Calorie Calculator
Daily calories to hold, lose or gain weight, from your own numbers.
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Formula
How the calculation works
The maintenance figure is built in two steps. First the basal rate: how much the body burns at complete rest, from weight, height, age and sex. Then that is multiplied by an activity factor between 1.2 for sitting all day and 1.9 for hard training twice a day.
The basal rate is returned beside the maintenance figure on purpose. A maintenance number on its own looks like a target someone invented; with the basal rate next to it, you can see that the difference is your activity, and that changing the activity level moves the number more than anything else on the form.
Common mistakes
- Picking 'very active' because you feel busy. The factors are about exercise, not about a stressful day at a desk.
- Using the loss figure as a permanent target. A deficit held for months is not the same as one held for a few weeks.
- Feeding the equation a target weight instead of the current one -- it answers for the body you have now, not the one you want.
When to use it
- Use it to get a starting figure and a sense of how much your activity level is worth in calories.
- It is an estimate from an equation, not a measurement. Track what you actually eat for a week and adjust from the real number.
Worked example
68 kg, 170 cm, 30, male, moderately active: 2,463 to hold, 1,963 to lose.
Common questions
Why does age matter?
Because resting burn falls with age: the Mifflin-St Jeor equation subtracts five calories for every year. So at the same weight and height a 40-year-old needs less than a 30-year-old.
Why the 500-calorie swing?
A 500-calorie gap either way is roughly half a kilogram a week. It is a familiar starting point rather than a rule; change is slower in practice and a body adapts to a deficit held for a long time.
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