How Many Calories Should You Actually Eat Per Day?

The number most people use - 2,000 calories - comes from a rounding exercise on food labels, not from any individual's actual needs. A 60kg sedentary woman and a 90kg man who trains four days a week have nothing in common calorically. Getting your real number takes ten minutes and changes how you approach every meal.

For context on how calories fit into your broader eating strategy, the Healthy Eating & Nutrition guide covers the full picture alongside macros and meal planning.

BMR: Your Starting Point

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the calories your body burns at rest - just to keep your heart beating, lungs breathing, and organs functioning. It accounts for 60-70% of most people's total daily calorie burn.

The Mifflin-St Jeor formula is the most widely validated for general adults:

• Men: (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) + 5
• Women: (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) - 161

Example: A 35-year-old woman, 165cm tall, 68kg: (680) + (1031) - (175) - 161 = approx. 1,375 kcal/day BMR.

TDEE: What You Actually Burn

Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) multiplies your BMR by an activity factor:

• Sedentary (desk job, no exercise): BMR x 1.2
• Lightly active (1-3 days exercise/week): BMR x 1.375
• Moderately active (3-5 days exercise/week): BMR x 1.55
• Very active (hard training 6-7 days/week): BMR x 1.725
• Extremely active (physical job + training): BMR x 1.9

Using the example above: 1,375 x 1.55 = approx. 2,131 kcal/day TDEE. That is her maintenance level.

If you'd rather skip the arithmetic, the free Consillar nutrition calculators run the Mifflin-St Jeor formula for you and output your TDEE with calorie targets for loss, maintenance, and gain in one step.

Adjusting for Your Goal

Once you have TDEE, the adjustment is simple:

• Lose weight: Subtract 300-500 calories from TDEE. This produces roughly 0.3-0.5kg of fat loss per week without aggressive restriction.
• Maintain weight: Eat at TDEE. Track for two weeks and adjust if your weight is moving in the wrong direction.
• Build muscle: Add 200-300 calories above TDEE. Larger surpluses mostly add fat, not muscle.

Avoid cutting more than 500 calories below TDEE without medical supervision. Larger deficits accelerate muscle loss and make hitting protein targets significantly harder.

Why Tracking Estimates Beat No Tracking

You do not need to track every meal forever. But two to four weeks of careful logging teaches you portion sizes and calorie density in a way that sticks. Most people who have never tracked discover they were eating 300-500 calories more than they thought - not from junk food, but from oil, dressings, and underestimated portion sizes.

Free apps like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal have databases of most common foods. Enter your TDEE as a goal, log for a month, then use what you have learned to eat more intuitively.

Calories Are Not the Whole Story

Two diets with identical calorie counts can feel very different. 2,000 calories of processed food leaves you hungry; 2,000 calories built around protein, fibre, and whole foods keeps you satisfied. For the foods that make a calorie budget go further, see Why You're Always Hungry: The Role of Protein, Fibre, and Satiety.

Understanding how macros interact with your calorie target is the next step - covered in detail in What Are Macros and Why Do They Matter?

Meal Planning Around Your Number

Once you have a daily target, split it across meals that are roughly equal in size. Front-loading protein at breakfast reduces overall daily intake for most people. A plate of Egg and Cottage Cheese Omelet at around 350-380 kcal and 28g protein is a solid starting point that keeps hunger low until lunch.

For dinner, a portion of Juicy Pan-Roasted Chicken Thighs with vegetables sits at roughly 420-480 kcal and fits comfortably within most daily targets while covering a large chunk of daily protein needs.

Recalculate Every 4-6 Weeks

As your weight changes, so does your TDEE. A person who has lost 8kg needs fewer calories to maintain their new weight. Stalls are often caused by not recalculating - not by a slowing metabolism. Plug your current weight into the formula every month and adjust your target accordingly.