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1. “Does this Macro Calculator work?” — To address your first likely concern…
Yes, the macro calculator ‘works’ for weight loss, fat loss, bodybuilding/muscle building. I’ve been coaching online as a full-time job since 2011. If I didn’t get results (view over 100 client results photos here), I’d get fired.
And yes, they are very well thought out — they’re based on the recommendations in my book, The Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid, which is a 290-page, fully-referenced guide for powerlifters and physique athletes.
Regardless of your body type, if you’re a vegan, and whatever your fitness goals, this is my recommended starting point to calculate your macro intake.
But wondering whether your calculations are ‘correct’ is the wrong way to approach things, because…
2. You will need to adjust these Macros sooner or later to achieve the desired rate of weight change.
Why sooner? Because the calculations are based on equations derived from group averages. You might be either side of this average, so consider them a start point from which to adjust. (Additionally, your meal prep may be inaccurate also.)
Why later? Because energy needs change over time as we diet and bulk. Your metabolism will gradually adapt to fight a caloric deficit, and energy needs increase when we gain weight. These things happen for some people more than others and this is not something a calculator can predict for.
However, knowing how impatient people are to see results, I’ve factored this into the macro calculations…
But Before we get into that…
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So as I was saying, I’ve factored the energy need adaptions into the calculations in the following couple of ways…
3. For those cutting, THE MACRO CALCULATOR SETS energy intake at a level where bodyweight losses would be 0.75% per week, were the metabolism not to adapt.
But it will, and many people will find their resulting weight loss to be around 0.5%, which from experience, seems to be the sweet spot for busy individuals with real lives who can’t afford the brain fog that comes with higher caloric deficits.
Additionally, the total nerds among you (love you guys!) who have been getting your macro calculators out to check my math, may have noticed that…
4. For those bulking, I’ve upped the caloric surplus by 50% to anticipate some of the increased energy needs when bulking.
This is not an extreme change. For a 30-year-old, 6ft, 200 lb novice male, their daily intake will change from 3070 kcal to 3245 kcal because of this.
Unfortunately, there’s a tricky little bitch called NEAT which can impact energy needs way more from person to person, especially when bulking.
NEAT is the nickname for ‘non-exercise activity thermogenesis’. It is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating, or sports-like exercise. It ranges from the energy expended walking to work, typing and texting friends, shaking up a protein shake, performing yard work, and fidgeting.
Some people ramp up NEAT much more than others which explains those who claim not to be able to gain weight. These people are commonly referred to as ‘hardgainers’, but there is nothing wrong, they need to eat more.
This cannot be factored into the macro calculator either, which is why tracking average weight change and then adjusting caloric intake based on the outcome is so critical.
5. So now you’re probably wondering, “What is a desirable rate of weight loss or gain?”
Weight loss: I recommend 0.5–1% of body weight loss per week when cutting. — The leaner you get, the slower you should take it.
Weight gain: I recommend 0.5–2% of body weight gain per month when bulking. — The more experienced a trainee you are, the closer you are likely to your genetic potential, so the slower you should take things:
- Beginner — 2%
- Novice — 1.5%
- Intermediate — 1%
- Advanced — 0.5%
This is the upper end of the ranges recommended in my book, The Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid, which makes changes easier to track, especially when you aren’t working with a coach and are doing things yourself.
6. Most people will have a jump in scale weight in the first week.
This will be due to the change in gut content, water, and muscle glycogen in your body. It happens whenever you change the number of carbohydrates you eat or the total food intake in general.
So, before deciding you need to adjust, track for several weeks first, taking the average scale weight each day, and ignore the first week of data.
7. To make a Macro adjustment to get your body weight change on track…
If you are cutting, multiply the amount you are off your weekly weight change target by 500 kcal (or 1100 kcal for those using kg). Add or subtract that from your caloric intake each day accordingly. Here are some examples:
- If you’re losing weight 0.5 lbs slower than your target each week, reduce daily caloric intake by 250 kcal (500*0.5). — This is approximately one cup of uncooked rice or 3 cups of cooked rice.
