How many calories should you eat to lose weight?
The internet will tell you 1,200. Your mate will say eat nothing after 6pm. Your fitness app will tell you something different every week. Here is the actual answer — and why it depends on your body, not a generic number.
To lose weight, eat at a calorie deficit — less than your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). A deficit of 300–500 kcal/day produces sustainable fat loss of 0.3–0.5kg per week. To find your specific number, calculate your TDEE first, then subtract your chosen deficit.
Start with your TDEE, not a generic number
The most common mistake people make is picking a calorie target out of thin air — 1,500, 1,200, whatever a friend mentioned — without knowing what their body actually burns. This is like setting a budget without knowing your income.
Your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is the number of calories your body burns in a typical day, including your resting metabolism and activity. It is the baseline from which your deficit is calculated. Two people who both weigh 75kg can have TDEEs that differ by 500+ kcal depending on height, age, sex, and activity level.
Use the TDEE calculator to find your number first. Everything else follows from that.
How to calculate your calorie target for weight loss
Once you have your TDEE, creating a deficit is simple arithmetic:
Example: TDEE of 2,200 kcal − 500 kcal deficit = 1,700 kcal/day target
| Daily deficit | Weekly fat loss | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| −300 kcal | ~0.3 kg/week | Close to goal, muscle preservation |
| −500 kcal | ~0.5 kg/week | Most people, sustainable pace |
| −750 kcal | ~0.75 kg/week | Significant fat to lose, high protein diet |
| −1,000 kcal | ~1.0 kg/week | Maximum — only with medical supervision |
Why 1,200 calories is usually wrong
The 1,200 kcal figure became popular as a rough minimum floor for women — but it is not a target, it is a lower bound. For many women with a TDEE of 1,900–2,200 kcal, eating 1,200 kcal creates a 700–1,000 kcal daily deficit — aggressive enough to risk muscle loss, fatigue, and metabolic adaptation within weeks.
The problem with very low calorie targets is not that they do not produce weight loss — they do. The problem is that a significant portion of what you lose is muscle rather than fat, which slows your metabolism and makes maintaining the loss harder. A moderate deficit preserves more lean mass and produces better long-term outcomes.
The minimum calorie floor
Never eat below your BMR for sustained periods. Your BMR is the calories your body burns at complete rest — below that level, your body has to cannibalise muscle and organ tissue to meet energy demands. As a practical guideline:
- Women: no lower than 1,200 kcal/day
- Men: no lower than 1,500 kcal/day
- Athletes or people over 85kg: these floors are likely too low — use 80% of your BMR instead
Use the calorie deficit calculator — it includes a safety check that flags if your chosen deficit would push you below the minimum.
How long will it take to reach your goal weight?
One kilogram of body fat stores roughly 7,700 kcal. A 500 kcal/day deficit burns through that in about 15 days — producing approximately 2kg of fat loss per month. These are estimates; real results vary slightly based on water retention, individual metabolism, and measurement timing.
The key variable is consistency over weeks, not perfection on any individual day. A person who hits a 500 kcal deficit 5 days a week and eats at maintenance 2 days achieves a weekly average of ~360 kcal/day — still producing meaningful fat loss. Missing one day does not erase a week of progress.
Recalculate as you lose weight
As your body weight decreases, your TDEE decreases too — a lighter body burns fewer calories. This is why weight loss naturally slows over time without any change to your diet. Recalculate your TDEE every 4–6 weeks and adjust your target accordingly to maintain your chosen deficit pace.