Calorie Deficit Calculator
This calorie deficit calculator shows exactly how many calories to eat a day to lose weight. Enter your details and pick a pace, and you'll get your daily calorie target, your maintenance calories, and a full calorie deficit chart from mild to aggressive. It works out what your deficit should be, tells you how long it'll take to reach a goal weight, and keeps you above a safe minimum, in metric or imperial.
- Calories to eat a day
- Maintenance calories
- Deficit chart by pace
- Time to goal
- Safe minimum built in
Last updated July 9, 2026 Estimates only, not medical advice Reviewed by the Calcowa team
Enter your age, height, and weight above 0.
For healthy adults. This is a general estimate, not medical or dietary advice.
These are estimates. Weight loss varies with water, muscle, hormones, and more, so track your results over two to three weeks and adjust.
Your calorie deficit chart by pace
Here's how each pace changes what you eat, based on your own maintenance calories. Faster loss means a bigger deficit and a lower daily target, so choose the row you can hold to for months, not days.
| Pace | Weekly loss | Daily deficit | Eat per day |
|---|
Based on the rule that one pound of fat is about 3,500 calories, so a 500-calorie daily deficit loses roughly a pound a week.
What is a calorie deficit?
A calorie deficit is simply eating fewer calories than your body burns in a day. Your body makes up the shortfall by tapping into stored fat, and that's how a calorie deficit drives weight loss. The number your body burns is your maintenance level, also called your TDEE, and anything you eat below it puts you in a deficit. It's the one thing every diet has in common, whatever it's called, so getting your deficit right matters more than the plan's name.
To create a calorie deficit you can eat a little less, move a little more, or do both. Most people find a mix easiest to keep up. The calculator above builds your deficit off your real maintenance calories, so the target it gives you is tailored to your body rather than a generic one-size number.
How to calculate your calorie deficit
Working out your calorie deficit takes three steps, and here's how the tool does them all for you:
- 1
Find your BMRYour resting burn, from the Mifflin-St Jeor formula using your age, sex, height, and weight.
- 2
Get your maintenance caloriesMultiply your BMR by your activity level to get your TDEE, the calories you burn in a full day.
- 3
Subtract your deficitTake 250 to 1,000 calories off your maintenance, depending on how fast you want to lose. What's left is what you eat.
What should my calorie deficit be?
A good calorie deficit is one you'll actually stick to without feeling wrecked. For most people that's 250 to 750 calories a day, which loses about half a pound to a pound and a half a week. A 500-calorie deficit is the classic middle choice because it lands close to a pound a week and still leaves you enough to eat. If you want two pounds a week you're looking at a 1,000-calorie deficit, which is aggressive and only suits people with more to lose.
Whatever pace you pick, keep your daily target above a safe floor, roughly 1,500 calories for men and 1,200 for women. If you eat below that for long stretches you'll lose muscle and energy, and it rarely speeds things up, since your body just fights back. The calculator flags this for you and caps the deficit if your target dips too low, so you can lose weight without going too far.
Frequently asked questions
How many calories is a calorie deficit?
There's no single number, because it depends on your maintenance calories. A deficit is any amount below what you burn, and a practical range is 250 to 1,000 calories a day. This tool turns that into an exact eat-this figure for your body.
For most people a calorie deficit of 250 to 750 calories a day is the sweet spot, losing about half a pound to a pound and a half a week. A 500-calorie daily deficit is the popular middle choice, since it works out to roughly one pound of fat a week. Bigger deficits lose faster but get harder to stick to, so pick the pace you can actually hold.
About 1,000 calories a day. Since one pound of fat is roughly 3,500 calories, losing two pounds a week means a weekly deficit of about 7,000, or 1,000 a day. That's an aggressive pace, so make sure your daily target still stays above a safe floor of around 1,200 calories for women and 1,500 for men.
You're in a calorie deficit when you eat fewer calories than your body burns in a day, which is your maintenance level or TDEE. This calculator works out that maintenance number for you, so anything you eat below it puts you in a deficit. The clearest real-world sign is a steady drop on the scale over two to three weeks.
Take your maintenance calories (your TDEE) and subtract your chosen deficit. If you maintain on 2,300 and want to lose a pound a week, you'd eat about 1,800 a day. The calculator shows your exact eat-this number for every pace, so you don't have to do the subtraction yourself.
A deficit of 10 to 25% below your maintenance calories is a sensible, sustainable range for most adults. Going far beyond that can cost you muscle, energy, and consistency, and it can push your intake below a healthy minimum. Slow and steady keeps the weight off and protects your metabolism, so there's rarely a reason to crash.
The idea is identical, but the numbers differ because men usually have a higher maintenance level from more muscle, so the same pace of loss allows a higher calorie target. The safe floor differs too: around 1,500 calories a day for men and 1,200 for women. This tool adjusts for your sex, height, weight, age, and activity automatically.
Related calculators
More tools for calories, energy, and weight.
Your maintenance calories by activity.
BMR calculatorYour resting calorie burn.
Calorie calculatorMaintenance, loss, and gain targets.
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