- If you’re losing weight 0.3 lbs faster than your target each week, increase your daily caloric intake by 150 kcal daily (0.3*500). — This is approximately a 2 oz portion of uncooked pasta.
If you are bulking, multiply the amount you are off your monthly weight change target by 150 kcal (or 330 kcal for those using kg). (These numbers are explained in my mega-guide on bulking). Here are some examples:
- If you’re gaining weight 1.5 lb slower than your target each month, increase daily caloric intake by 225 kcal (150*1.5).
- If you’re gaining weight 0.5 kg faster than your target each month, reduce daily caloric intake by ~165 kcal (330*0.5).
Make this caloric change via fat and carb changes per your preferences. This is as simple as follows:

Leave protein intake as is, unless you have a lot of body fat to lose. (More on this in a moment.)
8. Before making any adjustments, make sure your adherence is on point.
If your adherence is not on point, fix that before adjusting your macros. Solid adherence in the week only to throw it away on the weekends is the most common pattern people follow. This includes adherence to your workouts — your training routine needs to be routine; plans don’t mean anything if they aren’t followed through.
9. Double-check that you are tracking things accurately.
Here’s my guide to counting macros and making meals out of them. (The simplified counting rules in this guide are what gave the food value estimations you saw the end of the calculator.)
But despite guides like that trying to simplify, studies consistently show that people are terrible at tracking things. So, if you’re not losing weight at the rate desired and you’re concerned that your macros look low, swallow your ego and consider the possibility that you’ve screwed something up.
Log everything that passes your lips into a nutritional calculator for 2 weeks. This will tell you if you have an issue.
10. Protein intake is calculated based on body weight rather than lean body mass.
This is much easier than requiring people to estimate their body-fat percentage first, and the results are roughly the same anyway. Plus, all the methods we have available for estimating body-fat percentage are prone to chuckle-worthy levels of error. I recommend you do not attempt it.
11. Importantly, those with a lot of body fat to lose will need to adjust Protein Intake Down A Little, Swapping for Carbs or Fats.

While a good heuristic for many, the “1 g per lb rule” will set protein intake too high for overweight or obese people. I’d suggest you set your protein intake as per your height using the chart above.
So, if you’re 260 lbs and 6’0, instead of consuming ~260 g of protein as I have in the calculator, consume 180 g and swap the 80 g remaining for carbs to maintain the calorie balance. This will be better for satiety, diet variety, and training quality.
Some people may argue that this protein figure is a little too low to be protective of muscle mass when dieting.
I disagree.
Having a lot of fat mass is protective of muscle mass. This makes sense when you think about it from a survival perspective. When the body comes to choose between releasing fatty acids or breaking down muscle into amino acids for fuel, the smarter decision for survival is to burn off fat when there is an abundance of it. Therefore, protein needs are likely a bit lower for the 260 lb guy with 160 lbs of muscle mass vs. the 200 lb guy with the same muscle mass.
Using whey protein to help you meet your numbers is fine, but real food tends to be more filling. Speaking about food, don’t worry about “complete” and “incomplete” proteins — whey and animal products may be the most “complete” proteins, but as long as you hit your targets by the end of the day it won’t make a difference.

12. Too many people make calorie and macro calculations, wait two weeks, then decide that they “don’t work” if they don’t see the calculated for scale weight change.
They then move to another macro calculator (or diet method entirely).
This is sadly common. Don’t be this person.
A simple adjustment of your caloric intake up or downwards is all that will be needed. (Reasons 2-4, at rates described in 5, in the manner described in 7.) Don’t make this mistake.
13. If you have already calculated your macros elsewhere and they aren’t radically different, I don’t suggest you change them.
The key, as I’ve covered, is that you track your progress and adjust based on the outcome.
MACRO CALCULATOR FAQ

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Hi Andy,
Thanks for this, fantastic breakdown.
I’m WFH but doing basic dumbbell home workouts each morning with a walk in the afternoon (currently averaging 7k total steps per day). Would you pick ‘sedentary’ or ‘light’?
I’m 6″4 201lb aiming to recomp. Usually train 5 days a week but COVID put a halt to all of that in 2020. As a result body fat % has increased and muscle mass has somewhat decreased.
Thanks,
Matt
Hi Matt. Mostly sedentary.
At what point would you adjust your protein intake? After you lose 5 lbs? 10 lbs? 20 lbs?
After you make your 4 week adjustment, do you adjust again in another 4 weeks?
Hi Carly, I don’t usually adjust protein intake. This is because I set protein intake for clients based on the level of muscle mass I estimate they have, which means I won’t set it higher than necessary in the first place. But I have 10 years of experience, readers don’t have that, so what I do and what I recommend readers do, has to differ.
If you’re considerably above the line in note 11, you can reduce it. Regarding the frequency of adjustments, see my guide: How To Adjust Macros As You Diet To Keep Progressing
Hey, Andy. Thanks for the content.
In the past I used calculator at sareyko.net, until it was taken down. The split there between workout days and rest days was different in terms of how much fat there was on rest days. It was something like zero carbs, 2g of prot per kg of lean weight, and the rest were fats.
Is this a viable option?
You could do that when dieting, but it’s better to avoid extremes. You’d certainly want to avoid such a low carb intake when bulking. More on this here: How To Set Your Macros for Fat Loss and Muscle Growth
Hey Andy, thanks so much for your content. I downloaded yout diet set up guide a few years prior, which was a tremendous help! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to download the updated guide. I already tried out 2 of my email-adresses and so far I haven’t received it yet.
Do you happen to know what could cause this issue or by any chance send it to me manually? Please let me know 🙂
Hi Stanley, I’ve just sent you an email. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Hi Andy !! Do we also have to subtract our fiber intake from the total carbs we eat ?
As fibers are not absorbed and just pass through the system.
Hi Trishant, thank you for the question. You’ll see it covered here: Should I Count ‘Net Carbs’ Or All Carbs?
Hi Andy
I work as carpenter standing a lot on my feet and 2/3 days I do around 10000 steps in the working environment. Which activity does it suit best light ? High ?
No workouts at all at night.
Thank you
Hi Stefano, I’d try lightly active.
Is it normal for weight to suddenly stall , decrease or increase more than expected in a bulking phase even though I have been eating roughly the same macros everyday?
I have been bulking for 4 months now and this is a part of the data recorded:
74
74.3
74.4
74.6
74.8
74.7
75.2
75.3
75.4
The data above shows the weekly average for 9 weeks. Sometimes my weight will increase more than I want from 74.7 to 75.2 and sometimes even decreased slightly from 74.8 to 74.7.
Hi James, perfectly normal. Plot the points, draw a trend line, that’s your average. Adjust accordingly. See the third part of my How to Bulk Without Getting Fat guide for how to do that.
Hi Andy, I have a weighing scale which also measures body fat percentage and since the last 3 weeks. My body fat percentage on average is 14.8%, and I’ve been eating mantainance calories till now. Although I sure workout 6 days a week, and I want to gain muscle, but I’m not able to understand whether I should go with a recomposition or a bulk. I’ve been staying on average the same weight or have lost just a little bit over the last 3 weeks, and I’ve been training 6 days a week since almost 6 months now. Can you help me here ?
Hi Trishant, thank you for the question.
Ignore what your scale said. They all have accuracy issues. How To Track Your Physique Progress
But I’ve read the bulk vs cut guide but still confused whether to bulk or maintain and go for a recomposition, being 6 months into training, I would be considered a novice or intermediate .
It’s impossible to define because the categories aren’t distinct, it’s a continuous spectrum. Try the recomp. See how you do over a few months. Switch if it doesn’t work.
