Every great nutrition plan starts with two simple, non-negotiable data points: your biological gender and your age. You'll notice the calculator asks for biological gender (not identity) — and that's intentional. The science behind calorie and protein calculations is based on physiological differences in muscle mass, hormonal profiles, and metabolic rate between biological males and females. Getting this right from the start means your numbers will actually reflect how your body works.

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  Biological Gender Select Male or Female from the dropdown. This determines which version of the BMR formula is used in the next step — the two formulas have different constants because men typically carry more lean muscle mass relative to body size.
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  Age (18 – 120 years) Enter your current age in whole years. Age matters because your metabolic rate naturally decreases as you get older, and the calculator makes specific adjustments — particularly for protein targets — once you're over 50 to counter age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia).

Once you've filled in both fields, hit Next → to move on. The calculator will flag any issues if something looks off — just follow the prompts.

Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the number of calories your body burns just to stay alive — breathing, keeping your heart beating, regulating temperature, running your organs — even if you lay completely still all day. Think of it as your body's baseline fuel consumption. Everything else in this calculator is built on top of this number, so getting it right matters.

First, choose your BMR formula. The calculator gives you two scientifically validated options:

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  Mifflin-St Jeor (Recommended for most people) The gold-standard formula used by dietitians worldwide. It calculates BMR using your height, weight, age, and gender. Highly accurate for the general population and requires no additional measurements. Start here unless you know your body fat percentage.
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  Katch-McArdle (Best for athletic or lean individuals) This formula uses your lean body mass (the weight of everything in your body except fat) to calculate BMR. Because it ignores fat tissue — which burns very few calories at rest — it's significantly more accurate for people with a lower body fat percentage. To use it, you'll need to enter your body fat %.

Next, choose your units — Metric (cm, kg) or Imperial (inches, lbs) — using the toggle buttons. Then enter your height and weight.

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  Height Metric: 60–300 cm. Imperial: 24–118 inches. Enter your height without shoes.
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  Weight Metric: 30–300 kg. Imperial: 66–661 lbs. Use your current body weight, measured in the morning before eating or drinking for consistency. Don't estimate — even a 5 kg difference can shift your targets meaningfully.

Once your BMR is calculated, you'll also see your BMI (Body Mass Index) — a general population health screening tool. Keep in mind that BMI has well-known limitations (it doesn't account for muscle mass, bone density, or body composition), so treat it as a rough reference point rather than a definitive health verdict.

Your BMR only tells you what you burn at rest. Step 3 multiplies your BMR by an activity multiplier to produce your TDEE: Total Daily Energy Expenditure — the number of calories you burn in a full, real day.

Select the activity level that most accurately reflects your typical week — including both structured exercise and your general daily movement:

Your TDEE is displayed immediately after you select an activity level. You'll also see a ? button next to the heading — tap it for a detailed explanation of how the TDEE formula works.

This step produces your TDCI — Target Daily Calorie Intake — the number of calories you should eat every day to move towards your goal. It's calculated by taking your TDEE and applying an adjustment based on what you select here.

Choose one of three primary goals by tapping the card that applies to you:

After selecting your goal, a calorie adjustment slider appears. The slider shows your projected rate of change per week alongside a colour-coded safety indicator — green for optimal, amber for caution, red for a warning.

This is where the calculator stops being generic and starts being genuinely yours. Step 5 gathers four layers of information that dramatically change the quality and relevance of your macro targets and meal plan.

Training Type

Select the type of training you do most. This directly influences the ratio of protein, carbs, and fat the calculator recommends in Step 6:

Dietary Preferences

Tap all the tags that apply — you can select multiple. This filters your meal plan to only suggest foods that fit your dietary needs and personal preferences:

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  Dietary restrictionsNo restrictions, Vegan, Vegetarian, Keto, Dairy-free, Gluten-free, Nut-free, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher
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  Cuisine preferencesNigerian 🇳🇬, African 🌍, Mediterranean 🫒, Asian 🥢, Caribbean 🌴 — your meal plan will feature dishes from your selected cuisine traditions, from Jollof rice and Suya to Shakshuka, Pho, and Jerk Chicken

Meals Per Day

Select how many meals you'd like your daily plan built around — 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. The honest science: meal frequency has no meaningful effect on fat loss or muscle gain by itself. Choose the frequency that fits your schedule and that you can realistically sustain.

