Calorie estimate.

Medium is a reasonable starting point if you're unsure. Don't spend hours trying to pin down a precise percentage for a tool that only asks for a broad category.

Yes, if your activity selection reflects your normal workouts. Adding those exercise Calories on top can count them twice. Use a typical week to choose your activity level, including rest days, rather than treating every workout as a separate allowance.

If your training or workday changes substantially, use Change Settings to update your activity level and review the new result.

TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure: the Calories you burn over a full day. It includes resting energy use, exercise, everyday movement, and the energy used to digest and process food (National Academies' guide to energy expenditure).

Choose “Maintain weight” and your target is our estimate of your TDEE. The activity factor accounts for the full day's needs, so there's no separate digestion allowance to add. Our TDEE calculator has more on what affects that estimate.

Macros are protein, carbohydrates, and fat. We suggest amounts based on your goals, physical stats, and diet choice, leaving room for foods you enjoy. The “At least” amounts are minimums for meal planning, not exact daily allocations. They don't need to add up to all your Calories; your meals can provide more within the plan's ranges.

Carbs

We scale the initial carb minimum by body weight, activity, and goal. Higher activity generally gets a higher suggestion. Carbs help fuel exercise, and the amount that supports training depends on its intensity and duration (MedlinePlus sports nutrition guidance).

We start lower for fat loss and higher for muscle gain. After meeting the minimums, you have room for a mix of carbs, protein, and fat within your plan's ranges. That flexibility lets you choose meals you enjoy. Your diet preference can change the ranges, especially with Keto.

Protein

There are a few different reference points worth understanding:

• The adult Recommended Dietary Allowance is 0.8 g/kg per day, about 0.36 g/lb. It's a reference for meeting nearly all healthy adults' needs, not a target for maximizing muscle growth (AHRQ overview of protein requirements).
• Phillips and Van Loon, 2011 discuss 1.3–1.8 g/kg (about 0.59–0.82 g/lb) for athletes. The upper end isn't a universal ceiling beyond which protein stops helping.
• Hector and Phillips, 2018 discuss 1.6–2.4 g/kg (about 0.73–1.09 g/lb) during weight loss in athletes, depending on the deficit and training demands. That's a specific context, not a recommendation that everyone eat that much.

Our calculation uses body weight, body-fat category, and goal, with activity scaling for maintenance and fat loss. For muscle gain, we start around 0.8–0.82 g/lb before diet and Calorie-budget adjustments. Our minimums don't reproduce an athlete's cutting diet. If you're training hard while losing weight, a sports dietitian can help you set a more suitable target.

Fat

Fat supplies essential fatty acids and helps you absorb vitamins A, D, E, and K (MedlinePlus guide to dietary fats). It's also key in making a lot of things taste really good.

We start with a fat minimum of 0.3 g/lb for fat loss (about 0.66 g/kg), or 0.5 g/lb for maintenance or muscle gain (about 1.1 g/kg). Those are Eat This Much planning defaults, not universal medical minimums. Diet settings and the available Calorie budget can change the final amounts. The macro calculator explains those adjustments in more detail.

We let you set your own macro percentages with a free account, but we don't recommend chasing an exact ratio for most people. Getting enough of each nutrient matters more than making every day's numbers fit a pie chart.

A percentage also changes the amount of food it represents whenever your Calorie target changes. At 2,000 Calories, 20% protein is 100 g. At 1,500 Calories, it's 75 g, even though you've only changed your energy target. Those are examples, not protein recommendations.

Percentages can be a convenient shorthand. But when Eat This Much is doing the calculations, flexible gram ranges give it more room to find meals you like. You can use targets from a dietitian or another calculator too; our suggestions are a starting point, not a requirement.