Welcome to the ultimate keto macro calculator to help guide you towards losing body fat or gaining muscle.
Do you find yourself asking what should my macros be on a keto diet? Or how much protein on keto you should intake?
Our keto macro calculator takes your individual needs and creates a one of a kind keto macros percentage breakdown for you all based on your specific goals and preferences.
Whether you're just starting a ketogenic diet or already living the ketogenic lifestyle, the keto macro calculator will give you a terrific starting point for setting up the diet to reach your individual goals.
How to calculate keto macros
- Determine calorie intake
You want to first determine how many calories you will be eating based on your goals. A great starting point for weight maintenance is to multiply your body weight in pounds by 14-16. To lose weight you will eat less than this number and to gain weight you will eat more. Adjust the intake up or down depending on results.
For reference:
Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrates = 4 calories per gram
Fat = 9 calories per gram - Set your protein intake
Set your protein intake between .8 and 1.2 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass (total body weight – fat weight = lean body mass) If you don't know this number, an easy method is to set protein at 1 gram per pound of DESIRED body weight. Example: If you are 200 pounds and want to get down to 160 pounds, then you would eat 160 grams of protein per day.
Multiply this number by 4 to calculate your protein calories - Set your carb intake
A good rule of thumb is to set carb intake at or below 30 grams of net carbs per day. Carb intake will vary for very active individuals, but this is a pretty safe number for most people to enter a state of ketosis.
Multiply this number by 4 to calculate your carbohydrate calories - Set your fat intake
Add your protein and carbohydrate calories (not the gram amount) and subtract it from the calorie number you received from Step 1.
Take this number and divide it by 9 to get your fat grams as fat has 9 calories per gram.
How to use the keto calculator.
Use our calculator below by first selecting whether you are male or female and then selecting your unit measurement of preference (metric or imperial).
If you need additional help for one of the fields, you can hover your mouse cursor over the information button for further information.
Just some rough guidelines for the ketogenic macro calculator.
How much protein on keto should you intake?
- To maintain muscle, at the very minimum we recommend between .6 to .8 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. It is not recommended to drop below .6 which is why we have set .6 as the very minimum value.
- To gain muscle, we recommend you set the keto macro calculator value for protein between .8 and 1.2 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass.
How many carbs on a ketogenic diet?
- Adjust the carb dropdown on the ketogenic diet calculator toward your preferred amount.
- If on a Standard Ketogenic Diet, carbs should be set at or lower than 30g
- We suggest you count TOTAL carbs for all foods vs. net carbs, but either method you decide, be consistent and make adjustments accordingly.
All the information you place into the keto macro calculator will help tailor the data to be 100% personalized to fit your needs and preferences no matter what your goal is (weight loss, muscle gain, increased energy, etc.)
In the end, you can be as detailed or lacks in your approach to calculating and tracking. For those with a very ambitious aesthetic goal may want to err on the side of monitoring more precisely than someone who wants just to shed a few pounds.
If it's causing you more stress than not by tracking, then we suggest you eat ad libitum and merely restrict your carbohydrates to under 30g a day for awhile before diving into maco tracking.
With that being said, let's get calculating.
Common keto macro calculator Q&A
Our keto diet calculator utilizes a combination of the three most accurate formulas known (Mifflin-St.Jeor Formula, Kath-McCardle Formula, and Harris Benefit Formula) and averages them out to determine your total daily energy expenditure. Most other keto macro calculators on the net tend to use only one.
Our ketogenic diet calculator uses body fat percentage to calculate your lean body mass which corresponds to protein intake on a ketogenic diet. The leaner you are, the more protein is required to prevent muscle loss.
If you do not know your body fat percentage, you can get it measured at your local gym, clinic, or measure yourself in the privacy of your own home. Dexa scans have been shown to be the most accurate measurement, but as with any method, there is a varying degree of inaccuracy. Whichever way you decide to measure body fat, make sure to keep it consistent for accurate tracking.
You may also opt to use the visual guide below.
The ketogenic calculator takes your starting weight, desired goal weight, and your goal inputs (
In general, to lose a pound of fat would require a reduction of 3500 calories. If we were to take that 3500 calories and spread it over a one week period, it would need a 500 calorie deficit averaged over each day.
If you had a goal of losing 5 pounds and basing it on a 500 calorie deficit per day, it would take you five weeks to reach your goal weight.
The activity level is based on the number of workouts you perform on a weekly basis. Both the activity level and the number of workouts fields are tied together.
We like to give a general rule of thumb that one workout is equal to at least one hour of actual physical activity.
The goal input fields are limited to both the maximum deficit and surplus fields we recommend for either fat loss or muscle gain. You would then determine how aggressive you would like to either lose or gain weight.
While quicker fat loss is a big motivation and as a society we want results as fast as possible, losing fat or gaining muscle at a slower rate is recommended for general adherence and sustainability over the long term.
When first starting a ketogenic diet we recommend limiting carbohydrates to between 20-30g of TOTAL carbohydrates.
The amount of carbs to induce and stay in ketosis is highly individual, but 20-30g is a great starting point that typically lends itself to an excellent all-around recommendation. Individuals that are more active may be able to handle more while others may even require less.
Ketosis tends to occur within 3-7 days after carbohydrate restriction. Your diet previous to starting a ketogenic diet and your activity levels will play a role in how slow or fast ketosis begins to occur.
It may take upwards of 3 weeks to feel completely normal and possibly more extended for athletes using a ketogenic diet to adapt and outperform their previous levels of athleticism.
To see my self-experiment and tips to get into ketosis quicker check out my post on How long it takes to get into ketosis
While being in ketosis does help many individuals lose TONS of body fat, one does not NEED to be in ketosis to lose boy fat. Losing body fat is a result of having a net negative energy balance (calorie/energy output exceeds calorie/energy input).
However, being in ketosis may help dieters adhere better to a reduction of calories through factors such as satiety and fewer sugar cravings amongst many additional benefits.
To quickly determine net carbs you would take the total amount of carbohydrates and subtract any fiber and/or sugar alcohols.
Net Carbs = Total Carbs – Fiber – Sugar Alcohols
We do suggest counting TOTAL carbs instead of net carbs for simplicity. 
There are a myriad of tests you can utilize to check if your body is in ketosis. The three most popular methods for testing, if you are in ketosis, is ketone urine strips, a ketone blood meter, and the keto breath meter.
Some non-measured ways to gauge if you are in ketosis is a noticeable boost in mental clarity, reduction in hunger, acetone smell to your breath, and increased urination amongst others.
For more information please see my article on How to measure ketosis. 
Some may report feelings of lethargy in the first few days while adapting to a ketogenic diet. You can usually combat this by increasing both your water and electrolyte intake.
You are taking your body and switching its energy source from sugar to fat, and there may be some feelings of tiredness in the beginning. Not to worry though, tons of steady energy is coming your way… just stay the course!
The best way to measure and track your macros is by keeping a food journal. You can easily accomplish this by tracking what you eat in an online app such as My Fitness Pal.
While you don't have to weigh and measure everything forever, it is recommended to do so for a few months to at the very least gain a better understanding of portion size and macro breakdown in different foods.
The more aggressive your aesthetic goals, the more we recommend you track your macros.
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