Maintenance Calorie Calculator
Find the exact daily calories you need to maintain your current weight. Four trusted TDEE equations side-by-side — Mifflin-St Jeor, Harris-Benedict Revised, Katch-McArdle, and Cunningham — plus the body-recomposition range, age-decline projection, and cut/bulk targets. Built for men, women, athletes, and dietitians in every region.
Your Profile
Modern equation (1990) using sex, weight, height, age. Considered the most accurate BMR formula for most adults and the dietitian default.
Ready to calculate
Enter your details and hit Calculate to see your daily maintenance calories across all four formulas, plus your recomp range and age-decline projection.
Activity Multiplier Reference
| Level | Multiplier | Description | Typical Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | × 1.200 | Little to no exercise. Desk job, mostly seated all day. | Office worker, remote worker, retiree at home, student studying |
| Lightly Active | × 1.375 | Light exercise 1-3 days per week, or active job with mostly standing. | Casual walker, light yoga, teacher, retail associate |
| Moderately Active | × 1.550 | Moderate exercise 3-5 days per week, or physically active job. | Gym 3-4x weekly, weekend hiker, server, nurse, parent of toddlers |
| Very Active | × 1.725 | Hard exercise 6-7 days per week, or physically demanding occupation. | Daily lifter or runner, construction worker, farmer, landscaper |
| Extra Active | × 1.900 | Twice-daily training, physical job + training, or athletic competition. | Endurance athlete, CrossFit competitor, military, two-a-day lifter |
The Complete Guide to Maintenance Calories
Your maintenance calories — also called Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE — are the exact number of calories you must eat every day to keep your body weight stable. Eat fewer than that number and you lose weight. Eat more and you gain. Everything else in nutrition programming is downstream of this single value. Cutting plans, lean bulking plans, body recomposition plans, contest prep, reverse diets, athlete fueling, and even clinical weight management all start with one question: what is your true maintenance? Most people guess wildly wrong — they either dramatically underfuel a hard training week or sleepwalk into a 500-calorie surplus during a sedentary stretch. This calculator gives you four scientifically validated equations side-by-side so you can find your maintenance to within a small, manageable margin and build every other nutrition decision from there.
Maintenance calories are the sum of three components. The largest (60-70 percent) is your Basal Metabolic Rate — the calories your body spends at complete rest to keep your brain, heart, kidneys, immune system, and tissue repair running. The second (~10 percent) is the thermic effect of food, the calories used to digest and process meals (protein is most thermogenic at 20-30 percent, carbs 5-10 percent, fat 0-3 percent). The third is physical activity, including both formal exercise and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) — fidgeting, walking, posture. NEAT is where two people of identical weight, height, and exercise routine can have wildly different real-world maintenance numbers.
No equation produces a perfect number. Mifflin-St Jeor is within 5-10 percent of measured TDEE for roughly 80 percent of healthy adults. The other 20 percent — unusually fast or slow metabolisms, atypical lean mass, thyroid variation, extreme activity — need real-world calibration. Every serious coach uses the formula as a starting point and adjusts after two weeks of honest tracking: if you lose weight at the calculated maintenance, your true TDEE is higher, so add 150 kcal per day and re-test; if you gain, drop 150 kcal per day. Running all four formulas side-by-side gives you a built-in sanity check. Pair the output with consistent weight tracking (daily weigh-in, weekly average) and you will dial in your true maintenance within 30 days.
The Four Formulas Explained
Here is what each formula actually does, where it shines, and when to pick it.
1. Mifflin-St Jeor (1990)
The dietitian default. Derived from a large, mixed sample of healthy adults. Most accurate for the general population — within 5-10 percent of indirect calorimetry for roughly 80 percent of adults. Use this if you do not know your body fat percentage or fall in the average-to-slightly-athletic range.
2. Harris-Benedict Revised (1984)
The historical classic. Originally 1919, revised by Roza and Shizgal in 1984. Tends to read 3-5 percent higher than Mifflin for sedentary adults. Still widely cited in textbooks and older calculator tools. Use this if a registered dietitian or research paper specifies it.
3. Katch-McArdle
Uses lean body mass instead of total weight, so it accounts for the metabolic cost of muscle versus fat. The most accurate choice for lean or athletic users who know their body fat percentage. A 200 lb lifter at 12 percent body fat will get a meaningfully different (and more accurate) number from Katch than from Mifflin.
4. Cunningham
The athletic-population variant of Katch-McArdle. Cunningham (1980/1991) reads roughly 100-200 kcal higher than Katch and is the standard among elite endurance, physique, and strength athletes whose lean body mass underpredicts true metabolic rate. Use this if you train twice a day or compete at a high level.
How to Use This Calculator
- 1. Pick Your Sex: Biological sex changes the BMR constants because women carry more essential fat and less lean mass on average. Mifflin handles this with a -161 constant for women and +5 for men.
- 2. Choose a Formula: Use Mifflin-St Jeor by default. Switch to Katch-McArdle or Cunningham if you know your body fat percentage and are lean or athletic. We calculate all four side-by-side so you can compare.
