Calorie Calculator — BMR, TDEE & Macros

Real-world use cases

• Set a realistic cut before a wedding or a beach holiday

  You have 12 weeks and want to drop about 6 kg without crashing. Plug in female, 32, 165 cm, 72 kg, moderately active and the maintain line shows roughly 2050 kcal. The "lose 0.5 kg/week" preset puts you near 1550 kcal with 116 g carbs, 116 g protein and 52 g fat. That 500 kcal gap is aggressive but sustainable, and the macro split keeps protein high enough to hold muscle while the scale moves.

• Reverse a stall in the last five kilos

  A lifter at 78 kg has been stuck for three weeks on a flat 1800 kcal. He re-runs the numbers as lightly active instead of moderate (his cardio dropped) and TDEE falls to 2300, not 2550. Suddenly his "deficit" was only 250 kcal, not 750. Switching to the lose 0.25 kg/week preset at his true maintenance gives a slower but honest target he can actually hold.

• Build a clean lean-bulk for a beginner

  A 19-year-old male, 180 cm, 65 kg, training four times a week, wants size without fat. Maintain reads near 2750 kcal. The gain 0.25 kg/week preset adds a 250 kcal surplus to about 3000 kcal, with 300 g carbs, 225 g protein and 100 g fat. That slow surplus is the difference between adding muscle and adding a gut, and the protein target tells him exactly how much chicken, eggs and dairy to plan per day.

• Coach a client by sharing one link

  A trainer onboards a remote client over chat. She fills in the client's stats, picks moderate activity, lands on a 1700 kcal maintain figure, then copies the page URL. Because every input lives in the link, the client opens it and sees the exact same BMR, TDEE and macro grams without re-typing anything. No spreadsheet, no app login, just a shareable starting point they can both tweak.

Common pitfalls

• Picking "moderate" or "very active" by ego. Three gym sessions a week is light-to-moderate, not very active; overstating activity inflates TDEE by 300-500 kcal and quietly erases your deficit. When unsure, drop one tier.

• Trusting the target to the exact calorie. The Mifflin-St Jeor estimate carries a ±10% error, so a 2000 kcal figure really means 1800-2200. Use it as a 2-week starting point, then adjust by what the scale actually does.

• Forgetting that BMR drops as you lose weight. A target set at 80 kg is too high at 72 kg; re-run the calculator every 4-5 kg lost, or the same deficit slowly becomes maintenance and the scale stalls.

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