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You credibly know that there aren ’ thyroxine any quick fixes or magic trick bullets for fat passing or muscle profit .
That is, you know that you need to control your calorie intake if you want to lose burden, addition muscle, or maintain your weight .
But how many calories should you eat ?
You ’ ve credibly heard that men should eat 2,500 calories per day to maintain their burden and women should eat 2,000 calories per day .
The truth, though, is that these numbers only solve for some people, some of the fourth dimension .
inquiry shows that alternatively of sticking to these ( largely arbitrary ) calorie targets, you should optimize your calorie intake for your body, life style, and goals .
And that ’ s what you ’ re going to learn how to do in this article .
By the end of it, you ’ re not only going to know how many calories you should eat every day, but besides :

• How to set up your “ macros ” to optimize adipose tissue personnel casualty and muscle advance
• How to lose, advance, or maintain your burden eating foods you actually like
• How different food choices affect your ability to lose weight
• And more !

Let ’ s get started !
( Or if you ’ d prefer to skip all of the scientific mumbo elephantine, and you good want to know how many calories, how a lot of each macronutrient, and which foods you should eat to reach your goals, no problem ! Just take the Legion Diet Quiz, and in less than a moment, you ’ ll know precisely what diet is right for you. Click here to check it out. )

Table of Contents

• What Is a Calorie? 
• How Many Calories Should You Eat to Maintain Your Weight?
• Women
• Men
• Children
• How Many Calories You Should Eat
• How Many Calories Should You Eat to Lose Weight? 
• How to Turn Your Calorie Target into Macronutrient Targets
• The Best Way to Count Calories to Lose Weight
• FAQ #1: How can I eat less without feeling hungry? 
• FAQ #2: Should I eat less or exercise more to lose weight?
• FAQ #3: How many calories should I eat to gain muscle? 
• FAQ #4: Can I eat more if I exercise more? 

What Is a Calorie? 

A calorie is a unit of measurement for energy .
One calorie is the sum of energy it takes to heat one kilogram of water system one degree Celsius ( besides called a calorie or Calorie with a capital “ C ” ) .
We can measure the amount of energy contained in food and the total of energy our bodies burn, in calories .

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How Many Calories Should You Eat to Maintain Your Weight?

How many calories you should eat per day to maintain your weight depends on a variety of factors, including your :

• body weight
• Body fat share
• bodily process levels
• age
• diet
• And a few other variables

frankincense, the number of calories you need to maintain your slant is very person, and besides changes over time. That said, you can normally arrive at a adequate estimate of your current calorie needs using just your body weight and activity levels .

Women

Most women between the ages of 20 and 50 who are physically active ( but not following a exercise routine ) and at a healthy body weight need to eat around 1,700 calories per day to maintain their weight .
Women who are older than 50 sometimes need to eat less than this, largely because they have less muscle bulk and are less active. Although your metamorphosis does decline slenderly with age, most of the decrease is due to exercising less and losing muscle mass—not an congenital drop in your metabolism .
The good news is you can counteract many of the hormonal hindrances associated with menopause that make maintaining your weight more unmanageable by eating a healthy diet and taking even practice .
Women who are younger than 20 sometimes need to eat more than this, although their calorie needs vary greatly depending on how active they are. That is, active young women need to eat a lot more than sedentary ones. Or in early words, being young doesn ’ t necessarily mean you should eat more than older folks—it depends on your activity levels .
ironically, fleshy women ( a body mass index of greater than 25 ) broadly need to eat more to maintain their weight than convention weight women. This is because your body burns a fair issue of calories maintaining and moving your excess body weight—sometimes over a thousand calories per sidereal day .

Men

Most men between the ages of 20 and 50 who are physically active ( but not following a exercise act ) and at a healthy body weight need to eat around 2,200 calories per day to maintain their weight unit .
man who are older than 50 often need to eat slightly less than this, as they generally have less muscle mass and are less active. Although your metamorphosis does decline slightly with historic period, most of the decrease is due to exercising less and losing muscle mass—not an congenital drop in your metabolism .
man who are younger than 20 sometimes need to eat more than this, although their calorie needs vary greatly depending on their action levels. Simply put, active young men need to eat a fortune more than sedentary ones. Or in other words, being young doesn ’ t inevitably mean you should eat more than older folks—it depends on your action levels .
ironically, fleshy men ( a body multitude index of greater than 25 ) by and large need to eat more to maintain their weight than normal weight men. This is because your torso burns a fair numeral of calories maintaining and moving your excess body weight—sometimes over a thousand calories per day .

