Calorie Intake Calculator
Work out how many calories to eat per day for your goal, from weight loss to muscle gain, based on your body and activity.
In years
How Many Calories Should You Eat a Day?
Your daily intake is the amount of food energy you put on your plate, counted in kcal. Match it to your maintenance level and your weight sits still. Eat under it and your body taps fat stores. Eat over it and you build up, ideally muscle if you train. This tool reads your size, age, sex and activity, then hands back the intake number that fits the result you picked.
A generic figure off a packet rarely matches a real eater. Two people at the same weight can need very different amounts of food once you factor in muscle, age and how much they walk. That is why the calculator asks for your own numbers instead of a one-size answer.
Calorie Intake for Weight Loss
To lose fat you eat below maintenance. The tool offers two cuts: a steady 500 kcal drop and a gentle 250 kcal drop. The steady cut takes off about 0.45 kg (1 lb) a week. The gentle one is slower but leaves more food on the plate, so it is easier to hold through a busy month.
Loss intake never goes under 1,500 kcal for men or 1,200 kcal for women. Below that you struggle to get enough protein and you fight constant hunger. If you want to see the loss pace at bigger cuts, the calorie deficit calculator lays out every rung. To check the burn side that your intake sits against, the TDEE calculator shows the energy you spend in a day.
Calorie Intake to Maintain or Gain
To keep your weight where it is, eat at your maintenance number. The maintenance calories calculator frames that same figure for holding steady, with no cut or surplus applied.
To add muscle you eat above maintenance. The tool adds 250 or 500 kcal for a gentle or steady gain. Keep the surplus small so most of the new weight is muscle rather than fat, and lift weights to give those extra calories somewhere useful to go. A large surplus mostly fills out your waist. For the broader picture of how your body uses food, the calorie calculator shows every goal side by side.
Make Your Intake Number Stick
Hitting a target is easier when the food behind it works for you. Put protein at the center of each meal to hold muscle and blunt hunger. Lean on vegetables and whole grains for fiber, which fills you up for fewer calories. To turn your daily intake into grams of protein, carbs and fat, the macro calculator splits the number for you.
The plan only works if you watch the trend and adjust. Log what you eat and weigh in a few times a week. The Velpa app keeps your weight and steps in one private place, so you can see how closely your real results track the estimate and shift your intake by 100 to 200 kcal when they do not.
Frequently asked questions
- How many calories should I eat a day?
- That depends on your size, age, sex, how much you move and what you want the scale to do. The tool above turns those inputs into one daily intake number. To hold your weight you eat at your maintenance level. To shed fat you eat under it. To add size you eat over it. A 30-year-old man at 80 kg and 180 cm who trains a few days a week and wants steady loss lands on 2,259 kcal a day.
- What calorie intake do I need to lose weight?
- Pick a lose goal and the tool drops your intake 250 or 500 kcal below maintenance. The 500 kcal cut takes about 0.45 kg (1 lb) off per week. Keep the gentle 250 kcal cut if you want food to feel less tight day to day. Intake never falls under 1,500 kcal for men or 1,200 kcal for women, so you keep enough food to stay full and fed.
- How do I set a calorie intake I can stick to?
- Choose the smallest cut or surplus that still moves the scale. A gentle 250 kcal change leaves more room on your plate than a steep one, so you are less likely to quit by week three. Build meals around protein and fiber, keep a couple of foods you actually look forward to, and let the trend over two weeks tell you if the number is right.
- Does the type of food matter or just the calorie count?
- For weight change, total intake is what moves the scale. For how you feel and what you keep, the food behind the number matters a lot. Protein holds onto muscle while you cut and keeps hunger down. Fiber from vegetables and whole grains fills you up for fewer calories. The same 2,000 kcal of whole food and of soda will land very differently on your appetite.
- How do I know my intake number is working?
- Eat close to the target most days and weigh yourself a few times a week. Look at the two-week trend, not a single morning. If the scale is flat when you wanted loss, trim intake by 100 to 200 kcal. If you are dropping faster than 1 percent of body weight a week, add a little food back. The estimate gets you started; your own data fine-tunes it.