Calorie Calculator

A calorie calculator is an online tool that estimates your daily calorie needs based on personal factors including age, gender, height, weight, and activity level. Whether you're trying to lose weight, maintain your current weight, or build muscle, our calorie calculator provides personalized calorie targets to help you achieve your fitness and nutrition goals.

This calculator determines your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) by first calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and then multiplying it by your activity level. It provides calorie recommendations for weight loss (caloric deficit), weight maintenance, and weight gain (caloric surplus), along with macronutrient breakdowns to guide your nutrition planning.

Accurate calorie estimation is fundamental to successful weight management and fitness goals. People trying to lose weight need to maintain a caloric deficit, consuming fewer calories than they burn. Conversely, those building muscle or gaining weight need a caloric surplus. Without knowing your calorie needs, you're essentially guessing at your nutrition strategy, which often leads to poor results.

Dietitians and nutritionists use calorie calculators to create personalized meal plans for clients, ensuring appropriate calorie targets for health and fitness objectives. Athletes use them to fuel performance and recovery, while fitness enthusiasts benefit from understanding their energy needs to optimize body composition changes.

The tool ensures accuracy by using validated equations like Mifflin-St Jeor or Harris-Benedict, provides instant personalized results, and adjusts for activity level to give realistic daily calorie targets. It's particularly valuable when starting a diet, adjusting nutrition after plateau, or understanding how lifestyle changes affect calorie needs.

Weight Loss: Calculate caloric deficit needed to lose weight at a healthy rate (typically 0.5-2 lbs per week) by consuming 250-1000 calories below maintenance.

Weight Maintenance: Determine daily calories needed to maintain current weight while ensuring adequate nutrition for health and energy.

Muscle Gain: Calculate caloric surplus required for muscle growth (typically 250-500 calories above maintenance) combined with resistance training.

Athletic Performance: Ensure adequate calorie intake to fuel training, support recovery, and maintain performance for athletes with high energy demands.

Meal Planning: Create daily meal plans that hit calorie targets while meeting macronutrient needs for balanced nutrition.

Using our calorie calculator is straightforward: enter your age, gender, height, weight, and select your activity level (sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, very active, or extremely active). The calculator instantly provides your daily calorie needs for weight loss, maintenance, and weight gain.

The calculator uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation: For men: BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age) + 5. For women: BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age) - 161. This BMR is then multiplied by your activity factor: Sedentary (1.2), Lightly Active (1.375), Moderately Active (1.55), Very Active (1.725), or Extremely Active (1.9) to get TDEE. Weight loss calories = TDEE - 500 (approximately 1 lb/week loss). All calculations are performed locally in your browser for privacy.