Nutrition and Wellness

Maintenance Calories: What Does It Mean and Why Is It Important?

November 21, 2024 3 min read

Understanding maintenance calories is essential for anyone looking to manage their weight, improve their fitness, or enhance their health. But what exactly are maintenance calories, and why are they so crucial?

In this blog post, we'll dive into the concept of maintenance calories, how to calculate them, and their importance in achieving your fitness goals.

What Are Maintenance Calories?

Maintenance calories are the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight without gaining or losing fat.

This calorie level supports your body's basic functions—such as breathing, circulation, and cell production—along with your daily physical activities.

Essentially, it is the amount you need to eat to stay the same.

How to Calculate Maintenance Calories

Calculating your maintenance calories involves determining your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). TDEE is an estimate of how many calories you burn in a day when you add calories burned from exercise.

To calculate your TDEE, simply click here to view our maintenance calories calculator. Enter your information and see your TDEE instantly.

Why They Are Important

Understanding and calculating your maintenance calories is vital for several reasons:

Weight Management: Knowing your maintenance calories helps you create an effective diet plan. To lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than your TDEE, creating a calorie deficit. But, to gain weight, you need to eat more than your TDEE, creating a calorie surplus.
Energy Levels: Consuming the right amount of calories ensures that you have enough energy for the day. Eating too little can lead to fatigue and poor performance, while eating too much can result in weight gain and sluggishness.
Nutritional Balance: Tracking calories helps you make better food choices. This ensures you get the right balance of macros (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).
Fitness Goals: Whether you want to build muscle, lose fat, or improve athletic performance, knowing your maintenance calories is the starting point. Adjusting your caloric intake based on your goals allows for more effective and sustainable results.

How to Adjust Your Caloric Intake

Once you know your daily intake, you can adjust based on your fitness goals:

For Weight Loss: Create a calorie deficit by eating 500-1000 calories less than your TDEE. This should result in a safe weight loss of about 1-2 pounds per week. If you want to know exactly how much to eat to lose weight, click here to use our weight loss calculator.
For Muscle Gain: Create a calorie surplus by eating 250-500 calories more than your TDEE. This helps muscle growth and recovery. If you want to know exactly how much to eat to gain weight, click here to use our weight gain calculator.
For Maintenance (stay the same): Simply eat the number of calories that matches your TDEE to maintain your current weight.

Conclusion

Maintenance calories are a core concept in nutrition and fitness. By understanding what they are and how to calculate them, you can tune your diet to meet your needs.

This is important whether you're looking to lose weight, gain muscle, or maintain your current physique. Start by calculating your TDEE, adjust your caloric intake based on your goals, and you'll be well on your way to smashing your goals.

FAQ

Porrada is a Portuguese term commonly used in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and Brazilian culture to describe a tough, intense, and gritty style of training or fighting. The direct translation of porrada from Portuguese to English is "beating" or "brawl." It embodies the spirit of going all out, giving your maximum effort, and pushing through challenges. In BJJ, practicing porrada means training with high intensity and determination.

This website is a collection of resources curated by grapplers, for grapplers. Our goal is to provide you with all the information you need to succeed. Whether you want to learn about nutrition, training on the mats, lifting, or anything in between, we are here for you. We want to see you on the podium most of all, and we hope to help you do exactly that. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email or DM us on any of our social profiles!

There are two main ways you can get started with training: 1) You can find a BJJ gym near you and do a trial day, or 2) you can create your own mini home gym and start training with friends. Option #2 is how our team at Porrada got started! We ordered 1-inch thick puzzle mats in a 10’x10’ square and began training using online resources. If you do start with the second option, we recommend eventually finding a gym down the road in your career. It will help you by allowing you to roll with more people and receive high-level instruction.

BJJ is quite similar to wrestling. Both start standing and use takedowns as a method to score points. Both use very similar mechanics overall. The main differences are that there are no pins (you can be on your back in Jiu-Jitsu), BJJ involves submissions, and the points system for each is very different. BJJ grants points for takedowns/sweeps, back control, mount, guard passes, and knee on belly. Wrestling grants points for takedowns, escapes, and back points (back exposure for freestyle).

BJJ is a very unique sport in many ways. There are so many incredible benefits to training Jiu-Jitsu. The biggest reasons we advocate for it are the mindset training and the added ability to defend yourself. In BJJ, you are forced to humble yourself over and over again, every single day. This sport is a great way to mature rapidly and generally become a better person (in our opinion). You will also have a better ability to defend yourself than 99% of the population—a pretty big bonus.

You’re never too old to start training! We see people on the mats of all ages and sizes. Large and small, old and young can, and should, train BJJ. If you are on the older side, it is perfectly acceptable to take it slow and learn at your own pace. You don’t always have to go full speed—don’t worry. There are typically also classes that separate people by goals. Certain classes are for those who want to compete, some are for general instruction, and some are specifically for self-defense teachings. There is a place for everyone on the mats.