Maintenance Calorie Calculator

What maintenance calories mean

Maintenance calories are the daily intake that keeps your weight where it is. Eat that amount on average and the scale drifts inside its normal water weight range instead of trending. The number is real even though nobody can measure it directly: it is everything a body burns in a day, called total daily energy expenditure, which bundles resting metabolism, digestion, and all movement from walking to workouts.

Two paths lead to it. The first is an estimate: a body size formula times an activity factor, which the calculator above runs in a second. The second is measurement from your own life: eat roughly the way you usually do for two to four weeks, watch what the scale trend does, and adjust from there. The estimate gets you within shouting distance; the trend data makes the number yours.

This page holds one job: holding weight steady. If the goal is a deficit or a bulk, the related tools at the bottom handle those directly, and the number this page produces is the baseline they offset from.

Step 1: resting metabolism with Mifflin-St Jeor

The Mifflin-St Jeor equation estimates basal metabolic rate, the energy a body burns at complete rest. In metric units it reads: men, BMR = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age + 5; women, BMR = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age − 161. Pounds and inches convert first: kg = pounds ÷ 2.2046, cm = inches × 2.54.

Worked example, a 40 year old man at 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds: that is 81.6 kg and 177.8 cm, so 10 × 81.6 + 6.25 × 177.8 - 5 × 40 + 5 = 1,733 calories per day. The four terms are 816, 1,111, 200 and 5, and they add up to that total. A 35 year old woman at 5 feet 5 inches and 130 pounds works out to 590 + 1,032 − 175 − 161 = 1,286 calories per day.

BMR is not the finish line; it is the floor. Almost nobody lives at rest, so the next step multiplies it up to a real week of movement.

Step 2: the activity multiplier

Total daily energy expenditure multiplies BMR by one factor that stands in for your week. The standard set runs from 1.2 for a desk bound week with little planned exercise up to 1.9 for hard physical work plus daily training.

The man from the worked example at a moderately active 1.55 gets 1,733 × 1.55 = 2,686 calories a day to hold 180 pounds. The woman at lightly active 1.375 gets 1,286 × 1.375 = 1,768. Pick the row honestly, not aspirationally. The CDC describes moderate intensity as effort like brisk walking, where you can still talk, and vigorous intensity as the level where conversation stops. When torn between two rows, take the lower one and let the scale data in the next section correct you upward.

The CDC's intensity measuring guide gives examples for each level if a row is hard to place.

Why the formula is only a starting point

Mifflin-St Jeor lands within about 10 percent of measured metabolism for most people, and the error runs in both directions. Two people of identical size, age and sex can differ by hundreds of calories a day in measured expenditure, thanks to genetics, muscle mass, sleep, and the ordinary fidgeting and pacing that never shows up in an activity factor.

The multiplier carries most of the uncertainty. It collapses a whole week into one number, and self rated activity skews optimistic; most people overestimate how much they move. A formula output should be treated as a hypothesis with a plus or minus 10 to 15 percent band, which for a 2,686 estimate means the true maintenance could sit anywhere from about 2,300 to 3,100.

That band is exactly why the next section exists. The NIH Body Weight Planner, built by NIDDK researchers, models how metabolism adapts as weight and habits change, and it exists because static formulas miss that adaptation. You can get the same correction for free from a bathroom scale and three weeks of patience.

Calibrate with 2 to 4 weeks of scale weight

Your own data beats any equation. Eat the way you normally eat and track your daily intake for two to four weeks. Weigh yourself every morning, right after waking and before eating or drinking, and average each week's readings so water swings cancel out. Then compare the trend to the intake.

If your average weight held steady, your average intake is your maintenance number, full stop. If the trend moved, apply the rough energy conversion that about 3,500 calories equals one pound of body weight, the same figure NIDDK program materials use. Maintenance = average daily intake + (pounds lost per week × 500). The 500 is 3,500 ÷ 7, and losing weight means your real maintenance sits above what you ate.

Worked example: three weeks of tracking shows 2,400 calories a day and a loss of 0.6 pounds over those weeks, which is 0.2 pounds per week. Maintenance = 2,400 + (0.2 × 500) = 2,500 calories a day. The formula estimate said 2,686; your body said 2,500, and your body wins.

Be honest about the limits of the 3,500 rule. NIDDK's own researchers point out that the body adapts to a deficit by burning less, so long range projections built on the rule overshoot, which is why the Body Weight Planner exists. Over a two to four week window with a small trend, the rule is a good enough correction. Over months, recalibrate again. People with unusual metabolism or sedentary routines, the cases NIDDK flags, should lean even harder on scale data.

Cutting or gaining from your maintenance number

Once maintenance is calibrated, every goal becomes an offset from it. The traditional arithmetic uses 3,500 calories per pound: a 500 calorie daily deficit predicts about a pound of fat loss a week, and a modest surplus supports muscle gain. As the last section said, the body adapts and the prediction decays, so treat the table as a starting dose rather than a contract, and re-measure every four to six weeks.

Smaller offsets are easier to hold and easier to correct when the scale disagrees. Maintenance also moves as you do: a smaller body burns less, so the person who dieted from 180 to 170 pounds is maintaining on a smaller number than the 2,686 the formula first gave. The calorie deficit calculator on this site takes the deficit side further with timelines, and the TDEE calculator explains each activity factor in more depth.

How this page relates to the other calorie tools

Three tools on this site share the same bones, and each commits to a different question. The TDEE calculator is the general purpose version: BMR times activity factor, with the full breakdown of each multiplier, useful when the estimate itself is what you want explained. The calorie deficit calculator starts from a loss goal and works backward to intake and timeline. This page holds one narrow job: the intake that keeps weight flat, plus the scale weight method that turns a formula guess into a measured personal number.

Use this page first if maintaining is the goal, or whenever a deficit or surplus plan needs a trustworthy baseline to offset from. A deficit picked off an uncalibrated estimate is the most common way cutting plans fail quietly, so even if the destination is the deficit tool, the two to four weeks of weighing described above still pays for itself.

Recalibrate whenever life changes shape: a new job, a training block, a five pound move on the scale, or a season that changes how much you walk. Maintenance is a moving target with a lag. The formula aims, the scale confirms, and a check every four to six weeks keeps both current.