How To Calculate Maintenance Calories I TDEE Calculator I Maintenance Calories Calculator
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts explains everything viewers need to know about maintenance calories – the amount of energy required to keep body weight stable. He begins by defining maintenance calories and contrasting them with calorie deficit and surplus states. Roberts breaks down total daily energy expenditure into its components: basal metabolic rate (BMR) (~70% of calories), non‑exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) (10‑15%), thermic effect of food (TEF) (≈10%), and exercise (5‑10%). He emphasizes that maintenance calories are not a single fixed number but a personal range influenced by BMR, activity, muscle mass, stress, and other factors. Roberts then describes how to determine if one is truly at maintenance, warning that daily weight fluctuates. He recommends using a 4‑ to 8‑week window and looking for a stable weight range of ±3‑5 lb; consistent loss or gain over that period indicates a deficit or surplus. He also notes short‑term weight changes when transitioning from a deficit to maintenance due to increased carbohydrate‑associated water retention and stomach contents. The video outlines three primary scenarios where eating at maintenance is advisable: (1) after reaching the desired level of leanness, (2) during a diet break to alleviate mental and physical fatigue, and (3) for special events or short‑term deviations from a diet. Roberts stresses that maintenance does not cause fat gain unless calories exceed the maintenance range. Two practical methods for estimating maintenance calories are provided: (a) a quick equation – body weight in pounds × 14 – yielding an approximate calorie target and a suggested range, and (b) reverse dieting, which gradually increases calories from a deficit until weight stabilizes over a 4‑ to 8‑week period. He discusses when to use each method, recommending a direct jump to the calculated maintenance level for short diet breaks, and a slower reverse‑diet approach when transitioning from long‑term leanness or when anxiety about weight regain exists. Roberts concludes with encouragement to experiment, monitor weight, measurements, and photos, and adjust as needed, inviting viewers to ask questions in the comments.
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That was nice. What is going on, YouTube? Welcome back to the channel. Hope you're doing absolutely amazing. In this video today, we're going to be covering maintenance calories. I'm going to cover everything you need to know about maintenance calories, how to find your maintenance calories, who should be eating at maintenance calories, who should not be eating at maintenance calories, all the things we're going to list here. Okay, so just kind of bulleting them off, first and foremost, what are maintenance calories? Number 2, How to know if you're actually at maintenance calories, because that can be kind of difficult at times and we'll get into why. Number 3, who should be eating maintenance calories? I'm going to give you whether you should or should not be eating at your maintenance calories right now. And number 4, how to actually find your maintenance calories. I'm going to give you an equation. I'm going to give you a few ways of finding how to actually get your maintenance calories. Right? So without further ado, let's dive into the video. First and foremost, what are maintenance calories? Basically what maintenance calories are is they are— you're eating enough calories to maintain your current body weight because there's basically 3 different things you can have. You can have a calorie deficit, which is you're eating less calories than what your body burns, so that means you would lose weight. You could eat at a calorie maintenance, which means you would eat around the same amount of calories your body burns in order to maintain its current weight. And there is a calorie surplus, which is eating more calories than what your body burns, which is going to cause you to gain weight. So there's 3 different scenarios you could be in. So if you are losing weight right now, you are in a calorie deficit. If you are not losing weight right now and you're not gaining weight, you're in a calorie maintenance. If you are gaining weight, you are in a calorie maintenance. So there's There's 3 different scenarios you could be in. Maintenance calories are just that, eating at the calorie amount that is going to maintain your current body weight. Now, the thing about maintenance calories are it's not just one calorie number, right? So let's say for example, your maintenance calories are not 2,000 calories per day, which by the way, I don't even know where people are coming up with these things. I'm seeing random things on like, uh, whether it's, you know, social media, TikTok, Instagram, wherever. Everybody burns 2,000 calories a day. Like, no, that's not true. Don't believe that. Everybody burns a different amount of calories per day depending on so many different things. I actually