How Many Calories to Lose Weight? Do the Maths by Hand, No App
You do not need an app to work out how many calories to eat to lose weight. You need your weight, your height, your age, a pen, and about four minutes. The formula below is the same one most calculators run behind the screen, and doing it by hand shows you something the app hides: how rough the number really is.
Before you start
- What you get: a daily calorie target, give or take a couple of hundred kcal
- Tools: weight in kg, height in cm, age, a calculator on your phone
- The formula: Mifflin-St Jeor for resting needs, then an activity multiplier
- The deficit: 400 to 600 kcal a day below your maintenance
- The floors: not below about 1,200 kcal a day for women or 1,500 for men unless a doctor is supervising
- Honest pace: roughly 0.5 to 1 kg a week after the first week or two
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Step one: your resting calories (BMR)
Your body burns most of its energy just staying alive. Heart, brain, liver, warmth, breathing. That resting figure is the basal metabolic rate, and the Mifflin-St Jeor equation estimates it from four things you already know.
For a woman: (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) minus (5 × age) minus 161.
For a man: (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) minus (5 × age) plus 5.
That’s it. No secret constants, no “metabolic type”, nothing you have to pay for.
A worked example, Pakistani sizes
- Take Sana, 70 kg, 158 cm, 35 years old. Weight part: 10 × 70 = 700.
- Height part: 6.25 × 158 = 987.5.
- Age part: 5 × 35 = 175.
- Add and subtract: 700 + 987.5 = 1,687.5. Take away 175 = 1,512.5. Take away 161 = 1,351.5. Call it 1,350 kcal. That is roughly what her body uses lying in bed all day.
- Now Bilal, 85 kg, 172 cm, 40 years old. 850 + 1,075 = 1,925. Minus 200 = 1,725. Plus 5 = 1,730 kcal resting.
Step two: multiply for how much you actually move
Nobody lies in bed all day. The activity multiplier turns resting calories into total daily energy expenditure, the TDEE, which is the number you’d have to eat to stay exactly the same weight. This is where most people go wrong, and they go wrong in the flattering direction.
| Your real week | Multiply BMR by (roughly) |
|---|---|
| Desk, car, sofa, almost no walking | about 1.2 |
| Housework, short walks, 1 to 3 light sessions a week | 1.3 to 1.4 |
| On your feet a lot, or 3 to 5 proper sessions a week | 1.5 to 1.6 |
| Physical job plus daily hard exercise | 1.7 to 1.9 |
Sana runs a house, does the school run, and walks to the market twice a week. She’d like to pick the 1.5 band. Be honest: it’s the 1.3 to 1.4 row. Take 1.375 from the middle of it: her TDEE is 1,350 × 1.375, which comes to about 1,860 kcal.
Bilal drives to an office, sits, drives home, and plays cricket most Sundays. That’s about 1.2, maybe 1.3 on a generous week. Use the lower one when you’re unsure. 1,730 × 1.2 gives about 2,075 kcal.
Pick the activity level you actually live, not the one you plan to start on Monday.
Step three: take off a sensible deficit
Losing body fat needs a gap between what you eat and what you burn. A gap of 400 to 600 kcal a day is the range that most people can keep up for months without feeling wretched, and it lands near the honest rate of 0.5 to 1 kg a week once the early water weight has gone. A bigger gap is not a faster route to the same place. It’s usually a route to a Thursday-night binge on samosas.
Sana: 1,860 minus 500 comes to about 1,360 kcal a day. Bilal: 2,075 minus 500 comes to about 1,575.
Both of those numbers sit above the floors. That’s not a coincidence; it’s the check you must always do next.
The floors, and why they exist
Do not plan to eat under about 1,200 kcal a day if you’re a woman, or 1,500 if you’re a man, without a doctor supervising you. Below those levels it becomes very hard to get enough protein, iron, calcium and fibre from real food, muscle goes along with fat, and hunger becomes the whole of your personality. If your maths lands below the floor, eat at the floor and get the rest of the gap from movement. A brisk 30 to 40 minute walk covers a good part of it.
