Find the calories you burn in a day, and the numbers to lose, hold or gain.
Your total daily energy expenditure is every calorie you burn in a day, from breathing and digestion to walking and training. Eat at that number and your weight holds steady. Eat below it and you lose fat, eat above it and you gain. Knowing the figure turns dieting from guesswork into a dial you can actually set.
This calculator finds your resting burn with the Mifflin St Jeor equation, then multiplies by an activity factor from sedentary through to athlete. The result is your maintenance calories, plus simple targets for losing and gaining.
To lose fat at a steady pace, drop roughly five hundred calories below maintenance for about a pound a week. To build muscle with minimal fat, add two to three hundred. Recalculate every few weeks as your weight changes, since a lighter or heavier body burns a different amount.
Total daily energy expenditure is the total calories you burn in a day, including rest, digestion, daily movement and exercise. It is the number you eat around to lose, hold or gain weight.
This tool uses the Mifflin St Jeor equation for your resting burn, then multiplies by an activity factor from sedentary to very active to estimate your full daily expenditure.
A deficit of about five hundred calories below your maintenance number gives roughly one pound of fat loss per week for most people, which is a sustainable pace.
