The short answer: eat fewer calories than your body burns each day. But the longer answer — the one that actually works — requires knowing your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) first.
Your TDEE is the total number of calories your body needs to maintain your current weight, taking into account your age, height, weight, sex and how active you are. It combines your Basal Metabolic Rate (the calories you'd burn doing nothing) with an activity multiplier.
For most adults, TDEE ranges from around 1,600 to 3,000 calories per day. There's no one-size-fits-all number.
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Open Calorie Calculator →To lose weight, you need to eat less than your TDEE. Each 3,500 calorie deficit roughly equals 0.45kg (1lb) of fat loss. A 500 calorie daily deficit leads to approximately 0.5kg per week — the amount most health professionals consider sustainable.
| Goal | Daily deficit | Expected loss |
|---|---|---|
| Slow, sustainable | 250–300 cal/day | ~0.25kg/week |
| Standard | 500 cal/day | ~0.5kg/week |
| Faster (harder to maintain) | 750–1000 cal/day | ~0.75–1kg/week |
You've probably seen 1,200 calories cited as a weight loss target. For most people, especially taller or more active individuals, this creates too large a deficit. Very low calorie diets tend to cause muscle loss, slow your metabolism, and are harder to stick to — meaning rebound weight gain is common.
A better approach: calculate your TDEE, subtract 500 calories, and make sure the result is still above 1,500 calories for men and 1,200 for women as an absolute floor.
The difference between sedentary and very active can be 800–1,000 calories per day in TDEE. Someone who walks 10,000 steps daily needs significantly more food than a desk worker — and can eat more while still losing weight. This is why generic calorie targets often fail: they ignore activity level entirely.
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