By: Chris Gates

Whether you want to lose weight, build muscle, or just generally improve your health, learning how to estimate your maintenance calories is really important.

Maintaining a healthy weight requires a balance between the calories you eat, and the calories you burn.

And knowing how to estimate your maintenance calories will help you to manage your bodyweight goals more effectively, and more efficiently.

In this article, I’m going to teach you absolutely everything you need to know.

• What maintenance calories are.
• How to estimate them.
• Ways to use your maintenance calories to manage your bodyweight.
• And the factors involved that can impact your progress.

So if that sounds good to you, let’s dive in!

How to Estimate Your Maintenance Calories: What is “Maintenance”?

Maintenance calories are the number of calories you need to eat each day to maintain your current bodyweight, long term.

This includes the calories you burn through exercise, but it also includes the calories you burn through basic bodily functions, such as:

• Breathing.
• Pumping blood.
• Digesting food.
• The basic function of your internal organs.
• And much more.

Sometimes you’ll hear this referred to as your basal metabolic rate (BMR) or resting metabolic rate (RMR).

Maintenance calories will vary for everyone, depending on a variety of factors. We’ll talk more about those later in this article.

But for example, a taller person with more muscle mass will generally burn more calories than a shorter person with less muscle mass, even if they are the same weight.

And to be clear, eating at maintenance doesn’t mean you’ll wake up and be the exact same weight, to the tenth of a pound, day after day for eternity.

There are many factors that cause the scale to fluctuate, that have nothing to do with how many calories you eat, such as:

• Sodium.

• Carbohydrates.
• Hydration.
• Stress levels.
• Sleep quality.
• Regularity with your bowel movements.
• And a bunch more.

That’s why at the beginning of this section, I mentioned “maintain your weight long term.”

On average, if you eat at your maintenance calorie number, you’ll maintain your weight week to week, and month to month. But there will still be fluctuations on a daily basis.

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Why is it Important to Estimate Your Maintenance Calories?

The importance of learning how to estimate your maintenance calories starts and ends with successful long-term management of your bodyweight.

If you know how to estimate your maintenance calories, you’ll always be able to determine the best path forward when it comes to any type of fitness goal you set for yourself.

• Weight loss or gain: If you want to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than your maintenance calories. On the flip side, if you want to gain weight, you need to consume more calories than your maintenance calories.
• Preventing weight gain: If you know your maintenance calories, you can adjust your diet and exercise to stay within that range, which can help you prevent weight gain.
• Building muscle: If you’re trying to build muscle, you need to consume more calories than your maintenance calories (along with eating adequate protein and other recovery factors). So knowing your maintenance calories can help you determine how many extra calories you need to eat.

How to Estimate Your Maintenance Calories

There are several methods you can use to estimate your maintenance calories. And before we dive into each one, I want to make one thing very clear.

These are all ESTIMATES.

Meaning, you can use any of these methods to give yourself a good starting point. But you’ll need to track your progress to determine if you’re actually at maintenance, or if you need to make slight adjustments.

Let’s start with the simplest way to estimate your maintenance calories. This one is my personal favorite.

Bodyweight X 15

The name says it all, really.

If you take your current bodyweight, and multiply it by 15, the resulting number should be right around your maintenance calories.

For example, if you weigh 180 pounds, you can multiply that by 15 to get 2,700 calories.

It’s super simple, easy to remember, and generally works pretty well for people who are in the ballpark of being at a healthy bodyweight.

If you’re very overweight or obese, this method might not be the most accurate. And if that describes you, then you might try some of these additional methods.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Calculator

Your basal metabolic rate is the number of calories your body burns to perform basic functions like breathing and pumping blood. You can use a BMR calculator to estimate your maintenance calories based on your age, gender, height, and weight.

There are many BMR calculators available online that you can use for free. Some of the most accurate ones take into account your lean body mass (muscle mass), which can give you a more accurate estimate of your maintenance calories.

Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) Calculator

Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is the number of calories your body burns in a day, taking into account your BMR and your activity level.

