How many calories should I eat a day?
There's no single right number - it depends on your weight and what you're trying to do. Enter both below and get your personalised daily calorie and protein target.
It depends on two things
Generic answers like “2,000 calories a day” are averages that fit almost nobody exactly. Your real number comes down to your bodyweight and your goal. A bigger body burns more; wanting to lose weight means eating less than you burn, and wanting to gain means eating more.
FitLog uses the bodyweight multiplier method to turn those two inputs into a number instantly - no age, height, or metabolic formula required.
A quick reference
Adjust ±1 for low or high activity. Pair it with about 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.
Treat the result as a confident starting point, then let the scale be the judge. Eat at your number for a couple of weeks and adjust if your weight isn't moving the way you want.
Go deeper on your goal
Losing weight? See how a calorie deficit works. Holding steady? Find your maintenance calories (TDEE). Either way, don't skip your daily protein target.
Common questions
To lose weight you need to eat below your maintenance calories. A practical starting point with the bodyweight multiplier method is your bodyweight in pounds times 11 for steady loss, or times 8 for faster loss. That builds in a deficit automatically. Most people land somewhere between 1,500 and 2,200 calories depending on their size and pace.
Roughly your bodyweight in pounds times 14, adjusted for activity. That's your maintenance level - eat around it and your weight stays stable. For many adults that falls in the 2,000-2,800 calorie range, but it scales with bodyweight, so use the calculator for your number.
For most people, yes - 1,200 calories is a common floor, not a goal. Eating that low is hard to sustain, can cost you muscle, and often backfires. A smaller, livable deficit almost always works better than an aggressive one you can't maintain. As general guidance, most people shouldn't go below about 1,200 calories (women) or 1,500 (men) without medical supervision.
Standard calculators use age and height in a BMR formula, but the bodyweight multiplier method skips that and uses your current weight and goal directly. It's simpler, gives you a number in seconds, and is accurate enough to make progress - you fine-tune by watching the scale over a couple of weeks.
No. Aim to land near your target most days - consistency beats precision. FitLog is built around exactly that: get your number, log meals quickly with a simple food search, and check in once a day. You don't need to weigh every gram to make it work.