What Are Macros?
"Macros" is short for macronutrients — protein, carbohydrates, and fat, the three nutrients that provide calories. Protein and carbs each provide about 4 calories per gram; fat provides about 9 calories per gram. A calorie target alone tells you how much to eat; a macro split tells you what to eat it as.
Choosing a Diet Style
Balanced splits work well for general health and most training goals. Higher protein ratios support muscle retention during a calorie deficit. Low-carb and keto styles shift energy from carbohydrates to fat, which some people prefer for appetite control or specific medical reasons — but the right style is the one you can actually sustain, not necessarily the most extreme one.
⚠️ Consult a healthcare provider or registered dietitian before making significant dietary changes, especially for very low-carb or ketogenic diets.
Frequently Asked Questions
Use the TDEE Calculator or Calorie Calculator to find your maintenance calories, then adjust up or down for your goal (surplus to gain, deficit to lose) before entering that number here.
Most active adults do well around 1.6–2.2 g of protein per kg of bodyweight — this calculator's "protein per kg bodyweight" result shows where your selected split lands you, so you can check it against that range.
Fat is more energy-dense than protein or carbohydrates — each gram contains roughly 9 calories, compared to about 4 calories per gram for protein and carbs. This is why a high-fat diet like keto needs relatively few grams of fat to hit a large share of total calories.
No — treat these as a target range, not a strict requirement. Being within 5-10 grams on any given day makes no meaningful difference; consistency over a week matters far more than precision on any single day.