Calorie and Weight Loss Calculator
The weight loss calculator is an easy-to-use fitness tool that can be used to estimate your daily recommended calories to lose weight.
It also provides the approximate time it will take you to achieve your weight goal at a rate of 1 or 2 pounds weight loss per week.
What Is The Weight Loss Calculator and How Does It Work?
The weight loss calculator estimates the number of calories you should eat per day to lose weight at a rate of one or two pounds/week.
You’ll also get an approximate timeframe until you reach your weight goal based on losing one or two pounds per week.
Related: The Top 20 Simple Weight Loss Tips
Maintenance calories
The calculator uses a formula based on your personal stats and activity level to determine total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the number of calories your body needs to perform basic life functions (breathing, nutrient processing, etc).
This is required to find your maintenance calories or the number of calories your body needs to remain at its current weight. The calculator provides your recommended maintenance calories.
3,500-calorie rule
From here, the calculator uses the 3500-calorie per pound rule, or that 3,500 calories is equal to one pound of body weight.
So, if you divide 3,500 calories by 7 days, you’ll need to burn 500 calories every day to lose one pound of body weight per week.
This is a usually somewhat accurate method but more so during the initial stages of losing weight.
It’s important to note that there are many variables that can affect the number of calories equal to a pound of body weight. And we’re not including water weight and glycogen.
Factors like your body fat, muscle tissue, metabolism, thermic effect of food can all influence the number of calories you need to burn to lose and even gain a pound of body weight.
You’ll find this to be the case further along in your transformation journey as your body composition changes.
So while the weight loss calculator is a very handy and useful tool, it may be the best option for those just starting out on their weight loss journey.
For those who have already made decent progress, the weight loss target date calculator offers a little more flexibility.
How To Use The Weight Loss Calculator
The weight loss calculator is pretty straightforward to use. But here are step-by-step directions to ensure you do it properly to get the best result possible.
- Choose the desired unit of measurement: Imperial (lbs, feet, and inches) or metric (kg, meter, and cm)
- Select your gender
- Enter your current weight
- Type in your goal weight (how many pounds you want to lose)
- Provide your height
- Input your age
- Click on the drop-down menu and select your activity level
Activity level
There are a few different activity level options to choose from.
Sedentary
If you do a lot of sitting and lying around or aren’t physically active other than doing normal daily tasks, then you have a sedentary lifestyle.
Lightly active
Maybe you go for a short daily walk and don’t do much more than run errands on a regular basis. In this case, you probably have a lightly active lifestyle.
Moderately active
You might go for a daily jog to get your heart rate up, exercise 3-5 times per week, and have a job that requires you to be on your feet for the most part.
Very active
You participate in planned physical activities 4-6 times a week at a decent intensity level that gets your heart rate up. Daily tasks might include similar activities to running errands, walking your dog, doing housework, fixing the car, and moving around in general.
Extremely active
Extremely active individuals can include high-performance athletes or extremely active individuals in general. They might do moderate to high-intensity physical activities 6-7 times per week for several hours every day and have a very physical job.
Should You Aim To Lose Only 1 or 2 Pounds Per Week?
As mentioned, the calculator will estimate daily calorie needs for one or two pounds of weight loss per week. In fact, it won’t recommend a daily intake of fewer than 1000 calories for health reasons.
Why is that?
Well, for those who are not as familiar, it’s been suggested that losing more than 1 or 2 pounds per week is not sustainable and can even be unhealthy.
While this probably isn’t entirely accurate and applicable for all situations, it may be a good way to go about your weight loss progress.
Anytime you try to force rapid change in one area of your body without allowing other components and mechanisms to adapt and catch up, it can throw some things off.
That’s why extreme dieting is not advised.
Everything from your hormones to your metabolism, appetite, skin, organs, and mental health can be affected by huge weight drops. Although, it may not be as bad if you don’t do it regularly.
But the body has lots of protective mechanisms and will often do what it has to in order to protect itself from danger.
That’s why a lot of times when someone loses weight too fast, they gain it right back because it can be hard to maintain those same habits that caused the weight loss in the first place. This can also be due to food choices, lack of activity, and other factors as well.
Now, if you’re morbidly obese and your health is severely affected, then, in this case, rapid weight loss may be warranted.
But if you’re overweight or someone who only needs to drop a few fat pounds, slow and steady is probably the way to go.
Difference Between Weight Loss and Fat Loss
Although the two terms can be used interchangeably, it’s easy to see how they can have different definitions.
For example, weight loss may mean losing any form of body weight such as fat, water, glycogen, poop, and, although not ideal, muscle tissue.
Typically, fat loss means losing body fat.
Try out our body fat calculator to estimate your body fat percentage.
Whether or not you’ve ever realized that there could be a difference in meaning, it’s more important that your lifestyle reflects your desired goal.
For instance, some people only care about the weight going down on the scale. They may not pay as much attention to macros (protein, carbs, and fat). This may be fine as long as they’re getting adequate nutrients.
Then you have those who are more concerned about looking as aesthetic as possible, which means doing resistance training to build or maintain muscle mass. Subsequently, they’ll focus on burning fat to reveal the muscle underneath.
Learn how to Burn fat with strength training
These individuals are usually more dialed in with their nutrition to ensure they get sufficient protein (crucial for building and maintaining muscle mass), and other macros.
Use our macro calculator to find your ideal protein, carbs, and fat intake based on your body goal/s.
Other related calculators
- TDEE Calculator
- Calorie Deficit Calculator
- Carb Cycling Calculator
- Calories Per Meal Calculator
- Intermittent Fasting Calculator
- Water Fasting Weight Loss Calculator
- Weight Gain Calculator
Reach Your Body Goal With The Weight Loss Calculator
The weight loss calculator may be just the resource you need to kick off your body transformation journey.
It uses a simple formula to find your maintenance calories and then subtracts 500 calories to give you a recommended daily calorie intake for weight loss.
You’ll also have an idea of the approximate time to reach your goal based on losing one or two pounds each week.
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