A walkthrough, end to end.
- 1
Enter height, weight, age, sex and your activity level. The calculator computes your BMR (Mifflin–St Jeor) and multiplies by your activity factor to get TDEE — your maintenance calories.
- 2
Read your maintenance number. That's the calorie intake that would keep your weight steady at your current activity level.
- 3
Pick a goal from the seven targets shown. Each one is your TDEE plus or minus a specific calorie delta: 250 kcal ≈ ½ lb/week, 500 kcal ≈ 1 lb/week, 750 kcal ≈ 1.5 lb/week.
- 4
Adjust based on real-world results. The numbers are a starting point — track your weight for 2–3 weeks and bump the target up or down if your actual changes don't match the prediction.
How calorie targets are calculated
First, your BMR is computed via Mifflin–St Jeor (the modern standard). That's multiplied by an activity factor (1.2 to 1.9) to get your TDEE — total daily energy expenditure at your current activity level. Goal targets are TDEE plus or minus a specific calorie deficit or surplus: roughly 500 kcal ≈ 1 lb of body weight per week.
What you can do with this.
Calorie calculator for weight loss
For sustainable loss, eat 250–500 kcal below your TDEE — that's the ‘Mild’ or ‘Steady’ row above. The deeper the cut, the faster the loss but also the harder to maintain. Most people can't hold an ‘Aggressive’ (−750 kcal) deficit beyond a few weeks without metabolic adaptation kicking in.
Calorie calculator for women
The Mifflin–St Jeor formula already accounts for sex (−161 kcal constant for women). Hormonal cycle adds about ±150 kcal of variation across the month, well within the formula's margin of error. Women generally have lower maintenance calories than men of the same height because of differences in lean mass.
Calorie calculator for men
Same approach as for women but with the +5 kcal sex constant. Men typically maintain at 200–400 kcal above women of the same height because of higher average lean mass.
Calorie calculator for muscle gain
For lean muscle gain, eat 250–500 kcal above your TDEE — paired with progressive resistance training. Aggressive surpluses (>500 kcal) put on more body fat per pound of muscle without speeding muscle gain meaningfully. Slow and steady wins.
Calorie calculator for maintenance
Eat at your TDEE to hold weight. This is the right target for body recomposition (gaining muscle while losing fat) — possible especially for beginners and people returning to training after a layoff. It's slow but doesn't require eating less or more than you naturally feel like.
Calorie cycling and refeeds
On training days, eat closer to maintenance or above. On rest days, eat in a deficit. The week-long average matches your goal but it's easier psychologically and may help with training quality. Beyond a beginner level, this is one of several valid strategies — none is universally best.
Calorie calculator 2026 — what's current
The TDEE-plus-or-minus-deficit model is still the standard in 2026. What's changed is wider acknowledgment that aggressive deficits (>750 kcal) trigger metabolic adaptation and almost always rebound. Modern guidance favors slow, sustainable deficits — the ‘Steady’ or ‘Mild’ rows above — and re-tracking every 5–10 lb lost rather than locking in a single number for months.
Frequently asked.
Eat 250–500 kcal below your TDEE for sustainable loss (½ to 1 pound per week). Going lower works short-term but triggers metabolic adaptation, hunger, and weight regain. The numbers shown above are computed for you.
Don't sustain intake below your BMR. For most adults that's 1,200–1,500 kcal/day. Below that, the body slows non-essential processes (immune function, hormones, energy levels) and the deficit becomes counterproductive.
Activity multipliers and the BMR formula are population averages. Your real burn can be ±15% off. Track your weight for 2–3 weeks, then nudge calories down 100 kcal if you're losing slower than expected, or up if losing faster than wanted.
Yes — TDEE drops as weight drops. Recalculate every 5–10 lb (~2–5 kg) lost. Your maintenance number will be lower than when you started.
No — Mifflin–St Jeor uses height, weight, age and sex but not body fat percentage. For very lean / very muscular people, Katch–McArdle (which uses lean mass) is more accurate.
No. Every calculation runs in your browser. There's no server processing, no analytics on inputs, no cookies storing what you typed.