How to Find Your Maintenance Calories
What are maintenance calories?
Your “maintenance” calories refer to the amount of energy that you need throughout the day if you want to continue maintaining your current weight.
When we talk about our “maintenance calories,” we’re generally talking about the average number. This is because our maintenance needs shift and fluctuate daily based on a range of factors. Including; how much you move throughout each day, daily activities & their intensities, whether you’re sick or not, etc.
While most people tend to have the same, set calorie goal from day-to-day — this is more to keep it easy for you. In reality, our needs shift daily. Whether you want to adjust your calorie & macro goals based on your activity levels is totally up to you! This is always an option many competitive athletes tend to opt-in for. For the casual lifter or gym-goer, this can be unnecessary.
How to to find your maintenance calories:
Weigh yourself each morning - before eating or drinking anything. Use the restroom consistently beforehand, if possible.
Track everything you eat & drink each day.
Do this for a full week (7 days).
Take the average of your weight and the average of your calories from the week.
The average weight will tell you where your weight is maintaining right now — and your average calories will tell you about how much you should eat if you want to maintain that weight intentionally. Track all of this for a full week to get a better idea of any fluctuating eating habits you have throughout the week & weekend.
Why is it important to know your maintenance calories?
You’ll use your maintenance calories any time you want to figure out where you should start for fat loss or muscle building goals. In order to figure out how to adjust your calorie or macro goals, you first need to know your maintenance calories.
It’s not always something you need to know, especially if you don’t plan on tracking your macros or calories, but this method can be an impactful tool for those who do!
For example, you can either add or subtract calories from your maintenance number depending on your goal.
If you want to lose fat and your maintenance sits at 1,900 calories (on average), then you could set a goal of decreasing your calories by 100 to go into a slight deficit. This would put you at 1,800 calories per day. You’ll want to monitor your progress to make sure everything’s going as expected, and adjust with time, but this is how you find what works for you and your needs!
It works the same way when it comes to building muscle. Find your maintenance and increase your calories slightly from there. Monitor and adjust with time, and as needed!