Im new to weight training, so I decided to recomp.
But when should I stop recomp and start cut/buff ?
Thanks
Hi Frankie, you’ll find it covered here: Should I Bulk vs Cut (or Recomp)? The Definitive Guide
Hi Andy. Your site is amazing. Just the information I’ve been looking for. Sorry if I missed the answer to this question somewhere but on days you work out, should you make up those burned calories and eat more? Or as the calorie calculator factors in your activity level should you just stick to those calories everyday? I’ve been using Cronometer to track my macros and it was set where when I put in an activity, it would subtract those calories and some days I’d probably end up eating almost 3000 calories while your calculator says I need about 2200. I do have some belly fat that’s been hanging on so could be the issue? Thanks again.
Hi Jason,
The calories from your workouts and general activity are factored into the calculation. Don’t try to eat back the calories based on what your app/device thinks you burned — they all have inaccuracies and doing so adds unnecessary complication. Track your progress like this and then adjust based on the outcome over time.
Hey Andy,
Great info. It has my cutting cals below my bmr calories. Is this OK? I assume so but countless articles always say don’t go under bmr or gains will basically vanish asap.
Hi Troy, thanks for the question.
Yes, it’s fine.
The way we calculate the deficit is by multiplying your BMR by an activity multiplier, then subtracting a calorie amount to create the desired deficit.
Those who have low activity levels may find that their calorie target when cutting is below BMR. But just because this threshold is crossed, doesn’t mean muscle will be lost.
The way to lose muscle is by,
1. providing an insufficient training stimulus,
2. losing weight faster than you should, due to having too low of a calorie intake,
3. eating an insufficient quantity of protein.
The you’ve used the calculator above, you’ll be taking care of 2 and 3. If you find that your weight drops too quickly, this means that you’ve underestimated your activity expenditure, and you need to bump calorie intake up a little. Do this as explained in note 7.
Hello Andy,
So am 18 180 pound and 5 10. I started losing weight 3 month ago I lost about 6 kilograms using myfitnesspal app. However, my calculated calorie intake is less than the calorie I got here by 500 calories! Should I take a diet break? Adjust my calorie intake?
I workout 4 days a week.
Thanks for the help!
Hi Andy, thank you for the question.
Once you have made a calculation and have been using it for a while as you have, it’s better to track progress and adjust what you are doing, if necessary, than recalculate things. This is because calculations are merely estimations of what you need. But you now have data telling you what is right.
This article should be helpful: How To Adjust Macros As You Diet To Keep Progressing
Hello Andy,
I am so happy that I came across your site. Love all the info.
I am 44 years old, 5’6. Current weight 147lbs.
I started counting macros with an online coach for 12 weeks and lost 13 lbs. My numbers are [deleted, per comment rules], but for the last 6 weeks, I have been hovering between 146 and 148lbs and can’t lose any more.
What do you recommend I do to continue to lose weight?
Hi Rima, it’s not my place to step in when you have a coach, but this article shows how I think through adjustments during a diet phase: How To Adjust Macros As You Diet To Keep Progressing
Hi! I have a doubt about protein intake… If my IMC is 24, i have to use the 1g/lb rule or the graphic? (My calculations give a higher number with the 1g/lb rule than the graphic and that confuse me).
Hi Sandra, what is IMC?
Thank you!
Most welcome.
Hi,
TDCI is about 1700. When I cycle caloric intake for training/rest days, the TDIC increases to about 1800 or so on training days. Why the increase? What’s the difference between TDCI and TDCI on training days? I thought the TDCI already included training days?
Hi Nicole,
Calorie cycling means to have more calories on certain days than others. I’ve written about it in my nutrition setup guide, but this specific part is here on the site: A Nutrient Timing Guide To Maximize Fat Loss and Muscle Growth.
Hi Andy,
I’m vegan. Any adaptation you would suggest, based on all your previous advice?