This can be a more accurate way to estimate your maintenance calories, since it puts emphasis on your activity levels.

You can use a TDEE calculator to estimate your maintenance calories. There are a bunch of free options online.

The activity level you select can vary from sedentary (little or no exercise) to very active (intense exercise or sports).

Metabolic Testing

The most accurate way to estimate your maintenance calories is quite honestly the least practical.

You can undergo metabolic testing, which measures your RMR and other factors to determine your daily calorie expenditure. This is typically done in a medical setting, and it’s far more expensive than the other methods we’ve discussed.

Metabolic testing is probably only appropriate for high-level athletes, or people with specific health concerns.

Factors that Affect Your Maintenance Calories

While estimating your maintenance calories can be a helpful tool for achieving your fitness goals, it’s important to keep in mind that several factors affect how many calories you burn each day.

Some of the most significant factors include:

• Age: Your daily calorie burn typically decreases as you get older, due to a decrease in muscle mass and a slower metabolism.
• Gender: Men generally burn more calories than women, due to their higher muscle mass and testosterone levels.
• Weight: The more you weigh, the more calories you will burn, as your body has to work harder to perform basic functions.
• Height: Taller people typically burn more calories than shorter people, due to their larger body size.
• Activity level: The more active you are, the more calories you will burn, both through exercise and daily activities.
• Muscle mass: People with more muscle mass typically burn more calories than those with less muscle mass, even when they are resting.

Take all of these into consideration when you estimate your maintenance calories.

How to Estimate Your Maintenance Calories: Using This Information Correctly

So now you’ve got several different options to choose from to estimate your maintenance calories.

How do you apply this information to your goals?

Whether you want to lose body fat, maintain your weight, or build muscle and gain weight, I’ve got your back! Here’s what you should do:

1. Lose body fat: Take your maintenance calorie number and reduce it slightly, by 10-15 percent. Then give your body a few weeks to respond to that amount of calories. It should be enough of a reduction to encourage fat loss and help you lose weight.
2. Maintain your weight: Take your maintenance calorie estimate and run with it! Track your nutrition, weigh yourself regularly, and see how your bodyweight responds over the next several weeks.
3. Build muscle/gain weight: Add 10-15 percent on top of your maintenance calorie number. Similar to the previous two points, track your progress and give your body time to adapt and respond to the process to see if it’s working. If your training performance and weight are going up, you’re doing everything right!

How to Estimate Your Maintenance Calories: Don’t Forget About Measurements

Let’s dive into one final step in this process that most people overlook.

Measurements.

When you’re focused on determining your maintenance calories, it can be easy to get hyper-focused on the scale. And like I mentioned earlier, the scale is going to fluctuate.

Focusing solely on the number on the scale every day can drive you crazy.

So make sure you’re taking waist measurements and progress photos regularly as well.

• Waist measurements: Do these every two weeks by wrapping a tape measure straight across your waist at the top of your hip bone. This is one of the best indicators of whether you’re gaining or losing body fat.
• Progress photos: Snap photos from the front, left side, right side, and back once a month. Sometimes your body will show dramatic changes in fat loss, muscle gain, and more, but the scale might not move much (or at all). That’s where photos are very valuable.

The more data you can compile on YOU, the better your chances are of managing your bodyweight, and your calories, effectively and efficiently.

And when you add waist measurements and progress photos, along with stepping on the scale, you’ll truly be capturing the big picture about your body, and how it’s changing.

I Hope This Helps!

As you can see, learning how to estimate your maintenance calories is a pretty important skill for any fitness or bodyweight goal.

By knowing your maintenance calories, you can adjust your calorie intake to stay within a healthy range and achieve the results you want.

If you take the methods I outlined in this article and apply them to your life and your goals, you should be able to start making progress. 🙂

And if you’re interested in getting help with your fitness journey to manage your training and nutrition, that’s what I do! I work with people all over the world to build muscle, burn fat, and develop healthy lifestyle habits.

Check out my coaching page to learn more and apply.

Thanks for reading!

~ Chris