Calculate Your Macros

This Macros calculator uses the process detailed below to figure out your macro amounts based on your TDEE, weight, and goal (cutting, maintenance, or bulking). It's uses the generic ratios of:

• .75g of protein per pound of body weight
• .3g (cut), .4g (maintain), .5g (bulk) of fats per pound of body weight
• The remaining calories from carbs

This is a good starting point for most people. Feel free to tinker, although I don't recommend going lower than .75 grams of protein per pound of body weight (unless you're not doing resistance training, than you can go down to .5) and no lower than .3 grams of fats per pound of bodyweight. I also recommend avoiding high glycemic index carbs (sugar, white rice, white bread, chips, startches, etc.). Try to get your carbs from vegetables, beans, chickpeas, brown rice, sweet potatoes, yams, berries, and stuff like that. Other than that, have at!

Cutting
Maintenance
Bulking
Weight in pounds
TDEE

How this calculator uses your TDEE to calculate your macros

This calculater uses your TDEE to back into your macro values based on whether you're cutting, bulking or maintaining.

First, calculate your TDEE based on your activity levels. For this example, I'm going to use my own. My stats: Male, 185 pounds, 72 inches, 50 years old, lightly active (because even though I workout 6 days a week, I spend most of my time sitting on my ass in front of a computer). These values return a TDEE of 2,275 calories.

This works out to:

• Cutting (@ 1 pound a week): 1,775 calories (2,275 - 500)
• Maintaining: 2,275 (no change)
• Bulking: 2,475 calories (2,275 + 200 for a slow bulk to minimize fat gain)

Now, using these values, we're going to figure out macro amounts. Before we do though, I suggest reading about how much protein you need. If you know your body fat percentage, figure out your lean body mass and consume .9 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass.

If you don't know your body fat percentage, we'll have to ball park your protein amount. Studies cited in the link above determined that 1.5 grams per kilogram is about all your body can use. To pad it a little, we'll round that to .75 grams per pound of total body weight. If you want to eat more, go ahead, but it won't make a difference when it comes to building muscle.

Maintaining

To maintain, I stay at 2,275 calories a day. My protein remains the same: 185 x .75 = 140 grams of protein.

Protein: 140 grams (140 x 4 = 560 calories) - Calories remaining: 1,715

I'm going to aim for .6g of fat per pound: 185 x .4 = 74 grams of fat.

Fat: 74 grams (74 x 9 = 666 calories) - Calories remaining: 1049

The rest of the calories go into healthy carbs. 1049 calories works out to 262 grams of carbs.

Carbs: 262 grams (258 x 4 = 1049 calories) - Calories remaining: 0

On a maintenance diet, I'm going to eat

140 grams of protein

74 grams of healthy fat

262 grams of healthy carbs

Adjusting Your Numbers

If you are bulking or cutting, your numbers will change as your weight changes, so don't forget to adjust your macros as you gain or lose.

There's some evidence that increases fat intake can help with fat lose (the whole low carb thing). If you want to go that route to see if it works for you, try going for a 50/50 split between calories after getting your protein. Another way to do it is to assign a static number for carbs, like 100 a day and fill the rest with fat.

As I mentioned above, you can eat more protein if you want -- there's no harm in it (not until you get older), however, there doesn't seem to be any added benefit as far as muscle growth. It might accelerate weight loss slightly since protein takes more energy to digest. It also takes longer to digest (as do fats), so if your hunger pains are bothersome, adding more protein and/or fat and reducing carbs might help.

I recommend getting into the habit of weighing yourself once a week, on the same day at the same time, like every Sunday morning upon waking. There will be some fluctuations based on what you did the day before, but over all it will even out. Use your new weight each Sunday to adjust based on your goal.