Calculate Your Daily Calorie Needs for Weight Loss: A Formula-Based Guide

You must burn more calories than you eat to lose weight. According to the National Weight Control Registry, people who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off use a combination of exercise and diet to reach their goals.

How Many Calories in a Pound?

• Losing a pound of body fat is equivalent to burning about 3,500 calories.

A Pound a Week

• Experts agree that one pound per week is a safe rate of weight loss. To do this, you must burn 500 more calories per day than you eat.

Calculate Basal Metabolic Rate

• To find out the number of calories you burn every day for basic life functions (called "basal metabolic rate" or BMR), use an online calculator like the one offered by Shape Up America.

Add Activity

• To calculate the daily calorie total you need to lose a pound a week, add your BMR to the number of calories you burn exercising. Subtract 500 from that number and the result is the maximum daily calories you can eat to meet your weight-loss goals.

Maintenance

• Once you have reached your goal weight, calculate your new BMR and add in the calorie cost for exercise. The result is the number of daily calories you should eat to maintain your weight.