Lifestyle Factors

Two sliders capture your sleep quality and stress level — generating personalised advisory flags so you have a complete picture of the factors influencing your results:

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  Sleep Quality Poor (under 6 hrs) / Good (7–8 hrs) / Excellent (8+ hrs). Poor sleep raises ghrelin (your hunger hormone) and lowers leptin (your fullness hormone) — making sticking to any calorie target significantly harder.
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  Stress Level Low / Moderate / High. High stress triggers elevated cortisol, which promotes visceral fat storage, increases cravings for calorie-dense foods, and impairs muscle recovery.

You now know how many calories to eat. Step 6 tells you what those calories should be made of. Your macronutrients — protein, carbohydrates, and fats — determine whether your calories build muscle, fuel performance, support hormones, or simply keep you satisfied. They are not interchangeable.

The calculator automatically pre-sets your macro split based on your training type, goal, and age. You can then customise each macro using three sliders — the calculator will warn you if protein falls too low, fats drop to a level that impairs hormones, or carbs reach an extreme that affects training performance.

Your results also show your estimated daily dietary fibre target and recommended water intake — both significantly impact how well your plan works in practice.

This is what it's all been building towards. Step 7 delivers your complete, personalised nutrition plan — presented in four parts.

Part 1: Your Results Summary

A clear summary card shows all your key numbers in one place: BMR, TDEE, TDCI, and your macro targets in grams — along with fibre and water goals. Two action buttons sit here:

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  Copy Results to ClipboardCopies all your results as formatted text so you can paste them into a notes app, message, or spreadsheet — or share with a coach or training partner.
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  Print / Save as PDFOn desktop and Android, opens your browser's print dialogue — choose "Save as PDF". On iPhone, the calculator shows step-by-step instructions to save via the Share menu instead.

Part 2: Calorie Cycling

Rather than eating the same calories every day, the calculator builds a smart calorie cycling strategy that matches your fuel intake to your actual energy demands:

Part 3: Your Personalised Meal Plan

A full daily meal plan structured around the number of meals you chose in Step 5, with dish suggestions drawn from your selected cuisines and dietary preferences. Not happy with the suggestions? Hit 🔄 Regenerate Meals to instantly get a fresh set.

Part 4: Progress Re-entry

The Update Your Weight & Recalculate box lets you enter your new weight as you make progress. The entire plan refreshes instantly — without starting over from Step 1.

Navigating between steps

Once you've completed a step, it appears in the progress bar at the top in red — and becomes clickable. Jump back to any completed step at any time to tweak a number. You never have to start from scratch.

The calculator gives you accurate, science-backed numbers. What you do with those numbers determines your results. Here are the things that separate people who get results from people who don't:

1. Weigh yourself consistently. Same scale, same time of day (morning, before eating or drinking), same clothing. Look at your 7-day average trend — not individual readings.

2. Track what you eat for at least two weeks. Most people significantly underestimate their calorie intake. Apps like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal will show you whether you're actually hitting your targets.

3. Validate your activity level. If your weight isn't moving in the expected direction after 2–3 weeks, your activity level estimate is likely off. Drop it one level and see what happens.

4. Prioritise protein above everything else. It preserves muscle, keeps you fuller for longer, and has the highest thermic effect of any macronutrient. If you're going to be flexible with anything, let it be carbs and fats — not protein.

5. Update your numbers as you progress. Use the re-entry box in Step 7 every 4–6 weeks. Your targets should evolve with your body.

6. Sleep and stress are not optional extras. No calorie target can fully compensate for a hormonal environment working against you. If your lifestyle scores were concerning, treat those as priorities alongside your nutrition.