How Many Calories Should I Eat a Day?
There is no single right number — it depends on your size, age, sex, activity and goal. Here's how to find yours in three steps and how to correct it as you go.
1. Start with maintenance calories
Maintenance — your TDEE — is what you burn on an average day. Estimate it with the TDEE calculator, which uses the Mifflin–St Jeor equation and an activity multiplier. Everything else is an adjustment from this number.
2. Adjust for your goal
- Fat loss — subtract 15–20% (roughly 300–500 kcal) for 0.25–0.5 kg per week.
- Maintenance — eat at TDEE and watch the weekly average.
- Muscle gain — add about 10–15% (roughly 300 kcal) and train seriously, or the surplus becomes fat.
The calorie deficit calculator does both steps at once and adds macro targets.
3. Sanity-check against typical ranges
Most adult women land between 1,600 and 2,400 kcal a day and most adult men between 2,000 and 3,000, depending on size and activity. Going below roughly 1,200 kcal (women) or 1,500 kcal (men) without medical supervision makes it hard to get enough protein, vitamins and minerals.
4. Adjust from real data, not from the formula
Formulas usually land within about 10% of measured resting energy, but for some people the miss is larger, and the activity multiplier adds its own error — so let your weight trend have the last word. Track for two to three weeks, compare your average intake with that trend, and change the target by 100–200 kcal if it doesn't match the plan. Recalculate after every 4–5 kg of weight change.
Learn the logging side in How to Track Calories.