Notice what this means for the 1,200 kcal plans passed around on WhatsApp. For a small, sedentary woman, 1,200 can be a real deficit. For Sana it’s too low. For Bilal it would be a crash diet with a nice name. The number is personal, which is the whole point of doing the sum.
How rough is this number, honestly
The equation is an average drawn from many bodies. Yours might sit a couple of hundred kcal above or below it because of muscle mass, thyroid function, medicines, sleep, and the simple fact that two people of the same weight can be built very differently. Then you add the activity multiplier, which is a guess, and your own calorie counting, which under-reads for almost everyone (nobody weighs the ghee on the tawa).
So treat the result as a starting point, not a verdict. Eat at the target for three weeks. Weigh yourself on the same mornings each week, after the toilet, before chai. If the trend is down by roughly 0.5 to 1 kg a week after the first fortnight, the number is right for you. If nothing moves, take off another 150 to 200 kcal, or add a daily walk, and give it another three weeks. If you’re losing much faster than 1 kg a week past week two, eat a little more; that pace usually costs muscle. Our piece on how much weight you can really lose in 30 days walks through why the scale lies early on.
What the target looks like on a desi plate
A number on paper means nothing until it’s rice and daal. Roughly, for Sana’s 1,360 kcal day: two boiled eggs and one roti with chai at breakfast (about 350 to 400 kcal), daal, a sabzi and one roti at lunch (about 400 to 450), a katori of dahi and fruit mid-afternoon (about 150), and a small chicken salan with one roti or one katori of rice at dinner (about 400 to 450). Cooked with restraint on the oil, that’s the day. Home recipes vary a lot, so these are ranges and your own pot may be heavier.
Bilal gets about 200 kcal more, roughly one extra roti or a second katori of daal. It’s not a different diet. Portions are the lever. The desi plate method covers the katori sizes, and our calorie table for Pakistani foods has the common dishes. Be warned that a tandoor roti weighs two to three times a home phulka, which we take apart in the tandoori roti and naan calorie post. Miscount the bread and the whole sum is off.
Before anyone counted calories, hakeems and grandmothers judged food by fullness and temperament: eat until the stomach is two-thirds full, leave room for water and air, and match heavy (garam) foods with light ones. Unani texts describe the “one third food, one third water, one third empty” rule, and Ayurvedic tradition speaks of eating to the point where hunger is gone rather than where the plate is. None of this gives you a number. It gives you a habit that keeps most people near their number without a spreadsheet.
You take diabetes medicine, especially insulin or sulfonylureas (gliclazide, glimepiride): eating less can drop your blood sugar dangerously low, and your doses may need adjusting before you start, never by you alone. You take blood pressure or thyroid medicine, or have kidney disease, because protein and salt targets change. You are pregnant or breastfeeding: no weight-loss dieting in pregnancy, and breastfeeding needs roughly 300 to 500 kcal on top of your maintenance. You are under 18: teenagers do not calorie-restrict, the family changes its habits instead. You are over about 65, where losing muscle is the bigger danger than losing fat and protein must stay high. You have any history of an eating disorder. And if you’re losing weight without trying, that’s not good news to enjoy, it’s a reason to be seen; our post on when to see a doctor about weight lists the red flags.
Two stories that break the sum
Myth: eating too little puts your body in starvation mode
The internet version says that if you eat under some magic number, your body “holds on” to fat and you stop losing. That’s not how it works. Very low intakes do slow your resting burn somewhat, and you lose muscle, feel dreadful, and eventually give up, which is the real reason crash diets fail. A genuine deficit always produces loss. The floors exist for health and for staying sane, not because 1,100 kcal makes fat stick.
Myth: the number changes every time you eat something spicy or cold
Green chillies, cold water, black pepper, jeera water: none of them shift your daily burn by enough to matter. A cup of jeera water is a fine swap for a sugary drink, and that swap is the whole benefit.
