The internet loves to answer this with a single number — 1,500 if you are a woman, 2,000 if you are a man. Those numbers are population averages, and you are not a population.
Your correct number depends on your age, gender, height, and current weight. Here is how to find it in about a minute.
Step 1: Find your maintenance number
Your TDEE is what you burn in a day. Eat exactly that and your weight stays put. It is the anchor for everything else.
Calculate yours free here — age, gender, height, weight, done. No email required.
A 40-year-old man at 5'10" and 200 pounds lands around 2,160. A 35-year-old woman at 5'4" and 165 pounds lands closer to 1,650. Same advice, very different numbers — which is exactly why generic targets fail people.
Step 2: Subtract your deficit
Pick based on how much you have to lose and how fast you want to move:
- 250/day → about ½ pound per week. Gentle. Good if you are close to goal or hate feeling restricted.
- 500/day → about 1 pound per week. The standard recommendation and the right default for most people.
- 750–1,000/day → 1.5–2 pounds per week. Reasonable if you have a significant amount to lose, harder to sustain, and worth discussing with a doctor.
So our 2,160 example targets 1,660 calories for a pound a week. That is the whole calculation.
Step 3: Check it against the floor
This step gets skipped and it matters. Common guidance holds that adults should not drop below roughly 1,200 calories per day for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision.
Below those levels it becomes difficult to get adequate nutrition, muscle loss accelerates, and — most practically — almost nobody sustains it. If your TDEE minus your intended deficit lands under the floor, use a smaller deficit. Losing 0.75 pounds a week for eight months beats losing 2 pounds a week for eleven days.
What about exercise?
Two schools of thought, and we favor one.
Many apps inflate your daily target based on a self-reported activity level, then also let you "eat back" exercise calories — double-counting the same movement and quietly erasing your deficit.
Weight Loss Navigator uses a sedentary baseline: your target assumes you do nothing. Log a 400-calorie workout and it lands as an actual 400-calorie bonus, because it was never assumed in the first place. Your number stays honest whether you train or skip.
How to know your number is right
Every calculator produces an estimate. The real test takes two to three weeks:
- Losing roughly as expected? Your number is good. Keep going.
- Nothing moving after 3 weeks of consistent logging? Drop the target by 100–200 calories, or audit your logging — cooking oils, drinks, and bites while cooking are the usual suspects.
- Losing faster than 2 pounds a week and feeling awful? Eat more. That pace is rarely sustainable and costs muscle.
The bottom line
Find your TDEE, subtract 500, sanity-check against the minimum, and hold it for three weeks before judging. That is genuinely all there is to the calculation — the hard part was never the math, it was the consistency.
This article is general information, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before starting a calorie-restricted diet, especially if you have a medical condition, take medication affecting weight or blood sugar, or are pregnant or breastfeeding.
