Macro calculator
Your macros are how your daily calories split into protein, carbohydrate and fat. Enter your details to see daily targets for losing fat, maintaining, or building muscle.
How the macros are set
Calories come first: your maintenance before exercise, from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and your daily activity (the same maths as the calorie deficit calculator). Then protein and fat are set per kg of body weight, and carbohydrates fill the rest.
Cut: calories − 500, protein 2.2 g/kg, fat 0.9 g/kgMaintain: calories, protein 1.8 g/kg, fat 1.0 g/kgBulk: calories + 300, protein 1.8 g/kg, fat 1.0 g/kgBody type: endomorph cut +0.1 g/kg fat; ectomorph bulk −0.1 g/kg fatCarbs = (calories − protein × 4 − fat × 9) ÷ 4 Sources: Mifflin et al. (1990), A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals; Jäger et al. (2017), ISSN position stand: protein and exercise; Helms et al. (2014), Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation
Why protein is higher on a cut
In a calorie deficit, more protein helps you hold on to muscle while you lose fat. Outside a deficit, 1.8 g/kg sits comfortably in the 1.6–2.2 g/kg range research supports for building muscle. For a fuller range by goal, use the protein calculator.
Do carbs or fat matter more?
For body composition, total calories and protein matter most. Beyond enough fat for health, how you split the rest between carbs and fat is largely personal preference. More carbs tends to help hard training, so this calculator gives the leftover calories to carbs.
Training days
These targets assume no exercise. On days you train, eat back some or all of what the workout burns, mostly as carbohydrate. Get Gains does this for you: it adds logged workout calories to your day and tracks your macros as you log food, free on Android. See all the free calculators.