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CalcSpectrum

Calorie Calculator

Estimate your daily maintenance calories (TDEE) plus conservative mild weight-loss and mild weight-gain targets, built on the verified Mifflin-St Jeor BMR formula and standard activity multipliers.

Free to use · Instant results
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How It's Calculated

Formula

\text{Maintenance (TDEE)} = \text{BMR} \times \text{Activity Multiplier}
\text{Mild Loss Target} = \text{TDEE} - 500
\text{Mild Gain Target} = \text{TDEE} + 350

This calculator builds a simple, conservative calorie target on top of your maintenance calories (TDEE). This is an estimate for general informational and educational purposes, based on a published formula — it is not a medical diagnosis, and it is not a substitute for individualized advice from a qualified healthcare provider. It reuses the exact same Mifflin-St Jeor BMR calculation and 5-tier activity multiplier as the BMR and TDEE calculators — nothing is recalculated with a different formula here. On top of that maintenance number, three goals are always shown: maintain (no change), mild weight loss (a conservative 500 kcal/day deficit below maintenance, corresponding to roughly a pound a week under the standard ≈3,500-kcal-per-pound approximation), and mild weight gain (a conservative 350 kcal/day surplus, sized smaller than the deficit to favor lean-mass gain over fat gain during a bulk). These are deliberately conservative, fixed-kcal adjustments — not a percentage of your TDEE (which would risk pushing a low-TDEE person to an unsafely low number) — and there is no aggressive-deficit or rapid-bulk option. If your selected target falls below a generic low-calorie caution threshold, an informational note appears alongside the (unaltered) number. This calculator does not screen for pregnancy, breastfeeding, eating disorders, or medically supervised diets — if any of those apply to you, use a target from a qualified healthcare provider instead of this generic estimate.

Worked Examples

Male, 30 years old, 80 kg, 180 cm, moderately active

  1. BMR (Mifflin-St Jeor): 10 × 80 + 6.25 × 180 − 5 × 30 + 5 = 1780 kcal/day
  2. Maintenance (TDEE): 1780 × 1.55 (moderately active) = 2759 kcal/day
  3. Mild weight loss target: 2759 − 500 = 2259 kcal/day
  4. Mild weight gain target: 2759 + 350 = 3109 kcal/day

Female, 25 years old, 60 kg, 165 cm, sedentary (low-calorie caution example)

  1. BMR (Mifflin-St Jeor): 10 × 60 + 6.25 × 165 − 5 × 25 − 161 = 1345.25 kcal/day, rounds to 1345
  2. Maintenance (TDEE): 1345 × 1.2 (sedentary) = 1614 kcal/day
  3. Mild weight loss target: 1614 − 500 = 1114 kcal/day
  4. 1114 falls below the generic 1,200 kcal/day female caution threshold, so this result shows an informational caution note — the number itself is still shown exactly as computed, not floored or hidden.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why only mild loss and mild gain — no aggressive options?

This calculator deliberately offers only conservative goals. Larger deficits or surpluses carry more individual risk (muscle loss, excessive fat gain, unsustainable adherence) and are more appropriate to plan with individualized guidance than a generic formula. The fixed 500 kcal/day deficit and 350 kcal/day surplus used here sit at the conservative end of commonly-cited public-health and sports-nutrition ranges.

Why fixed kcal amounts instead of a percentage of my TDEE?

A percentage cut scales with your TDEE, which sounds fair but isn't safe for everyone: someone with a low TDEE could be pushed to a dangerously low intake by the same percentage that's perfectly reasonable for someone with a high TDEE. A fixed kcal/day offset avoids that scaling problem and matches how authoritative sources like the CDC actually phrase generic dieting guidance.

What does the low-calorie caution note mean?

It means your selected target fell below a generic threshold (1,200 kcal/day for women, 1,500 kcal/day for men) that public-health sources commonly cite as the point where professional supervision is advisable for an unsupervised diet. It is purely informational — the calculator never changes, floors, or hides the computed number because of this; it only tells you the number crossed that generic line.

Is this calculator appropriate for pregnancy, teens, or eating-disorder recovery?

No. This tool cannot detect those situations from age, sex, height, weight, and activity level alone, and generic adult maintenance-calorie math does not apply to them. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, under 15 or over 100 (outside this calculator's supported age range), in treatment for an eating disorder, or already following a medically supervised diet, use guidance from a qualified healthcare provider instead.