did an entire video on, you know, breaking down how you actually burn calories and what your metabolism is actually made of. I'll link that here above or something, but feel free to go watch that if you want to. But everybody burns a different calorie amount per day, and basically maintenance calories are everybody burns A certain amount of calories per day with doing nothing at all during the day. This is called your BMR. So if you laid in bed all day and didn't even scroll on your phone and did nothing, if you were in a coma, this is how many calories your body would burn. Now again, everybody is different with that, so I can't tell you what yours is. If you want to, I'll link some BMR calculators here below and you can feel free to check that out. It won't be super important for the point of this video, but if you want to learn more about that, feel free to go ahead. But Everybody burns a certain amount of calories per day just from living, just from breathing and living. Then on top of that, you know, other things come into play, whether it's your physical activity, whether it's your job, whether it's how many steps you get during the day, whether it's your lean muscle mass, whether it's your stress. There's so many things that come into play as well. The biggest things are BMR takes up about 70% of how many calories your body burns during the day, right? So BMR first. After that comes your NEAT, which is your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is just a fancy saying for, you know, even me doing like this with my hands right now, that's NEAT. You going on, you know, you walking from your car to the store, that is NEAT. You going from your couch to your fridge, that is NEAT. It's everything you're doing to move your body that is not dedicated exercise. So that's NEAT. So that takes up anywhere between 10 to 15%. Then there comes thermic effect of food, which is just basically your body has to burn calories in order to digest food. So that takes up about 10% of how many calories your body burns during the day. And then after that finally comes exercise, and exercise takes up about anywhere from 5 to 10% of the amount of calories your body burns in a given day. And you're probably shocked by that because most people think like, oh, I'm in a calorie deficit, I have to, I have to burn more calories through my exercise. That way I can be in a calorie deficit. It's not true at all. And I've done plenty of videos on these and I'll link some here above as well, but I've done plenty of videos on this. The amount of calories you burn during your exercise, as you can see, does not matter that much. So I would not put that much into it, but that's basically how you find your maintenance calories. And that's how your maintenance calories comes about because of those things right there. And then again, on top of that, you have things like, for example, the more lean muscle mass you have, The higher your metabolism is going to be and the more calories you are going to burn because your body, when you have more lean muscle mass on your body, your body, more lean muscle mass requires more oxygen to get pumped to your muscles, which more oxygen being pumped throughout the day equals a higher calorie burn. So there's a few different things that go into maintenance calories, but that's kind of the short and sweet of it. But again, it's not just one number. It's not just like, hey, you know, my maintenance is 2,000. It's a range. It could be from 1,900 to 2,100, or it could be between 2,200 to 2,450. It's normally a range. It's not just one number. So just know that for, for what we're going to talk about moving forward. All right, so that is what your maintenance calories are. Just one more time recapping, it's the amount of calories you're eating. You're eating the same amount of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. So that's maintenance calories. Now heading into how to know if you're at maintenance calories, because this can be a bit confusing at times, Especially because of our old friend, the scale. Everyone loves the scale and everyone's probably afraid of the scale, but the scale is one way to know if you're at maintenance calories. But the issue with the scale is it's gonna fluctuate. It's gonna fluctuate whether you're on a calorie deficit, it's gonna fluctuate when you're on a calorie maintenance, and it's gonna fluctuate when you're on a calorie surplus. You're never going to weigh the same weight every single day, and even if you are eating at maintenance calories, If you're eating the same amount of calories that your body burns every single day, if you somehow found the exact number day by day and ate that, your weight would still fluctuate. I swear to God it would still fluctuate. So you're never going to weigh the same thing, which can make it kind of difficult to know if you're at maintenance calories. So what I will say is, you know, when you're at maintenance calories and you're eating around maintenance calories, when your weight fluctuates between the same 3 to 5 pounds, For a 4 to 8 week span. And you probably already don't like me and don't like hearing that 'cause you think, 4 to 8 weeks? What the hell? I can't go 4 to 8 hours. So how am I gonna— how the hell am I gonna go 4 to 8 weeks? This is just the reality of it. When, you know, if— let's say for example your maintenance is 150. If you fluctuate between 147 to 143 for an 8 week span, you're eating around maintenance calories. And that's, you know, because again, you're not gonna go too high up and you don't go too low down. I've had some people tell me, Eric, I'm eating at maintenance calories, but, you know, I'm still losing weight. Well, you're not eating at maintenance calories then. Same on the flip side. If you tell me, hey, I'm eating at maintenance calories, but I see every 4 weeks you're going from, you know, 150 to 152 to 154 to 156, that's not eating at maintenance calories. That would be a calorie surplus because you're over time— it's not just 1 week, it's not just 2 weeks, it's not just 4 weeks. Over a period of time, you would be gaining weight, and that would mean you're in a calorie surplus. So if your weight is fluctuating between the same 3 pounds up or down for a 4 to 8 week period, that is telling me you are at maintenance calories. Now, the one thing I will say is, let's say for example you are eating in a calorie deficit right now. If you go from eating in a calorie deficit— so let's just say your calorie deficit is 1,500 calories. If you go from eating 1,500 calories to your maintenance calories, which is just say 2,000, you may gain 1, 2, 3, even 4 or 5 pounds initially getting back to maintenance calories. And we're going to talk about that here below when it comes to how to find maintenance calories. But you may initially gain some weight eating maintenance calories. This is not because you're putting fat back on. This is not because you're gaining fat. This is simply just because you're probably going to, A, increase your carbohydrates, which When you increase your carbohydrates, you're going to store more water weight because for every 1 gram of carb, you're going to store 3 to 4 grams of water weight, which is not a bad thing because they normally get stored in your muscles, which is a good thing. They get stored for more hydration, for better workouts, and for more muscle pumps and joints and ligaments and stuff. So it's not a bad thing at all. And also just number 2, you're going to have more food in your stomach than you normally do. You know, if you're eating 1,500 calories and you go to 2,000 calories, 2,000 calories is just simply more food in your stomach than what you had before. It's just like if you drank a— if you weighed 200 pounds and you drank 16 ounces of water and you stepped on the scale, you'd weigh 201 pounds. Not because you gained fat, not because anything happened. You just have 6— you have 1 more pound of liquid in your body, of content in your stomach, so you're going to weigh heavier on the scale. That's not a bad thing. Okay? So if that does happen, just know that in the first 1 to 2 weeks you may gain 1, 2, 3, 4 pounds, but that's why I said on a 4 to 8 week span. If after you gain 2, 3 pounds you maintain that 2 to 3 pound range, you just fluctuate between the same couple pounds, then you're at maintenance calories. So that's how, again, that's what maintenance calories are and that's how you would know when you're at maintenance calories. And I just want to say one more time, we're going to talk about this more later, but Don't be afraid if the scale goes up when you're going to maintenance calories because sometimes, and honestly, sometimes it'll, it'll go down and that's a whole different topic. Well, I'll touch on it very quickly. Sometimes it will go down because when you increase calories, you can decrease cortisol, which is stress in your body. And if you decrease stress on your body, you're going to decrease water weight. So the scale could actually drop down. So this is why every single person is individual. I don't know what that sound just was. This is why every person is individual, but just know that if it does go up, it's okay. Not to worry about. All right, so that is the first 2 questions answered. Now moving right along, who should eat at maintenance calories? What scenarios are going to come up where yes, that individual can and should eat at maintenance calories? Let's talk about it. The first scenario is if you have achieved your desired level of leanness, and I don't even want to say body weight because I'm not a big body weight guy. If you've achieved the look you want to achieve, if you've achieved the level of leanness you want to be at and you're happy with where you are and you've gotten, you've lost weight, you've gotten to it, everything's great. Cool. It's time to transition to maintenance calories because if you kept eating in a calorie deficit, then you're just going to keep losing body fat and probably losing muscle because you're just going to keep, you know, once you get to a certain point, it's very hard to keep a