Children

many people think that kids can eat deoxyadenosine monophosphate much as they want without worrying about weight gain, but the stagger rise in childhood fleshiness puts lie to this impression .
In fact, children by and large need to eat far less than adults for one simple reason : they ’ ra smaller .
even if a child is identical active, they ’ re placid moving around a very small sum of slant, so they simply don ’ t burn that many calories .
For exemplar, babies merely need to eat about 80 to 120 calories per kilogram of body weight per sidereal day to support healthy development. ( For exemplify, a 4-month old, 18-pound/8-kilogram baby would need to eat about 700 calories per day ) .
The median toddler ( 1-to-3 class old ) only needs to eat about 1,000 calories per day .
And the average “ tween ” ( ~4 to 10 years honest-to-god ) only needs to eat approximately 1,200 to 2,000 calories per day depending on their senesce, body slant, and activeness level .
here ’ s a helpful chart for estimating how many calories your child should eat based on their senesce, sex, and bodily process level :

Remember, though, that these numbers are good estimates—not exact prescriptions. In fact, counting calories is broadly unnecessary ( and evening counterproductive ) for children .
rather, the best way to make sure they eat adequate to support goodly growth and exploitation is to provide plenty of goodly food options throughout the day, and let them eat when athirst and arrest consume when they ’ re full, and make certain they stay active .

How Many Calories You Should Eat

There are three ways I recommend to calculate how many calories you should eat per day :

1. record your sex, system of weights, acme, and long time in the Legion Calorie Calculator. This is the most accurate method .
2. Multiply your burden in pounds by 14 to 16, with women and less active people using the lower end of this range, and men and more active agent people using the upper end of this range. This method acting is slightly less accurate, but more commodious than the first option .
3. Use the charts below to estimate how many calories you should eat based on your sex, senesce, and natural process degree. This method acting is the least accurate, but besides very bare and fast .

How Many Calories Should You Eat to Lose Weight? 

Losing weight unit effectively requires you to walk a tightrope .
You want to cut your calories adequate so that you experience consistent, encouraging weight loss, but not so much that you start experiencing inanition, cravings, and muscle passing .
indeed, what ’ sulfur this magic count ?
well, we can thank researchers at the University of Jyväskylä for an answer !
In a study they conducted, the researchers had 15 male national and international level path and discipline jumpers and sprinters maintain a day by day calorie deficit of 300 calories ( ~10 % deficit ) or 750 calories ( ~24 % deficit ). Both groups continued with their convention train plan and ate a high-protein diet .
After four weeks, the first group lost very little fat and muscle, and the second group lost, on average, about four pounds of fat and very little muscleman. And neither group experienced any negative side effects to speak of .
These findings wholly jive with my experience both with my body and the thousands of people I ’ ve worked with : a calorie deficit of around 20 to 25 % seems to be the dulcet spot for losing fatten cursorily without losing brawn, spoiling your climate, or disrupting your operation in the gymnasium.

This works out to a weekly pace of weight passing of approximately 1 to 2 pounds for most people .

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How to Turn Your Calorie Target into Macronutrient Targets

After estimating how many calories you need to maintain your weight, the next step is to turn your calorie target into macronutrient targets .
A macronutrient is a nutrient your body needs in relatively big amounts to survive, with the chief ones being protein, carbohydrate, and adipose tissue. In the fitness quad, they ’ re generally referred to as “ macro. ”
The reason you want to turn your calorie prey into macronutrient targets, is that your macronutrient consumption has a meaning impact on your body composition. In early words, while calories alone dictate how much weight you lose or gain, your macronutrient intake largely dictates whether you lose or gain fat or muscle .
By eating the right measure of protein, carbs, and fat, you can ensure that most of the weight you lose while “ cutting ” is from fat—not muscle. And as a corollary, you can besides ensure that most of the burden you gain while thin bulge is from muscle, not fat .
The demand number of calories you get from protein, carbs, and fat depends on your preferences and goals, but here ’ s what I typically recommend .
When you want to lose weight, get. . .

• 40 % of your calories from protein
• 30 % of your calories from carbs
• 30 % of your calories from fat

These guidelines change slightly if you ’ re already lean and looking to get lean, in which subject it ’ s by and large best to get 1 to 1.2 grams protein per impound of body weight, 20 % of your calories from adipose tissue, and the rest from carbs .
When you want to maintain your weight or gain muscle, get. . .

• 30 % of your calories from protein
• 30 to 40 % of your calories from carbs
• 20 to 30 % of your calories from fat

typically, this works out to about 0.8 to 1.2 grams of protein, 0.75 to 1.25 grams of carbs, and 0.2 to 0.3 grams of fat per pound of torso weight per day for most people .
once you know what share of your calories you want to come from protein, carbs, and fatten, open the Legion Macronutrient Calculator to convert these percentages into grams .
Or, you can do the mathematics yourself using the keep up formula :
Grams of Protein Per Day = ( full Calories x Percentage of Calories from Protein ) / 4
Grams of Carbs Per Day = ( full Calories x Percentage of Calories from Carbs ) / 4
Grams of Fat Per Day = ( sum Calories x Percentage of Calories from Fat ) / 4
For model, if you want to eat 2,000 calories per day while losing weight, the formulas would look like this :
Grams of Protein Per Day = ( 2,000 adam 40 % ) / 4
Grams of Carbs Per Day = ( 2,000 adam 30 % ) / 4
Grams of Fat Per Day = ( 2,000 adam 30 % ) / 4
then, the results would look like this :

• 200 grams of protein per sidereal day
• 150 grams of carbs per day
• ~65 grams of fatten per sidereal day

For a entire of 2,000 calories per day .

