Daily energy needs calculator
Your daily energy needs are your resting rate multiplied by how much you move. The resting rate comes from your height, weight, age and sex. The movement part comes from your job and how many structured sessions you train in a week.
This gives you a maintenance figure: what your body uses to stay where it is. It applies no deficit and no surplus, so it is the number every other decision starts from rather than a target to eat to.
The equation carries a different constant for each. 'Prefer not to say' takes the midpoint.
Years.
Centimetres.
Kilograms.
- Resting energy
- 1502 kcal per day
- Activity multiplier
- 1.375
- Maintenance energy
- 2065 kcal per day
The activity multiplier is a starting point, not a published figure. Two people with the same job and the same training week genuinely differ, so treat the result as a place to begin and adjust it against what your weight actually does over a few weeks.
Where these numbers come from
Mifflin-St Jeor equation (Mifflin et al. 1990, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 51:241-247), the international standard for estimating resting energy needs.