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Find how many calories keep your weight exactly where it is — the anchor number for maintaining, dieting, or lean gaining.
| Lose 1 lb (0.45 kg) / week | 2,193 kcal |
| Lose 0.5 lb (0.25 kg) / week | 2,443 kcal |
| Maintain weight | 2,693 kcal |
| Gain 0.5 lb (0.25 kg) / week | 2,943 kcal |
| Gain 1 lb (0.45 kg) / week | 3,193 kcal |
| Sedentary | 2,085 kcal |
| Lightly active | 2,389 kcal |
| Moderately active | 2,693 kcal |
| Very active | 2,997 kcal |
| Extremely active | 3,301 kcal |
| Plan | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moderate carb | 202g | 236g | 105g |
| Lower carb | 269g | 135g | 120g |
| Higher carb | 202g | 337g | 60g |
≈ 18,851 kcal per week. Protein and carbs: 4 kcal/g, fat: 9 kcal/g.
Maintenance calories are the daily intake at which energy in equals energy out — your weight neither rises nor falls. Everything in nutrition planning hangs off this one number: a fat-loss phase is maintenance minus a deficit, a muscle-gain phase is maintenance plus a small surplus, and a successful diet ends at maintenance, not at the deficit you dieted on.
The estimate above comes from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation (the formula clinical dietitians default to) multiplied by your activity level. It's a starting point with roughly ±10% accuracy — which is why the section below shows you how to pin down your actual number in two weeks.
Formulas estimate; your body measures. Here's the protocol nutrition coaches actually use:
The catch is step one: two weeks of honest logging is where most people bail, because manual entry is tedious. This is exactly the problem Calzy was built for — you photograph each meal and the AI logs calories and macros in about 3 seconds. You can test the same AI in your browser with the free food calorie scanner.
The most underrated use of this number: knowing where to land when the diet ends. Most weight regain happens in the months after a deficit, when eating drifts back to old habits that sit hundreds of calories above the new, lighter body's maintenance. Note the trap: your maintenance after losing 20 lb is lower than it was before — the same adaptation that causes plateaus also moves the finish line.
A practical exit: raise intake from your deficit toward the new maintenance in steps of 100–150 kcal per week (the approach often called reverse dieting), watching the weekly weight average as you go. Keep logging through the transition — it's the highest-risk window of the entire process.
Sources
General estimates for healthy adults, not medical advice. Consult a professional before major dietary changes.
For most adults it lands between 1,800 and 3,000 kcal per day, but the honest answer is: it depends on your size, age, sex, and how much you move. The calculator above gives your personal estimate from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation — most people's true maintenance sits within about 10% of it.
Track. Eat at the calculated number and log your food and body weight for 14 days (weigh-ins in the morning, averaged weekly). If your weekly average weight is flat, that intake is your maintenance. If you lost weight, your maintenance is higher; if you gained, it's lower — adjust by 100–200 kcal and repeat. Two weeks of honest data beats any formula.
Yes. They scale with body weight, muscle mass, age, and activity. Losing 20 lb can lower maintenance by 100–200 kcal per day, and metabolic adaptation during long diets can temporarily push it a bit lower still. Recheck after every 10–15 lb of weight change.
That's the standard recommendation: return to maintenance — either directly or by adding calories back gradually over a few weeks (often called reverse dieting) — and hold it while your training and habits stabilize. Jumping straight back to pre-diet eating is how most regain happens.
Body recomposition — losing fat while gaining muscle at roughly maintenance calories — is realistic for beginners to lifting, people returning after a break, and anyone with higher body fat, provided protein is high and training is consistent. Leaner, trained people usually need a deliberate deficit.
Effectively yes — your Total Daily Energy Expenditure is the intake at which weight holds steady. 'Maintenance calories' is the practical name for the same number. Our TDEE calculator page covers the formula mechanics in more depth.
The formula mechanics: BMR, activity factors, and macro targets.
Upload a food photo, get calories and macros in seconds.
How to come off a deficit without regaining the weight.
Why progress stalls and what actually restarts it.
Why eating windows don't override the energy balance math.
Log every meal in ~3 seconds so the two-week method actually happens.