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TDEE Calculator for Maintenance Calories

Maintenance is the most useful nutrition number you can own. This page estimates TDEE as your hold-weight target — then tells you how to confirm it in the real world.

±0
kcal goal vs TDEE
±0.5%
weight noise band / week
14 days
recommended verification
1.6–2.0 g
protein per kg while holding

Your stats

Standard inputs first — the age adjustment is applied below.

Biological sex
yrs
lb
Height
ft
in
%

Maintenance mode

Same estimated TDEE — choose how tightly you want to treat it.

No change
Approach

No adjustment — use the formula TDEE as your maintenance starting point.

Estimates are typically within ±10%. Track your weight for two weeks and adjust by 100–200 kcal.

The context

TDEE and maintenance calories

For practical tracking, TDEE and maintenance calories are the same target: the intake that holds body weight when activity is stable. Formulas estimate it; your scale confirms it.

Hold at maintenance for two weeks before a cut or bulk. If weight trends down, you were below true maintenance. If it trends up, you were above. Adjust 100–200 kcal and retest.

Why the formula drifts

What moves maintenance

The number is not fixed forever.

01

NEAT changes

New job, new commute, or winter laziness can shift burn by hundreds of kcal.

02

Body-weight change

Lose or gain ~5% and recalculate — smaller bodies need less.

03

Training block changes

Volume spikes raise weekly expenditure; deloads lower it.

04

Tracking drift

Weekend estimates quietly raise average intake above the weekday plan.

05

Sleep & stress

Both can change spontaneous movement and hunger.

06

Metabolic adaptation

Long diets can lower expenditure — reverse toward maintenance slowly.

Method

How this calculator gets to your number

Same Mifflin-St Jeor (or Katch-McArdle) engine as the homepage — with one extra step for this use case.

Run it with my numbers
  1. 1

    Resting burn (BMR)

    Mifflin-St Jeor from age, sex, height and weight. Enter body fat and we switch to Katch-McArdle for leaner or muscular bodies.

  2. 2

    Activity multiplier

    Match the whole week — not your hardest training day. A one-tier mistake usually adds or subtracts 200–400 kcal.

  3. 3

    Maintenance buffer

    A small, transparent adjustment for this page’s audience. We keep factors conservative so you can verify with a two-week weight average.

Pick a direction

What maintenance is for

It is not a consolation prize.

Eat at TDEE

Hold & skill-build

— —kcal / day

Practice tracking, lifting and steps without scale pressure.

Get my number
Return to TDEE

Diet break

— —kcal / day

Pause a cut for 1–2 weeks to restore adherence.

Get my number
Climb to TDEE

Reverse diet base

— —kcal / day

Exit a long deficit by stepping calories up toward maintenance.

Get my number

Highest return first

How to lock maintenance

Treat it like an experiment.

  1. #1

    14-day weigh-in protocol

    Same conditions, morning average, compare week 1 vs week 2.

  2. #2

    Keep steps in a band

    ±1,000 steps from your usual average keeps the test fair.

  3. #3

    One change at a time

    Do not add new training and new calories in the same test week.

  4. #4

    Recalculate quarterly

    Or after any clear lifestyle shift.

FAQ

Questions about TDEE maintenance

Short, direct answers. If yours is missing, ask and we will add it.

Ask a question

In day-to-day tracking, yes — both mean the intake that holds weight. Labels differ; the target does not.

Keep going

Related calculators & guides

Back to the main TDEE calculator

Main TDEE calculator

Homepage tool — Mifflin-St Jeor with optional body fat.

TDEE for weight loss

Size a deficit from maintenance.

Verify TDEE in 14 days

Blog guide to confirming the estimate.

Main TDEE calculator

Homepage calculator.

Two minutes

Get your age-adjusted number now.

Calculate adjusted TDEE