How many calories do you need per day?

Your daily calorie needs depend on your age, sex, weight, height and activity level. The total is usually called TDEE, short for total daily energy expenditure: everything your body burns in a day, from breathing to exercise.

Maintaining vs losing weight

• Maintaining: you eat roughly what you burn (your TDEE)
• Losing weight: a deficit of about 500 kcal a day can lead to about 0.5 kg a week. For a plan built around you, talk to a dietitian or doctor.

Turning the number into meals

A daily target only helps if you know what your meals add up to. The free calorie calculator gives you the kcal, protein, carbs and fat for any food and portion, so you can check a meal before you eat it.

Tracking in the app

Once you know your target, BioBrief helps you follow it: scan the label of a packaged product and it lands in your food diary. See how the calorie tracker works.