Maintenance Calories Calculator: free TDEE calculator.
Enter your body and your training. Get your calories for a rest day and a training day, not one number for every day.
Your maintenance
Training day
2,290kcal
A rest day plus about 560 kcal of training (7.5 METs × your weight × the session's hours).
ACSM 2016Mifflin 1990+1 moreRest day
1,730kcal
Resting energy of 1,330 kcal (Mifflin St Jeor) × 1.3 for daily life.
ACSM 2016Herrmann 2024Averaged over your week: about 2,130 kcal a day. The equation is an estimate: real resting energy varies by about 10% between people. Your weight trend over a few weeks is the real test.
Hand it to your AI
Your AI can check these numbers against your training and adjust them. The prompt has your results filled in.
See the prompt
I'm a 35 year old woman, 168 cm and 62 kg. I train about 6 hours a week over 5 days, mostly running. A maintenance calorie calculator (Mifflin St Jeor × 1.3 for daily life, plus Compendium METs for training) gave me: about 1,730 kcal on a rest day and 2,290 kcal on a training day. Check this against my real training and my weight trend, and set my calories and carbs for each day of this week.
Gemini, Grok Bot, Dots, Muse and Cue: copy the prompt and paste it in.
With Memory.fit, your AI would already know how hard you trained today.
On Android now: get it on Google Play. One email when the iPhone app is on the App Store.
How it works
How the Maintenance Calories Calculator works.
Maintenance calories are what you burn in a day, so eating that much keeps your weight steady. Most calculators give one number for every day. For an athlete that is wrong twice: rest days need less, and big training days need a lot more.
So this calculator builds the day in two parts. First your resting energy, from the Mifflin St Jeor equation, times a factor of 1.2 to 1.4 for daily life outside training: desk, walking, chores. Then the energy your training uses, from its MET value in the 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities: METs × your weight × the hours. A rest day is the first part; a training day is both.
It never uses the classic 1.55 or 1.725 activity multipliers, because those already include exercise and adding your training on top counts it twice. The equation is an estimate: real resting energy varies by about 10% between people. Your weight trend over a few weeks is the real test, and your AI can adjust from there.
The formula
- resting energy (women) = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age − 161
- resting energy (men) = 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age + 5
- rest day = resting energy × 1.2 to 1.4
- training day = rest day + METs × kg × hours of training
The science
Where the numbers come from.
These are the same rules Memory.fit's engine uses when your AI asks it for a number, read from one registry of cited sources.
Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, Hill LA, Scott BJ, Daugherty SA, Koh YO. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 51(2):241-247.
Research article · 1990 · doi:10.1093/ajcn/51.2.241
Thomas DT, Erdman KA, Burke LM. American College of Sports Medicine Joint Position Statement. Nutrition and Athletic Performance (2016). Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 48(3):543-568.
Position stand · 2016 · doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000000852
Herrmann SD, Willis EA, Ainsworth BE, et al. 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: A third update of the energy costs of human activities. Journal of Sport and Health Science 13(1):6-12.
Reference dataset · 2024 · doi:10.1016/j.jshs.2023.10.010
Example
A worked example.
A 35 year old woman, 168 cm and 62 kg, with some walking in her day, running about 6 hours a week over 5 days at an easy pace.
- 1Resting energy: 10 × 62 + 6.25 × 168 − 5 × 35 − 161 = 1,334 kcal.
- 2A rest day: 1,334 × 1.3 for some walking = about 1,730 kcal.
- 3Easy running is 7.5 METs, so one session is 7.5 × 62 kg × 1.2 hours = about 560 kcal. A training day is about 2,290 kcal.
- 4Averaged over her week, that is about 2,130 kcal a day.
Questions
Maintenance Calories Calculator: questions.
Total daily energy expenditure: everything you burn in a day, from resting energy to daily life to training. Eat that much and your weight stays about the same.
Because training can add hundreds of calories in a day and a rest day adds none. Eating the same every day means under fueling your big days or over eating your easy ones.
It is an estimate. Resting energy differs by about 10% between people with the same body, and watches and tables both estimate training energy. Track your weight for two to three weeks and adjust.
A metabolic equivalent: how many times more energy an activity uses than sitting still. Easy running is about 7.5 METs, so it burns about 7.5 kcal per kg of body weight an hour.
The research says a modest deficit, 250 to 500 kcal a day below your needs for that day, and never at the expense of your key sessions. The Healthy Race Weight Planner works out a safe pace.
Not medical advice. These numbers come from published research on groups of athletes. Your own needs can differ; talk to a doctor or a sports dietitian about any health condition.