Thanks a lot 🙂
Hi Fernando, see here: How To Minimize Performance and Muscle Growth Compromises While Following A Vegan Diet
Hi Andy,
Based on my caloric needs 1700, I find myself suited to 120 grams of protein but on this page says that I would need 165, is that fine without muscle loss? I exercise 6 times a week, starting at 80 kg around 176 pounds, 25% around body fat, 5’4 and goal to loose as much fat as possible and now at 75 kg around 165 pounds, and my macros are around 200g of carbs, 120g of protein, and 40-50g of fats, is that fine for me? I spend much time home, studying.
Hi Aaron, this is covered in point 11.
More on protein needs and recommendations relative to the other macros here: How To Set Your Macros for Fat Loss and Muscle Growth
Hi Andy, I have a suggestion. It’d be great if users could manually input their estimated daily caloric needs (on page 2/5) or adjust the number up or down. I know my estimated daily caloric needs based on following your method of adjusting over time to dial it in but still want to use the calculator to do the macro calcs for me. I’d guess there are other people in the same boat as me. Thanks for all your work!!!
Thank you for the feedback, Tim. 🙂
Hi Andy,
Are there a minimum number of calories you would recommend for a male ? In 200lbs so 1% BW for me is 2lbs which would be 1000 calorie daily deficit. Is it too big of a deficit and how many calories are too low as a rough guide ?
Thanks
Matt
This is a common question, one I should have addressed in detail by now. Thank you for asking it.
It’s impossible to give a specific number, but I can teach you how to find it.
The two most important things to when dieting are:
1) That we burn fat, not hard-earned muscle.
2) That we cover our micronutrient needs so that health isn’t compromised.
If you train appropriately hard, don’t lose weight too fast, and consume enough protein, you shouldn’t have any issues maintaining muscle mass. Neglect any of these three things, and it’s a real possibility.
We’re at a higher risk of micronutrient deficiencies when dieting.
Less food = less nutrition.
To have the best shot at covering your needs while sticking to your calorie budget, make sure you’re eating plenty of vegetables, and try to get some fruit in your diet, as your calorie budget allows. These are relatively low-calorie, but nutrient-dense foods.
It’s worth taking a standard one-a-day multivitamin/mineral. And unless you eat a lot of fatty fish, consider supplementing with fish oils (for the DHA/EPA). Bear in mind that these things are an insurance policy on a good diet; they cannot make up for a shitty one.
You might want to lose weight faster than I advise (0.5–1% of body weight per week) because you don’t care if you lose muscle, and you wonder if this is “safe.”
Severe calorie restriction makes micronutrient deficiencies more likely. Over time this may cause health issues.
But usually, fatigue, hunger, or sleep issues will force you to bring your calories back up at some point. — It is difficult for a person to starve themselves into malnutrition when food is readily available.
There is something called Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome (REDS), which *chronic* dieters should watch out for. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that a person can cause metabolic damage by restricting calories.
Bear in mind that dieting is controlled starvation. If your current body fat is too high, you’ll get healthier by leaning out. But once you’re in a healthy body fat range, you can’t optimize health while in a calorie deficit.
Lastly, remember, it’s only possible to know your calorie deficit by looking at your weight loss over time.
Macro calculators can only provide estimates, people suck at tracking calorie intake, and the food intake trackers themselves have issues. Further, calorie maintenance is not a fixed number due to metabolic adaptation.
It requires a 500 kcal deficit daily to lose 1 lb per week (~0.5 kg). So, if you are losing 1 lb per week on average, your deficit is NOT 1000 kcal, despite what you may have calculated. It’s 500 kcal.
So make sure you track your scale weight, as this is the only way to determine if you’re in a calorie deficit or not.
This is why I give weight-loss recommendations, not calorie deficit recommendations. You’ll find all of these things covered in detail in the articles on the site. I’d start with my Nutrition Setup Guide.