Do you want to lose weight? Gain muscle? Improve health? Boost performance? This free calorie, portion, and macro calculator from Precision Nutrition can help you achieve the results you want… more easily than ever before.
Ready to try it? Click “Get Started” below and enter your information to instantly calculate calories, portions, and macros.
(Once we calculate your macros, we’ll send you a free, personalized guide to using our hand portion system for hitting your calorie and macro targets.)
What makes this macro calculator so great?
Designed, developed, and tested in the Precision Nutrition research lab—and proven effective with thousands of clients—it’s the most comprehensive calorie, portion, and macro calculator available.
Here’s why: The Precision Nutrition Calculator first determines the appropriate daily calories for your body, based on the NIH Body Weight Planner (and adapted from research collected at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease).
This estimate takes into account:
- Your personal details (height, age, weight, sex)
- Physical activity levels (both daily movement and purposeful exercise)
- The date you want to reach your goal by (within reason!)
- The changing and adaptive nature of human metabolism (a major benefit of this calorie calculator)
It then calculates your daily macros, combining the above data with additional factors, including your:
- Nutrition and fitness goals (weight loss, muscle gain, body recomposition, better health, peak performance)
- Dietary preference (Paleo, keto, vegetarian, fully plant-based, Mediterranean, and of course, “anything”)
- Macronutrient preference (balanced, low-fat, low-carb, or virtually any other macronutrient ratio you want)
But here’s the reason this calorie calculator is truly revolutionary: Once it estimates your calorie and macronutrient needs, it automatically converts those numbers into food portions that are equivalent to parts of your hand. (Specifically, your palm, fist, cupped hand, and thumb.)
The result: If you choose, you can skip weighing and measuring your food—as well as logging the details of every meal into calorie and macro tracking apps. Instead, you can use our hand portion tracking system to achieve your calorie and macro targets.
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This unique approach takes the hassle out of calorie and macro tracking, making it easier for you to lose weight, gain muscle, eat healthier, and improve your performance.
The benefits of this calorie, portion, and macro calculator
Some people naturally eat the appropriate amount of food and calories for their individual needs. They’re able to maintain a stable body weight for years—even decades— without counting how many calories they eat, or tracking macros, or ever measuring their portions.
Unfortunately, these “intuitive eaters” represent only a small segment of the human population. The rest of us typically need help with our eating, in the form of external structure and guidance, at least temporarily. This can help you:
- Eat the right number of calories and macros for your goals
- Understand appropriate portion sizes
- Improve your food choices and eating habits
That’s why we created this calorie, portion, and macro calculator. It gives you a nutrition blueprint for achieving your goals and, at the same time, helps you develop the skills you need to eat well for life.
(For optimal results, it’s best to combine this nutrition plan with intuitive eating and self-regulation skills.)
The problem with only tracking calories
Most people know calories matter. If you eat more calories than your body needs, you gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than your body needs, you lose weight.
(Yes, this certainly sounds simple, but as you’ve likely experienced, there are many factors that make managing your calorie intake… not so simple. Learn more here.)
By tracking how many calories you eat, you can better know if you’re consuming the right amount of food for your goals. There are, however, disadvantages to only tracking the total number of calories you eat daily.
Most notably: This method doesn’t ensure you’re getting an appropriate amount of macronutrients for your body, goals, and preferences. Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, this can negatively affect your appetite, hormones, energy levels (especially for physical activity), and nutrient consumption.
And that can make it harder to lose weight, gain muscle, eat healthier, and improve athletic performance.
Why tracking your macros gives you an advantage
Just in case you’re not sure, let’s start by defining what macros, or macronutrients, actually are.
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There are three major macronutrients: Protein, carbohydrates, and fat. (The fourth macronutrient is alcohol.)
Your body breaks down the macronutrients you eat into compounds used to help create energy, build body structures, create chemical reactions, and stimulate the release of hormones. Which means they can impact how you feel, perform, and even behave.
When you track macros, you don’t need to count calorie intake directly. Instead, you log how many grams of each macronutrient you eat every day.
That’s because each macronutrient provides a certain number of calories:
- 1 gram of protein = 4 calories
- 1 gram of carbohydrate = 4 calories
- 1 gram of fat = 9 calories
- (1 gram of alcohol = 7 calories)
As a result, tracking macros means you’re automatically tracking calorie intake. It’s just that you’re ensuring a certain number of calories come from protein, carbohydrates, and fat, respectively. This is known as your macronutrient ratio.
For example, let’s say you eat:
- 30% of your calories from protein
- 40% of your calories from carbohydrate
- 30% of your calories from fat
Your macronutrient ratio would then be: 30:40:30.
By adjusting your macronutrient ratio based on your age, sex, activity levels, goals, and preferences, you can optimize your eating plan.
If you’re trying to lose weight, you might eat a higher proportion of protein, since it can help you feel satisfied longer after meals. Or if you’re a very physically active athlete, you might want a higher ratio of carbohydrates to meet your greater energy demands.
The good news: Our calorie, portion, and macro calculator will figure all of this out for you.
Just enter your information and, within milliseconds, you’ll get a macro ratio that’s customized exactly for your body, goals, and preferences. (Plus, the Precision Nutrition Calculator gives you the option to further adjust these numbers, in case you want to try a different macronutrient ratio.)
Like calorie counting, though, conventional macro tracking has its downsides. Perhaps the biggest challenge: Because it requires careful food measuring and weighing, most people won’t stick to it for long.
Many say it feels cumbersome and even takes the joy out of eating. Which can limit its effectiveness to very short periods of time. That’s where the Precision Nutrition hand portion tracking system comes in.
Hand portions: The easiest way to track calories and macros
When we created this calorie, macro, and portion calculator, we asked:
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How can we help people eat the right amount of food, but without the burden of having to weigh and measure every morsel?
Our solution: to give personalized targets not just for daily calories and macros, but also hand portions. That way, you can use whichever method you prefer.
This hand portion system—developed by Precision Nutrition—allows you to use your own hand as a personalized, portable portioning tool. You’re not actually measuring your food, but rather using your hand to gauge portion size. It’s highly effective for food tracking because your hand is proportionate to your body, its size never changes, and it’s always with you.
Here’s a snapshot of how it works:
- Your palm determines your protein portions.
- Your fist determines your vegetable portions.
- Your cupped hand determines your carb portions.
- Your thumb determines your fat portions.
Based on the calorie, portion, and macro calculator’s output, all you have to do is eat the recommended number of each hand portion daily. (Again, we’ll show you how to put this method fully into practice once you’ve put your information into the Precision Nutrition Calculator and received your free report and eating guide.)
How effective are hand portions for tracking macros?
Our research shows hand portions are 95 percent as accurate (or better) as carefully weighing, measuring, and tracking. With substantially less effort and time involved.
Plus, our hand portion tracking system allows you to easily adjust your intake to further optimize your results.
Ready to get started? Go ahead and enter your information into the calorie, portion, and macro calculator above, and we’ll do the rest, providing you with a free nutrition plan customized just for you.
If you have more questions right now, or want to understand the nutrition rules we used to design this calorie, portion, and macro calculator, see the Resources section for a full breakdown.
If you’re a coach, or you want to be…
You can help people build nutrition and lifestyle habits that improve their physical and mental health, bolster their immunity, help them better manage stress, and get results. We’ll show you how.
If you’d like to learn more, consider the PN Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification.