To lose weight, eat roughly 500 calories below your maintenance level for about 1 pound of loss per week. For most adults that lands somewhere between 1,500 and 2,200 calories a day, but the honest answer is that it depends on your size, activity, and metabolism. The method beats any one-size number: estimate your maintenance calories (your TDEE), subtract 300 to 500, eat that for two to three weeks, and adjust based on what the scale actually does. Your body, not a calculator, has the final say.
Last updated: August 2026
A different approach to this question has quietly taken over, and if you're still using the old one you're probably fighting your own body. The old way: plug your stats into a calculator once, get a number, eat it forever. The problem is that number stops being true within weeks — your metabolism adapts as you lose weight, and a static target slowly turns into a stall. The shift that changes everything is treating your calorie goal as a moving number you steer with real data, not a fixed prescription.
Step 1: Estimate your maintenance calories
Your maintenance level — your TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure — is simply how many calories you burn in a day. Eat that amount and your weight holds. A quick estimate: multiply your bodyweight in pounds by 14 to 16 if you're moderately active. A 170-pound person lands around 2,400 to 2,700 calories to maintain. It's an estimate, not gospel, which is exactly why the later steps matter.
Step 2: Subtract a sensible deficit
Weight loss requires a caloric deficit — eating less than you burn. One pound of fat is roughly 3,500 calories, so a 500-calorie daily deficit produces about a pound of loss a week. That pace is sustainable for most people and easier on your muscle and energy than a crash.
Bigger is not better here. Cut too hard and you lose more muscle, your workouts suffer, hunger spikes, and you're more likely to quit. A deficit of 20 to 25 percent of your maintenance is a reasonable ceiling for most people. And there's a floor: dropping below roughly 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision makes it hard to get enough nutrients and rarely lasts. Slower and steady wins this one.
Step 3: Adjust based on your results — this is the part people skip
Here's where the old copy-a-number method falls apart. As you lose weight, you burn fewer calories (a smaller body needs less), and your body nudges expenditure down further. So the deficit that worked in week one becomes maintenance by week six. The answer isn't to keep slashing calories — it's to track your weight trend and make small, informed adjustments.
Weigh yourself a few times a week and watch the two-to-three-week average, not the daily number (which swings with water and food weight). Losing faster than about 1 percent of your bodyweight a week? Add 100 to 200 calories. Not moving after three weeks of honest eating? Trim 100 to 200. You're steering, not guessing — and that's what keeps progress going long after a static number would have stalled.
Protein and food choices make the deficit livable
A deficit is easier to hold when you eat in a way that keeps you full. Prioritize protein — it's the most filling macronutrient and protects muscle while you lose fat — and lean on vegetables and fiber for volume. Whether you weigh your food or eyeball it barely matters at this stage; consistency does. If a scale isn't your thing, our guide to counting calories without weighing food covers portion-based methods that work well enough for weight loss.
How AllStrong finds and adjusts your number for you
This is exactly the kind of moving target that's miserable to manage by hand and straightforward for an app. AllStrong's TDEE calculator estimates your maintenance from your stats, activity level, and — if you connect a wearable — your actual movement, and it re-estimates as your body composition changes. That's the free tier. On a paid plan, Nutritional Targets set an adaptive calorie and macro goal with cut, maintain, and bulk modes, showing a real-time progress bar as you eat and adjusting recommendations as your numbers shift.
Log meals by typing, speaking, scanning a barcode, or photographing your plate, and the app estimates the calories and macros for you using USDA food data. For people who want proof the scale weight is coming off as fat rather than muscle, Premium lets you photograph an InBody, DEXA, or BIA printout and the app reads your body-fat and muscle numbers to track over time. Treating the daily target like a habit tracking app routine — logged and checked every day — is what makes the small adjustments possible, because adjustments need data. And if you're training hard while cutting, logging sessions alongside a crossfit wod tracking app workflow keeps your effort and intake in one view.
The short version
Estimate your maintenance, eat 300 to 500 below it, and give it two to three weeks before judging. Then let the scale trend tell you whether to hold, add a little, or trim a little. Keep protein high so the deficit stays livable, and track consistently so your adjustments are based on data instead of hope. There's no single magic calorie number — there's your number, and it changes as you do. Steering it is the whole skill.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many calories should I eat to lose weight?
Eat about 500 calories below your maintenance level for roughly 1 pound of loss per week — often 1,500 to 2,200 calories a day for most adults. Estimate your maintenance by multiplying bodyweight in pounds by 14 to 16, subtract 300 to 500, then adjust after two to three weeks based on your actual weight trend.
Why did my weight loss stall on the same calories?
As you lose weight, a smaller body burns fewer calories and your expenditure drifts down, so a deficit that worked early becomes maintenance later. That's normal, not a failure of willpower. The fix is to track your two-to-three-week weight average and trim 100 to 200 calories, rather than assuming the original number should keep working.
What is the lowest number of calories that's safe for weight loss?
Most guidance suggests not dropping below roughly 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision, because it becomes hard to get enough nutrients and rarely stays sustainable. A moderate deficit of 20 to 25 percent below maintenance preserves more muscle and is easier to maintain long term.