very, very, very high level of lean muscle mass with a very, very, very low body fat percentage. That's why even like bodybuilders and physique competitors, they do a show where for one day they're at their highest lean muscle mass and their lowest body fat. And then after that one day, they go back to not doing that for the rest of the year, right? So if you've achieved, you know, the desired level of leanness you want to be at, then you can eat and should eat going to your maintenance calories. And again, we're going to find out how to get your maintenance calories. But I will say this as well, a lot of people— and I said level of leanness because a lot of people think they need to hit their goal body weight before they go to maintenance calories, and that's not true. I did a video on here, I'm going to link it here above. I did a video all on, you know, how How to Lose the Last 5 to 10 Pounds. If that's you, I would strongly encourage you to go watch that video because it's going to make a lot more sense. I'm not going to dive too in-depth on it here, but just know that you don't have to hit your goal body weight. If your goal body weight's 150 and you weigh 153, you don't have to starve yourself. You don't have to kill yourself. You don't have to freak out because you're not weighing 150 yet. You can still eat at maintenance calories. So if you want more information on that, feel free to watch that video. I'll put it in the description here below as well. But On that, that's the first scenario of who should eat at maintenance calories. The second scenario is if you are on a calorie deficit and you've been on a diet for a while and you're kind of getting a bit fed up with dieting, you're getting sick of dieting, you're getting burnt out of dieting because more than anything else, dieting, yes, it's a physical stress on your body, but also it's a mental stress. You got to count your calories. You got to be more restrictive, not super restrictive, or at least you shouldn't be, But you have to be more restrictive because again, eating 2,000 calories and eating 1,500 calories, those are 2 different things. You're going to have to restrict food a bit more. Not that it's a bad thing because obviously some restriction is going to be required from 2,000 calories to 1,500 calories. So some more restriction is going to be required. So you're going to be mentally fatigued, mentally exhausted from doing that. So if you're this individual and you've lost some weight, maybe your consistency is starting to flop out a bit. This is kind of what we call a diet break, and I've done a video here on YouTube on diet breaks. I'll put it here above as well. But this individual, if this is you, take 1 week, take 2 weeks, and just eat at your maintenance calories. Take a break from dieting. Take a physical and mental break from dieting. You know, eat some more calories, have better workouts, have better sleep, have better sex drive, have better energy, have better mood, have better everything because you're gonna have more calories. It's not though a free-for-all because a lot of what— a lot of times what happens is people think that If they don't, if they're not on a diet, if they're not on a calorie deficit, they're going to lose, they're going to gain all their weight back. They're going to go crazy. They're going to binge. This is not— something's in my eye. This is not what I'm telling you to do. I'm telling you again, maintenance calories are maintaining your current body weight. So if you bump up to maintenance calories, it is impossible to gain body fat unless you go into a calorie surplus. So get out of your calorie deficit, go to your maintenance calories and stay there for a week or two. I've had clients stay there for, 4 weeks or 8 weeks. Then after 8, 12 weeks they say, hey, okay, Eric, I'm ready to go back into a diet. Actually right now, for example, I had an individual who, she is moving, she has some stress going on with her family and her kids. Um, and you know, her kids are e-learning. There's a bunch of things going on right now. So we said, hey, listen, for the next 4 weeks, let's just take a diet break, eat at maintenance calories, still have structure, still have guidelines, still count your calories, still count your macros to stay Still do all those things, but just be able to be a bit more flexible with your food because you're able to have a higher calorie limit. So that individual, if that is you, take a week, take 2 weeks, eat at your maintenance calories, still give yourself guidelines. And again, it's not from saying, okay, cool, I'm now eating whatever the hell I want. No, you're eating 500, 700, whatever it is more calories and you're going to your maintenance calories. It's, that's not going to be an entire free-for-all. And again, you will not be gaining body fat. 