How Many Calories to Maintain Weight?

“Maintenance calories” and “TDEE” are two names for exactly the same number. Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure is the energy your body uses across a whole day — the resting burn that keeps your heart beating and your cells running, plus everything you add on top through walking, working, training and even digesting food. When the calories you eat match that figure, your body has no surplus to store and no shortfall to make up, so the scale settles and your weight holds. That balance point is what people mean when they ask how many calories it takes to maintain their weight. The calculator works it out per person rather than quoting a textbook average: it estimates your resting burn from your sex, age, height and weight, then multiplies by an activity factor to reach the full-day total. Because it is the same engine, this page is built on the TDEE Calculator, the parent tool, and simply frames the result around the maintenance question. Whether you call the output your TDEE or your maintenance calories, it is the steady-state number you eat to stay where you are.

You will often see a flat figure quoted — “2,000 calories a day” — as if it applied to everyone. It does not. That number is a rough population average printed on food labels, not a reading of any individual. Your own maintenance figure depends on four things the average ignores: your sex, your age, your size and how active you are. A tall, muscular, active person can maintain on far more than a smaller, sedentary one, and the same body burns noticeably more on a week of hard training than on a week behind a desk. The activity layer is where most people go wrong, because it is self-reported and easy to over-estimate — counting an occasional gym session as “very active” inflates the number and quietly nudges the scale upward. An honest read of a typical week gives a far more useful figure than an optimistic one. This is exactly why the calculator asks for your details and computes the result from them rather than handing you a single round number. The output is tailored to the body and routine you actually have, so the figure you plan meals around reflects you, not a generic stand-in.

The number the calculator gives you is a well-grounded starting estimate, not a precise measurement, so let the scale confirm it. Eat around your maintenance figure for two to three weeks and watch the trend rather than any single morning — day-to-day swings from water and food weight are normal and tell you nothing on their own. If the multi-week average drifts up, trim the intake a little; if it drifts down, add a little. Within a few adjustments you will have found the figure that genuinely holds you steady. Maintenance is also the launch point for deliberate change. To lose fat, you eat below this number by a measured amount; the Calorie Deficit Calculator turns your maintenance figure into a sensible deficit and a weekly pace. If you have a specific target in mind, the Goal Weight Calculator helps you plan the path and timeline to reach it. Knowing your maintenance number is the anchor for both: it is the line you hold to stay the same, and the line you step under when you decide to change. These figures are general estimates for healthy adults, not medical advice.