Try this tonight
Write your BMR on the fridge. Under it, write your honest TDEE and your target. Then, for one week, write only what you drink: every chai with sugar, every cold drink, every lassi. Most people find 300 to 500 kcal a day hiding in the glass.
If you want the target turned into a full week of meals, the 5 kg in 10 to 12 weeks plan does that, and the other Desi Weight Loss posts take the individual foods one at a time.
Questions people ask
How many calories should I eat a day to lose weight?
Work out your maintenance first (resting calories times an honest activity multiplier), then take off 400 to 600 kcal a day. The worked example in the article, a 70 kg woman with a home-based day, lands at about 1,360 kcal; most men come out higher. Whatever the sum says, don’t plan below about 1,200 kcal (women) or 1,500 (men) without a doctor.
How do I calculate my BMR by hand?
Use Mifflin-St Jeor. Women: 10 times weight in kg, plus 6.25 times height in cm, minus 5 times age, minus 161. Men: the same, but plus 5 at the end. A 70 kg woman, 158 cm and 35 years old comes out at about 1,350 kcal resting.
How many calories should I eat to lose weight if I’m 60 kg?
It depends on height, age, sex and how much you move, which is why the sum is worth doing. A 60 kg woman of average height in her thirties with a mostly-at-home day often lands close to the 1,200 floor once a 500 kcal deficit is taken off. If your maths goes below the floor, eat at the floor and walk more.
Which activity level should I pick?
The one you actually live, not the one you’re planning for Monday. Desk, car and sofa is about 1.2. Housework and short walks is 1.3 to 1.4. Only people on their feet all day or training three to five times a week belong at 1.5 or above. When unsure, go lower.
Is 1,200 calories a day enough?
For a small, mostly sedentary woman it can be a real deficit, and it’s the lowest most guidance allows without supervision. For a taller or more active woman it’s too low, and for nearly every man it’s a crash diet. Do your own sum rather than borrowing a WhatsApp plan.
Is a 500 calorie deficit safe?
For most healthy adults, yes, provided the result stays above the floors and you’re getting enough protein. Anyone on diabetes medicine, especially insulin, gliclazide or glimepiride, or on BP tablets should agree the plan with their doctor first, since doses may need changing.
How many calories are in 1 kg of body fat?
Roughly 7,000 to 7,700 kcal, which is where “500 a day equals about half a kilo a week” comes from. Real bodies don’t follow the arithmetic neatly, especially in the first two weeks when water and glycogen swing the scale by a kilo or two.
How do I know if my calorie target is right?
Test it for three weeks. Weigh on the same mornings each week, after the toilet and before chai. If the trend drops 0.5 to 1 kg a week past the first fortnight, keep going. If nothing moves, trim another 150 to 200 kcal or add a daily walk. Losing much faster than 1 kg a week usually costs muscle, so eat a little more.
Does eating too little put my body in starvation mode?
Not in the way the internet says. Very low intakes slow your resting burn somewhat and cost muscle, and you feel dreadful and give up, which is why crash diets fail. A real deficit still produces loss. The floors are there for health and sanity, not because low intake makes fat stick.
Do I recalculate as I lose weight?
Yes, every 5 kg or so. A lighter body needs fewer calories, so a target that gave you a 500 kcal gap at 85 kg gives a noticeably smaller one at 75 kg. That shrinking gap explains a lot of what people call a plateau.
How many calories does a breastfeeding mother need?
Breastfeeding needs roughly 300 to 500 kcal on top of maintenance, so it isn’t a time for a calorie-cutting sum. Pregnancy is no time for weight-loss dieting at all. Talk to your doctor or midwife about gentle, gradual changes after the baby.
What if I don’t know my height in cm?
Multiply feet by 30.48 and inches by 2.54, then add them. Five feet two inches is 152 plus 5, about 157 cm. Five feet eight is about 173 cm.