If you are into fitness or even if you are simply aiming towards either gaining or losing weight, then, calculating your maintenance calories becomes utterly important.
It’s because maintenance calories give you a holistic idea of your daily calorie requirements. Eat more to gain, eat less to lose, or eat at maintenance to stay the same.
Now, before you move forward with calculating your maintenance calories, there are some terms you must be aware of;
- RMR
- TDEE
- BMR
Now let’s address these terms one by one for your better understanding.
- RMR:- RMR or Resting Metabolic Rate is the number of calories you burn while only resting. And this wholely accounts for about 60-70% of your total energy expenditure of the day. (Remember, these are not the calories you burn while performing any activity).
- TDEE:- TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure accounts for 3 different levels of calorie burning- RMR, thermic effect of physical activity, and thermic effect of food. Adding the calories you burn while performing physical activities and while digesting and absorbing food with the RMR gives you a rough idea of your TDEE.
- BMR:- BMR or Basic Metabolic Rate is the amount of energy your body requires to perform its basic functions…respiration, excretion, digestion, and much more. These are the minimum number of calories your body needs to keep it going for the day.
Now that you have got a surface-level idea of some of the basic jargon about your maintenance calories, it’s time we jump on to the main topic.
A lot of scientists, a lot of experiments, and a lot of research were conducted. Some of the equations that came to reality as maintenance calorie calculators are;
- Harris-Benedict Equation
- Mifflin-St.Jeor Equation
- Cunningham Equation
Even though the creators of these equations claim themselves to be accurate, their results say otherwise.
This high variation is due to the very fact that all these equations calculate maintenance calories on separate parameters. While some consider age, sex, and gender to be integral factors, others don’t.
This causes issues for people like you while performing basic BMR or weight maintenance calculations.
Plus, their methods of calculating calories look even more intimidating than the calculus taught in universities.
Here, have a look.
So, instead of using this as your BMR calculator, we advise you to look for alternatives. One such tool that has the utmost potential to assist you in this situation- which has impeccable precision and accuracy and only takes a fraction of a second to calculate and provide you with your desired results is this;
A screenshot from one of FitFeast’s tools that helps fitness enthusiasts like you find their maintenance calories.
It’s simple so you don’t get confused. It’s fast so you don’t have to wait. And most importantly, it’s accurate so you achieve your fitness goals in lesser time.
Don’t believe us? Try having a look yourself.
Not only this, our tool uses AI to even calculate your calorie intake if you either want to lose, gain, or maintain your weight.
Just enter your gender, age, height, weight, activity level, and desired goal. And voila! Instantly get answers to such simple questions.
Here’s the tool we’ve been talking about.
What are My Maintenace Calories?:- Use this tool and find out. (Please use the tool on Desktop and not mobile)