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How many calories should I eat a day?
It depends on your size, sex, age and activity — most adults maintain on roughly 1,800–2,600, but a calculator using your own numbers beats any average.
There is no single right number, because daily calorie needs depend on your body size, sex, age and how much you move. As a very rough orientation, many adult women maintain somewhere around 1,800–2,200 calories a day and many adult men around 2,200–2,600 — but those ranges are wide for a reason, and using an average as your target is how people end up frustrated.
The useful number is your own TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), estimated from your height, weight, age, sex and activity level. Eat at it to maintain, a few hundred below to lose, a little above to gain. The estimate is typically within about 10% for most people, which is close enough to start.
Then let reality correct the estimate: log your intake and weight for two to three weeks. If your weight holds steady, that intake is your true maintenance, whatever any formula predicted.
Work it out for yourself
Answers are a start — tracking is the answer
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General information, not medical advice. Figures are mainstream reference values; individual needs vary.
