How Many Calories Should a Woman Eat a Day?

Calorie needs vary considerably from person to person, and a single figure rarely fits everyone. The main factors that shape a woman's daily calorie requirement include:

• Basal metabolic rate (BMR): the calories your body uses just to keep basic functions running — breathing, circulation, cell repair. Taller, heavier, and younger women generally have a higher BMR.
• Activity level: a sedentary desk job uses far fewer calories than a physically active role or a regular exercise routine. Total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) multiplies BMR by an activity factor to give the full picture.
• Age: metabolic rate tends to decline gradually with age, meaning calorie needs often shift over decades.
• Body composition: muscle tissue burns more energy at rest than fat tissue, so two women of the same weight can have meaningfully different calorie needs.

General calorie ranges (educational, not personalised targets)

As a broad educational reference, many health guidelines suggest:

• Sedentary adult women: approximately 1,600–1,800 calories per day to maintain weight
• Moderately active adult women: approximately 1,800–2,200 calories per day
• Very active adult women: approximately 2,200–2,400 calories per day or more

These are general population ranges — not a prescription. Your own number could sit above or below them. For a personalised estimate, visit our calorie calculator or speak with your healthcare professional.

Calories for weight loss on a GLP-1 medicine

Many women on Wegovy or Mounjaro find their appetite drops substantially, sometimes making it a challenge to eat enough — particularly enough protein. A modest calorie deficit (often cited in general nutrition guidance as roughly 500 calories below maintenance) is a common starting point for gradual weight loss, but the appropriate deficit for you depends on factors only your prescriber or doctor can weigh up properly. You might also find it useful to read about how many calories a woman should have and how many calories to eat each day in general, as both pages explore related considerations. For a broader look at calorie needs across different people, see how many calories a person should consume in a day.

Knowing a calorie target is one thing — logging what you actually eat, especially when appetite is unpredictable on a GLP-1 medicine, is where most people struggle. GLP Trackr's AI food photo scan makes this genuinely easy: point your phone camera at a meal and get an instant breakdown of calories, protein, and macros without manually searching for every ingredient.

From there, you can set a daily calorie target and a protein goal inside the app, and your food logs feed straight into both — so you can see at a glance whether you're hitting your numbers or falling short. Protein is particularly worth watching on a GLP-1 journey, because reduced appetite can mean reduced intake at exactly the time muscle maintenance matters most.

GLP Trackr also gives you a daily brief and week-at-a-glance view, so you can spot patterns: are lower-calorie days linked to more fatigue? Is hitting your protein target making a difference to how you feel? That kind of personal insight is hard to see without consistent tracking.

Always follow the guidance of your prescriber or doctor when it comes to calorie targets — they can account for your full health picture in a way general guidance cannot.

Ready to take the guesswork out of daily calorie tracking? Download GLP Trackr on the App Store or Google Play and explore everything free for your first 7 days.