'Cause you're in maintenance calories. All right. So that is the second individual. The third individual, you know, if you are, let's just say you have a big birthday party coming up or you have a weekend getaway or you have something going on, you know, where you're probably not going to stick to your calorie deficit and not because you can't, probably because you probably don't want to. And even if you don't, even if you don't want to, it's probably smarter to go into maintenance and just kind of take that day. So, you know, if you have a birthday party, if you're going away for the weekend, if you have a night out with your spouse, like, and again, you've been consistent for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 4 weeks, whatever it is, take a day and eat at your maintenance calories. It's not going to be the end of the world. And everybody thinks that just because you're not on a diet, you're not in a calorie deficit, then you know you're doing something wrong because you haven't hit your goal body weight yet. It's fucking stupid. It's, it's very ego-driven. And it's honestly just dumb. You can take a day and eat at maintenance calories. It's not going to ruin your progress and it's not a bad thing just because you haven't gotten to your goal body weight yet. So if you have something coming up and you're saying, hey, and again, you can, you can give yourself guidelines. You can still hold yourself accountable. You can still make sure you don't just, again, go off the rails and go binge eat and eat whatever the hell you want. You're saying, again, I'm going to go from 1,500 calories to 2,000 calories for this one day. I'm still going to be mindful. I'm still going to try to get good protein, but I'll enjoy an extra drink or two, or I'll enjoy the dessert they're having at the party. Or, you know, I'll be able to, again, just be a bit more flexible because I have more calories to play with. So those are the 3 top scenarios of who should eat at maintenance calories. There are more. And if you have questions on your own scenario, drop them below. I'll be happy to help you. But those are the 3 top scenarios of who should eat at maintenance calories. All right, so now that we've covered all 3, let's dive into how to find I wonder if this thing could stay upright. Let's go to how to find your maintenance calories. All right, so there's basically 2 ways to find your maintenance calories, and I'll cover both right now. Number one is going to be this equation, so get ready to write this down. Take your current body weight in pounds and multiply it by 14. That is a very quick, very easy, very effective way to calculate your current maintenance calories. Maintenance calories. I'm not going to go too in depth on how that comes about, but again, like I talked about earlier with, you know, your BMR and your activity rate and the, you know, your, your level of lean body mass, all those things. This equation basically takes all that into one and it spits it out for a very simple, very easy, not complicated way of knowing what your maintenance calories are. So again, your current body weight in pounds Times 14. That is around your maintenance calories. Now remember, like I said earlier, maintenance calories are not just one number, it's a range. So let's say you got that number and it was 2,450. Let's just say your maintenance calories are 2,450. Your maintenance range could possibly be from 2,200 to 2,550. That could be your maintenance calorie range, right? So, and again, everybody's an individual. Everybody's going to be different. This is not a spot on exactly these are how many calories you should be eating. It's a guideline. You try it, you see what happens. Like I said earlier, that's why we talked about how to know when you're at maintenance calories because you'll try this, you'll check it out for 4 to 8 weeks, you'll see what's up, you'll check your body weight, you'll check your measurements, you'll check your progress pictures and you'll determine, okay, I'm at maintenance calories or I'm still losing weight or I'm gaining weight over an 8-week span. Okay, cool. Either I'm at maintenance calories, either I'm still in a calorie deficit or I'm in a calorie surplus. One of those 3 things are going to be happening. So that's a very simple and easy way to find your maintenance calories. The second way is something I— is called reverse dieting. And again, I've done a video on reverse dieting if you want to go more in depth. I'll touch on it here briefly, but if you want to go more in depth, I'll put it here above. Reverse dieting is basically the opposite of dieting. So when you diet, you take down calories from your maintenance. When you're reverse dieting, you go from your calorie deficit back up to your maintenance calories. And this is a way of doing it because some people, if you want to get a more accurate, precise way of finding your maintenance calories, reverse dieting is probably that way because slowly but surely, basically what you do is let's say for example, you go from eating 1,500 calories and that's your calorie deficit. And let's just say you want to increase to maintenance and your maintenance you think is 2,000. So on week 1 you're eating 1,500, on week 2 you're eating 1,600, on week 3 you're eating 1,700, on week 4 you're eating 1,800, and so on and so forth until you find your maintenance calories. And again, that's why we talked about how to find your maintenance calories. But you would keep essentially slowly but surely adding calories until you found your maintenance calories, until again, until you're fluctuating between the same couple of pounds You know, for the, for a 4 to 8 week span, you would just slowly but surely kind of keep hacking away, keep hacking away to find what your maintenance calories are. