Should I eat exactly my TDEE to maintain?

Often close, but real maintenance drifts with NEAT, sleep, and stress. Use TDEE as a starting point and adjust using your weight trend.

Food & nutrition

Maintenance calorie calculator

This page focuses on weight stability: we default the goal to maintenance so you can read TDEE as your rough calorie budget. If you later want fat loss or surplus targets, use the deficit or full calorie calculator.

Why a separate maintenance page?

Search intent for “maintenance calories” is distinct from deficit or TDEE education. Same underlying math, different explanation—so you can land on the answer you searched for without wading through weight-loss defaults.

Educational estimates only. Not medical advice.