Work out your maintenance calories, a realistic weight-loss target and a daily protein goal — in seconds, with no sign-up. Metric or stone & pounds.
Estimates use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. Individual needs vary — track your real weight trend over 2-3 weeks and adjust. Not medical or weight-management advice.
Knowing your calorie goal is step one. MacroSnap makes step two — actually tracking it — take seconds. Snap a meal, or tap from 120+ UK foods. No account needed to start.
Track my calories free →BMR is what your body burns at complete rest. TDEE adds your daily movement — eat at this number to maintain your weight. To lose fat, eat a few hundred calories below it; to build, eat above. The calculator has already applied your chosen goal to give the top "calories a day" figure.
A safe, sustainable loss is around 0.5kg (1lb) a week, which needs roughly a 500-calorie daily deficit. Bigger deficits work faster but are harder to stick to and can cost you muscle — which is why the protein target matters.
Most people underestimate what they eat by 20-40%, especially with takeaways, sauces, oils and drinks. You don't need to weigh everything forever — a few weeks of honest tracking recalibrates your eye. That's exactly what MacroSnap is built for: fast, UK-first, and honest about the fact that a photo is an estimate, not a lab result.
It depends on your age, sex, height, weight and activity. Most UK adults maintain on roughly 1,800-2,600 a day. Use the calculator above for a personal figure, then subtract about 500 a day to lose around 0.5kg (1lb) a week.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure — all the calories you burn in a day: your resting metabolism (BMR) plus movement and exercise. Eat at your TDEE to maintain, below to lose, above to gain.
It's one of the most accurate simple formulas for estimating resting metabolism, but it's still an estimate (±10% is normal). Treat the number as a starting point and adjust based on how your weight actually moves over a few weeks.
Around 1.6-2.2g per kg of body weight if you're active or losing fat while keeping muscle. The calculator suggests about 1.8g per kg as a sensible default.