Maintenance Calories Calculator
Find the calories you need to maintain your current weight, based on your body and activity level.
In years
What Are Maintenance Calories?
Your maintenance caloriesare the number of calories you need to eat each day to keep your weight exactly where it is. Eat that amount and you're in energy balance: the calories you take in match the calories you burn, so the scale holds steady. It's the same figure as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE), just framed around a specific goal: staying the same.
Knowing this number is useful even if you don't want to change your weight. It tells you how much you can eat without gaining. It gives you a sensible baseline to diet down from. And it's the anchor you return to after a fat-loss phase. Almost every nutrition decision becomes easier once you know your maintenance level.
How Your Maintenance Calories Are Calculated
The calculator estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, the calories you'd burn at complete rest. It then multiplies that by an activity factor between 1.2 and 1.9 to account for movement and exercise. The product is your maintenance calorie target. Because it's built on the same engine, your maintenance number is identical to the figure you'd get from a TDEE calculator. They're two names for the same value.
Validated examples: a 30-year-old man at 80 kg and 180 cm who is moderately active maintains his weight at about 2,759 kcal a day. A 30-year-old woman at 65 kg and 165 cm who is lightly active maintains at about 1,884 kcal a day.
Why Maintenance Calories Change Over Time
Your maintenance level is a moving target, not a permanent number. It falls as you lose weight, because a lighter body simply needs less fuel to operate. It rises if you add muscle, since muscle is more metabolically active than fat. And it tends to drift down slowly with age. Big changes in your daily activity, such as a new job, a training block or an injury, move it too.
The practical takeaway is to recalculate periodically rather than trusting a single number forever. If you're tracking your weight in the Velpa app, revisit this calculator whenever your weight shifts by a few kilograms so your target keeps pace with your body.
How to Eat at Maintenance, and What Comes Next
Eating at maintenance is less about hitting one exact number each day and more about averaging close to it across the week. A day a few hundred calories high is balanced out by a day a few hundred low. Prioritise protein and whole foods, and let the day-to-day variation even itself out. The practical range shown above gives you that wiggle room.
When you're ready for a new goal, maintenance is your launch pad. To lose fat, drop below it using the calorie deficit calculator, which builds a safe set of deficit targets from this very number. Whatever your goal, run your target through the macro calculator to split it into protein, carbs and fat. Then you know how much to eat and what to eat.
Frequently asked questions
- What are maintenance calories?
- Maintenance calories are the number of calories you need to eat each day to keep your weight exactly the same, with no gain and no loss. They equal your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE): the energy your body burns through resting metabolism, digestion, exercise and everyday movement combined. Eating at your maintenance level is 'energy balance,' where calories in equal calories out.
- How are maintenance calories calculated?
- This calculator first estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, based on your weight, height, age and sex. It then multiplies your BMR by an activity factor (1.2 for sedentary up to 1.9 for very active athletes) to account for movement. The result is your maintenance calorie level. For example, a 30-year-old man at 80 kg and 180 cm who is moderately active needs about 2,759 calories per day to maintain his weight.
- Why do my maintenance calories change over time?
- Your maintenance level isn't fixed. It drops as you lose weight (a smaller body burns fewer calories), rises as you gain muscle, and gradually declines with age as metabolism slows. Changes in activity matter too: a more active month raises your needs, an injury or desk-bound stretch lowers them. Because of this, it's smart to recalculate every few weeks, or whenever your weight changes by a few kilos, so your target stays accurate.
- Should I eat at maintenance, or in a deficit?
- It depends on your goal. Eat at maintenance if you're happy with your current weight, taking a break from dieting (a 'diet break'), or focused on body recomposition while building strength. Eat below maintenance, in a calorie deficit, if you want to lose fat. Eat above it in a surplus if you're trying to build muscle and gain weight. Maintenance is the neutral anchor that every other goal is measured against.
- How accurate is this maintenance calorie estimate?
- Formula-based estimates are typically within about 10% of your true maintenance level, which is an excellent starting point. The most reliable approach is to treat the number as a hypothesis: eat at it consistently for two to three weeks while tracking your weight trend. If your weight is stable, the estimate is right for you. If it's slowly rising or falling, adjust your intake by 100 to 200 calories and reassess. Your real-world results are always the final word.