- 3. Enter Your Basics: Age, weight, and height. Toggle between Imperial (lbs/ft+in) and Metric (kg/cm) — we auto-convert when you change unit systems and also support pure inches for international flexibility.
- 4. Pick Your Activity Level: Honesty wins. Sedentary 1.2, Lightly Active 1.375, Moderately Active 1.55, Very Active 1.725, Extra Active 1.9. Most people pick one level too high. If you have a desk job and lift three times a week, you are Moderately Active, not Very Active.
- 5. Calculate, Compare, and Calibrate: See your TDEE, BMR, recomp range, cut and bulk targets, and the age-adjusted projection. Then eat the calculated maintenance for two weeks, weigh daily, and average. Adjust by 100-200 calories per day if your weekly average is not flat.
Use Cases & Related Calculators
Pre-Cut and Pre-Bulk Planning
Lock in maintenance with this tool, then use the Mifflin-St Jeor Calculator for the BMR-only number and the Calorie Deficit Calculator to compute the daily deficit needed to hit your fat-loss target by a specific date.
Macro Planning Around Maintenance
Split your maintenance kcal into protein, carbs, and fat with the Macro Calculator. Standard recomp split: 1.0 g protein per lb of bodyweight, 0.3-0.5 g fat per lb, and the remainder from carbs.
Resting Metabolic Rate Comparison
BMR and RMR differ by 5-10 percent (RMR is measured after a meal). Pair this with the RMR Calculator to see both numbers and know which to use when reading research or sport-science apps.
Long-Term Health Monitoring
Maintenance calories drop with age, weight loss, and reduced activity. Re-run every 3-4 weeks during a cut. Combine with the TDEE Calculator and BMR Calculator for a full metabolic snapshot.
Pro Tips for Honest Maintenance Numbers
- • Pick one formula and stick with it. Switching weekly between Mifflin and Harris-Benedict guarantees confusion. Log honestly for 14 days and trust the trend.
- • Most people underestimate intake by 20-30 percent. If the formula says you should be losing and you are not, undercounted calories are the most likely culprit. Weigh food on a scale for 14 days.
- • Activity multiplier is the biggest variable. Going from 1.2 to 1.725 changes maintenance by 525 kcal on a 1,000 kcal BMR. Be brutally honest about your weekly activity.
- • Weigh daily, average weekly. Daily weight fluctuates 2-5 lbs from water and food. Average across 7 days. Weight changes over 2 weeks tell the truth about your maintenance.
- • Recalculate after every 5-10 lb change. TDEE drops as you lose weight and rises as you gain muscle. Update maintenance every 4-6 weeks during active phases.
- • Account for age-related decline. BMR drops ~5 percent per decade after 30. Resistance training and protein offset most, but you cannot ignore it forever.
- • Mind the "weekend creep". A Saturday at +1,500 kcal undoes six weekdays of disciplined eating. Track weekly averages, not just daily.
Sex Differences in Maintenance Calories
Women average 200-400 fewer maintenance kcal per day than men of similar height and age because women carry more essential body fat (10-13 percent versus 2-5 percent) and less lean muscle mass — the most metabolically expensive tissue. Mifflin and Harris-Benedict bake this in with sex constants; Katch-McArdle and Cunningham handle it through lean body mass.
Adult Male (5'10", 180 lbs, age 30)
- • BMR: ~1,795 kcal · Sedentary: ~2,154 kcal
- • Moderate: ~2,782 kcal · Very Active: ~3,096 kcal
Adult Female (5'5", 145 lbs, age 30)
- • BMR: ~1,402 kcal · Sedentary: ~1,682 kcal
- • Moderate: ~2,173 kcal · Very Active: ~2,418 kcal
Whatever your goal — fat loss, muscle gain, body recomposition, marathon training, or contest prep — the maintenance number from this calculator is the foundation everything else builds on. Bookmark this page, recalculate every few weeks during active phases, and pair it with honest weight tracking. Real progress comes from small, consistent calorie adjustments over months.
What Coaches & Athletes Say
“I send every new client to this tool during intake. The four-formula side-by-side comparison instantly answers the why-is-MyFitnessPal-different question. Mifflin lines up dead-on with the indirect calorimetry tests we run in clinic.”
“Katch-McArdle on this calculator nails my contest-prep clients within 75 kcal of their measured TDEE. The recomp band is exactly the maintenance phase I program for the first 6 weeks of every prep. Diamond Grade tool.”
“Cunningham is the only formula that does not underfuel my marathon clients. Being able to see all four numbers and the age-decline projection on one screen has saved me twenty minutes per intake call.”
“I followed the recomp range here for 18 months and dropped 7 percent body fat without losing a single pound on the scale. The activity-multiplier visualization finally made sense of why my old calorie targets were way too low.”
“I print the cut, maintenance, and bulk numbers from this calculator for every athlete in my gym. The age-adjusted TDEE for masters athletes has been a game-changer — most calculators ignore the 5-percent-per-decade decline.”
“Mifflin combined with a lower activity multiplier gives my PCOS clients an honest starting point. The plain-English explanations under each formula make my consultation calls 50 percent shorter.”
Love using our calculator?
Related Articles
Dive deeper with our expert guides and tutorials related to Maintenance Calorie Calculator