Select Gender:
Age:
Weight (kg):
Height (cm):
Activity Level:
Select Goal:
The macro calculator tells you how much protein, carbs, and fat to eat in a day. Six things go in: gender, age, weight, height, activity level, goal. Out comes a split across all three, built around whatever goal you picked.
“Eat more protein” means something different for a 55 kg person than a 95 kg one. Add goal into the mix and it gets more specific still. Cutting fat, building muscle, holding steady: each one wants its own ratio of protein to carbs, not a flat percentage borrowed from somewhere else. That’s really the whole point of putting your own numbers in.
What Are Macros?
Macros, short for macronutrients, are the three things in food that actually carry calories: protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Protein and carbs each give 4 calories per gram. Fat gives 9. Alcohol counts too, technically, at 7 calories a gram, but most calculators skip it.
Total calories say how much to eat. Macros say what that food is made of. That difference is where things like fullness, muscle retention, and afternoon energy crashes tend to live, not in the calorie count by itself.
How to Use the Macro Calculator
Six fields. One click.
- Pick gender from the dropdown.
- Enter age in years.
- Type in weight, measured in kilograms.
- Type in height, measured in centimeters.
- Choose an activity level: sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, or very active.
- Choose a goal: maintain weight, fat loss, or muscle gain.
- Hit Calculate.
- Daily calories, protein, carbs, and fat show up underneath.
Typo somewhere, or just want to test a different scenario? Tap Reset and start over.
How Macros Are Calculated
It starts with BMR, and runs through the Mifflin-St Jeor formula. Multiply that by an activity number and you get TDEE. From there, the goal you picked nudges things: fat loss knocks 400 calories off, muscle gain adds 300, maintenance just leaves the number where it is.
Protein and fat come next, both set as grams per kilogram of body weight, both tied to goal:
- Fat loss: 2.0 g protein per kg, 0.7 g fat per kg
- Muscle gain: 1.8 g protein per kg, 0.8 g fat per kg
- Maintenance: 1.6 g protein per kg, 0.8 g fat per kg
Whatever’s left over after protein and fat are counted turns into carbs, at 4 calories a gram.
Take the same 25-year-old man from the TDEE calculator page: 70 kg, 175 cm, moderately active, trying to maintain. BMR works out to 1674 kcal. Moderate activity pushes that to around 2595 kcal for TDEE. At 1.6 g protein and 0.8 g fat per kilogram, he’s looking at 112 g protein and 56 g fat, 952 calories combined. What’s left, roughly 1643 calories, becomes carbs, somewhere near 411 g.
Macronutrient Ranges by Goal
Goal | Protein (g/kg) | Fat (g/kg) | Carbs |
Fat Loss | 2.0 | 0.7 | Remaining calories |
Muscle Gain | 1.8 | 0.8 | Remaining calories |
Maintenance | 1.6 | 0.8 | Remaining calories |
For a wider reference point, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines list protein at 10 to 35% of daily calories, carbs at 45 to 65%, fat at 20 to 35%. Most people training seriously sit near the top of that protein range anyway. A per-kilogram number tied to an actual goal usually gets closer to real life than a flat percentage does.
From Macros to a Real Plate
Numbers on a screen are easy. Eating them is the harder part.
- Protein: chicken breast, eggs, Greek yogurt, paneer, lentils, fish
- Carbs: rice, oats, potatoes, fruit, whole wheat roti
- Fat: olive oil, nuts, ghee, avocado, seeds
Protein is the one worth getting right, more than carbs or fat down to the gram. During a cut especially, a deficit on its own tends to eat into muscle right along with fat. If 112 g, or your own number, sounds like a lot to plan meals around, the protein intake calculator breaks it into something more manageable.
Where This Macro Calculator Falls Short
The 400-calorie cut for fat loss and the 300-calorie surplus for muscle gain are fixed, built into the tool rather than tailored to you. Someone chasing a faster cut needs a bigger deficit. Someone after a slower, leaner bulk needs less of a surplus than the default gives.
Protein and fat targets here run off total body weight, not lean mass. That means someone carrying more fat ends up with a protein number a touch higher than they actually need. A body fat calculator reading is a reasonable way to sanity-check whether that target still fits your build.
Fiber, micronutrients, meal timing: none of that shows up here either, even though all three shape how a diet feels day to day, long after the macro math checks out.
FAQs
How many macros should I eat a day?
Depends on goal and body weight. A common starting point is 1.6 to 2.0 g of protein and 0.7 to 0.8 g of fat per kg, with carbs filling in whatever’s left.
What's the best macro split for weight loss?
Higher protein tends to work best, around 2.0 g per kg, alongside a moderate calorie deficit. It helps hold onto muscle while the number on the scale drops.
Do macros matter more than calories?
Not really. Calories decide whether weight goes up or down. Macros decide what that change is made of: muscle or fat.
Can I hit my macros and still not lose weight?
Only if the calorie target behind them is wrong. Macros just split up that number, so a bad activity level or goal setting throws everything off downstream
Is a high protein diet safe?
For most healthy adults, yes. Up to around 2.0 to 2.2 g per kg is generally considered fine, and plenty of athletes eat at that level without any issue.