Free Calorie Deficit Calculator — Safe Targets & Weekly Rates (2026)
Find your maintenance calories (TDEE) and three deficit tiers with realistic weekly rates — including honest warnings when a target dips below your BMR. Then turn the target into a USDA food plan. Free, no signup.
A deficit only works if it's anchored to the right starting number: your maintenance calories. Enter five details and get your TDEE plus three deficit tiers — mild, standard, and aggressive — with the weekly rate each one realistically buys, and a flag when a target crosses below your BMR.
Picking a deficit size
A starting deficit is slow on purpose: enough to mostly preserve muscle and sane enough to sustain for months — which is what actually determines success, more than the size of the cut itself. The tiers above show what each pace trades away.
Bigger deficits buy faster scale movement at compounding costs: more hunger, more muscle loss, more fatigue, and far worse adherence. If a tier on this page is flagged below your BMR, treat it as a conversation with a professional, not a plan.
Why the weekly rates are approximate
The classic arithmetic — about 7,700 kcal per kilogram (3,500 per pound) — is a planning approximation, not a law. Metabolism adapts as you lose weight, water shifts mask fat changes week to week, and maintenance itself drifts downward as you get lighter.
The practical loop: pick a tier, run it for three weeks, compare the scale's weekly average against the prediction, and adjust 100–200 kcal at a time. Recalculate here every ~5 kg.
Formula & sources
Daily intake target
Approximate weekly change
The Wishnofsky ~7700 kcal/kg (3500 kcal/lb) rule of thumb. It overstates long-run loss as the body adapts, so treat the weekly figure as a first approximation.
Sources
- Wishnofsky M (1958) Caloric equivalents of gained or lost weight. Am J Clin Nutr 6(5):542–546 — the origin of the 3500 kcal/lb approximation.
Calorie deficit questions, answered
How many calories should I cut to lose weight?
Start 250–500 kcal/day below your TDEE. That produces roughly 0.25–0.5 kg (0.5–1 lb) per week for most people — fast enough to see progress, slow enough to keep muscle and sanity.
Is a 500-calorie deficit safe?
For most healthy adults, yes — it's the textbook starting point. The caveat is the floor, not the deficit: if TDEE − 500 lands below your BMR or below ~1,200–1,500 kcal, work with a professional instead of pushing through.
Why am I not losing weight in a deficit?
Usually one of three things: the deficit is smaller than estimated (portions drift), maintenance is lower than estimated (equations are ±10%), or water retention is masking fat loss. Three weeks of consistent tracking almost always reveals which.
Should I eat back exercise calories?
If you chose an activity level that already includes your training, no — they're already in your TDEE. Counting them twice is the most common way deficits quietly disappear.
How fast is too fast?
Losing more than ~1% of body weight per week for sustained periods costs disproportionate muscle and usually rebounds. The aggressive tier here (−750) is the sensible ceiling for most people without supervision.
What should I actually eat in a deficit?
That's the question this site exists for: the MyPlate Plan translates a calorie level into food groups — produce, grains, protein, dairy — so the deficit is built from a balanced plate rather than willpower alone.