How Many Kcal Should I Eat a Day?

Your total daily calorie requirement — sometimes called Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) — is the sum of the energy your body uses at rest plus the energy you burn through movement and activity. Several factors shape that number:

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): the calories your body needs just to keep running at rest — breathing, circulation, cell repair. This is the biggest part of your daily total.
• Activity level: movement, exercise, and even everyday tasks like walking or standing all add to your calorie burn.
• Body composition: muscle tissue burns more energy at rest than fat tissue, so two people of the same weight can have different calorie needs.
• Age and sex: calorie needs generally change with age, and average needs differ between males and females.
• GLP-1 appetite changes: many people taking Mounjaro (tirzepatide) or Wegovy (semaglutide) find their appetite decreases and their natural food intake drops. This can make it especially important to track what you are actually eating, to ensure you are still meeting protein and micronutrient needs even while eating less.

General population guidelines typically suggest around 2,000 kcal per day for adult women and around 2,500 kcal for adult men as a rough average — figures referenced in NHS guidance — but these are population averages, not personal prescriptions. Your actual target depends on your goals, your starting point, and guidance from your healthcare team.

If you want a more precise estimate based on your own stats, our calorie calculator for GLP-1 users walks through the calculation step by step. You may also find it helpful to read about how many calories to eat per day on a GLP-1 journey or, for women-specific context, daily calorie needs for women on GLP-1 medicines.

Knowing your calorie target is one thing — hitting it consistently while appetite fluctuates on a GLP-1 medicine is another. GLP Trackr's AI food photo scan is the fastest way to log what you eat: point your camera at a meal and the app estimates the calories, protein, and macros in seconds, with no manual entry needed. For packaged foods, the barcode scanner pulls nutrition data instantly.

Once your daily calorie target is set in the app, every meal you log feeds into your running total, so you can see at a glance whether you are on track — or whether reduced appetite has pushed you too low to meet your protein and fibre goals. The kcal needs for women page covers how those targets can look in practice.

The app also lets you set a protein target alongside your calorie goal, which many people on GLP-1 medicines find particularly useful when overall food intake is lower than usual. Insights and weekly summaries then show you your patterns over time — useful context to bring to appointments with your prescriber or doctor.

For a broader look at calorie and macro tracking on a GLP-1 journey, visit our calorie calculator hub.

Any specific calorie target should be agreed with your prescriber or healthcare professional, who can factor in your full medical history and weight-management goals. GLP Trackr helps you track against that target — it does not set it for you.

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