The Best Way to Count Calories to Lose Weight

First things first—do you even need to count calories to lose slant ?
not necessarily, but you do need to maintain a calorie deficit to lose slant, and counting calories is an effective means to do this .
That said, most people find that counting calories on the fly ( normally by entering the foods they eat throughout the day into a calorie tracking app ) becomes a burden. You inescapably waste time debate over what to eat and working out how much you can eat and you increase the likelihood of mistakes, like forgetting to log every calorie or mistakenly logging more or less than you actually ate .
Two alternate methods for controlling calories are intuitive consume and meal plan .
intuitive eating can work well for maintaining your body musical composition if you ’ re already following a fairly healthy diet, but it doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate exercise equally well for losing weight or establishing healthy eating habits .
Meal planning tends to be the best approach, as it ’ second barely as effective for controlling your calorie intake as calorie count ( and more effective than intuitive eat ), but requires less time, energy, and attention and frankincense tends to be more enjoyable and sustainable .
The first thing you ’ ll need to create an effective meal plan is a food scale so you can weigh the foods you eat .
While eyeballing portions is better than nothing, it ’ second besides easy to mess up, and particularly when you ’ rhenium aiming for a moderate, relatively small calorie deficit .
From there, you can use a food database like SELF Nutrition DATA, the USDA Food Composition Database, CalorieKing, or an app like MyFitnessPal, MyMacros+, or Cronometer to plan and keep chase of everything you eat throughout the day .
then, you can use this data to create a meal plan that ensures you can hit your calorie and macro targets eating the foods you like every single day .
( And again, if you feel confused about how many calories, how much of each macronutrient, and which foods you should eat to reach your goals, take the Legion Diet Quiz to learn precisely what diet is right for you. )

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FAQ #1: How can I eat less without feeling hungry? 

The easiest way to curb hunger when clipping is to make some simple changes to your diet .
Assuming you ’ rhenium eat enough of protein, the following tips can help you control your appetite :

• Eat more fiber ( and soluble fiber in particular ) .
• Drink more body of water .
• Eat fewer calorie-dense foods. This means eating less cookies, sugary drinks, oils, and fatso meats, and the like, and more vegetables, fruits, legumes, and lean meat and dairy .
• Get enough sleep

Recommended reading : 8 Ways to Improve Hunger Control and Weight Loss

FAQ #2: Should I eat less or exercise more to lose weight?

Both !
inquiry shows that the most effective means to lose adipose tissue and conserve ( or profit ) brawn is through a combination of calorie restriction and practice. specifically, intensity train is the most beneficial kind of exert for weight personnel casualty, but it ’ s besides helpful to do a chasten total of “ cardio ” ( endurance train ) american samoa well .

Recommended understand : The Best way to Lose Weight Fast with Exercise

FAQ #3: How many calories should I eat to gain muscle? 

If you ’ re raw to lifting weights ( you ’ ve been following a proper lastingness train and diet plan for two years or less ) you should eat adequate calories to gain about 1 to 2 % of your soundbox weight per month or 0.25 to 0.5 % per week .
The reason it ’ randomness best to set weight-gain targets in terms of months alternatively of weeks, is that the actual sum of weight you should be gaining tends to be fairly humble. For case, if you ’ re a 160-pound man, 0.25 to 0.5 % of body slant per workweek would be about 0.4 to 0.8 pounds per week. That ’ second hard to track on a weekly basis, which is why monthly benchmarks are the way to go ( in this case, 1.6 to 3.2 pounds per calendar month ) .
If you ’ re an intermediate or advance weightlifter ( you ’ ve been following a proper lastingness coach and diet design for more than 2 years ), you should eat enough calories to gain 0.5 to 1 % of your body weight per month .

FAQ #4: Can I eat more if I exercise more? 

This depends on whether your goal is to lose weight unit, amplification weight, or maintain your weight.

If your goal is to lose burden, you shouldn ’ t “ corrode back ” the calories you burn working out. The calories you burn from exercise are already taken into account when you estimate your calorie needs using the methods explained in this article. thus, if you eat more to compensate for the calories burned during exert, you ’ re just reducing the size of your calorie deficit and slowing down your weight loss ( or halting it raw ) .
If your finish is to gain weight unit, you should estimate how many calories you need to gain system of weights based on your current exercise program, and then adjust as needed. That is, if you aren ’ thymine gaining weight, gradually increase your calorie inhalation until you are .
If your goal is to maintain your system of weights, you should merely increase your calorie intake if you start losing burden or significantly increase how much you ’ rhenium exercising per week ( which will cause you to lose weight unit if you don ’ thymine corrode more ) .