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it. I think that personally for a lot of my clients, and especially if we're taking like a break, for example, if you're taking— actually, I think it depends. Shocker. If you're taking a diet break, I think personally just jump straight to the maintenance calories because if you're only taking a week or two, You're going to spend the week or two trying to get to maintenance calories and you're not actually going to give yourself a diet break because you're trying to work up from your diet. It's just like, cool, go to fit, go from 1,500 to 2,000, do it for a week or two. Cool. Get back to it. So if you're taking a break, I would say, listen, like there's no, I don't think there's a real reason in reverse dieting. Just kind of get right to it. Now, if you've gotten to your level of leanness and you want to maintain that level of leanness and you've gotten to the goal body weight you want to be at, awesome. I think reverse dieting at that point may be May be a better, a better option because again, you can more accurately depict what your maintenance calories are going to be. And again, you'll have that data to know, you know, week by week what it looked like and what your body weight looked like and so on and so forth. So with that being said, I think if you're taking a break, just go straight to it. If you're going from your, from your goal body weight you want to be at to working back up to maintenance, you would then just slowly work back up. But I will say this, I know people who They go from, you know, they achieve their level of leanness and then they want to go to maintenance calories. When they've achieved this level of leanness, they've been dieting for 12, 16, 20, 30 weeks in a row. So they're just burnt out. So at that point, if I would say, if that's you, even if you've achieved your level of leanness, I would just go straight to maintenance calories because you're going to spend 6 weeks essentially still dieting. Because even though you increase calories from 15 to 16 to 17, That's still a calorie deficit, so it's still gonna be a stress on your body. You're still gonna be tired, fatigued, so on and so forth. So if that's you where you're kind of burnt out, I would just personally jump straight to it. That's probably the second, third scenario. And the last scenario I'll say is if you are somebody who is afraid of gaining weight back, here's what I'll tell you. Reverse dieting is probably a way where you're going to gain minimal weight along the way, right? So let's say it takes you 6 weeks to go from 1,500 To 2,000. You'll probably gain minimal weight kind of each time because again, you can gain weight and it's not abnormal because you're just having more carbs and more food in your stomach. But let's say over a 6-week span you gained 3 pounds, right? Now let's say you jumped straight to maintenance calories from the get. So from week 1 to week 2, you went from 1,500 to 2,000 and you gained 3 pounds in 1 week. But after that first week, you just maintain the rest of the way again. So either you gain 3 pounds in 6 weeks and then maintain it, or you gain 3 pounds in 1 week and then maintain it. I don't really see why you would want to gain 3 pounds over 6 weeks if you're going to gain 3 pounds anyway, right? Because again, you go from 1,500 to 2,000, gain 3 pounds, but then maintain that because you're at your maintenance calories. Or you go from week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, still dieting this whole time. Still not being at maintenance calories this whole time, still kind of tired, fatigued, still mentally exhausted from dieting. 6 weeks, 8 weeks is a long time still. So you gain 3 pounds in 6 weeks anyway, so why not just do it in 1 week and just kind of get it over with? So that's kind of my thoughts. Again, I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to go about it, but I just want to give you all the information I possibly can to help you along the way. So guys, that was the video on maintenance calories. I hope it helped you. I hope it was informative. I hope it helped you know No matter what scenario you're in. Again, if you have a question on your scenario, drop it below. Be happy to help you. But I hope this video helped. If it did, feel free to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. If something's in my eye one more time, I'll probably just throw my marker. Feel free to subscribe to the channel. Hope you enjoyed it. And, uh, listen, we'll talk soon. All right. Thank you.
