MHMW

Maintenance calories

Maintenance calories is another name for your TDEE: the intake at which body weight is, on average, stable. It is not a fixed number — it moves with weight, activity and time.

Example

If your estimated TDEE is 2400 kcal, then 2400 is your estimated maintenance. As weight changes, so does the maintenance figure, which is why long-run projections drift from simple arithmetic.

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