Lifting and Nutrition Calculators
Eight free calculators for people who lift: what to eat, what to load on the bar, and how strong you are. Each one works in pounds or kilograms, shows the formula behind the answer, and keeps a plain chart underneath that still works with JavaScript off.
Most people only need two of these: one for food and one for the bar. Find your question below.
| If you want to know… | Use | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| How many calories to eat to lose fat, hold steady or build muscle | Calorie calculator | Maintenance calories (TDEE) and a daily target |
| How much protein to eat a day | Protein calculator | Grams a day, a range and grams per meal |
| How to split your calories into protein, carbs and fat | Macro calculator | Daily grams of each, split into 3 or 4 meals |
| What your max is, or what 80% of it weighs | One rep max calculator | An estimated 1RM from any set and a 50 to 100% table |
| Which plates go on each side of the bar | Plate calculator | Plates per side for any weight, bar and plate set |
| How to warm up for a heavy set | Warm-up sets calculator | Every warm-up set, rounded to loadable plates |
| How strong you are against lifters of any bodyweight | DOTS calculator | DOTS, Wilks and Wilks 2020 scores and a rough band |
| Your body fat percentage without a scan | Body fat calculator | A US Navy tape estimate, fat mass and lean mass |
The one rep max calculator sits in the Getting Stronger section, so it is not in the numbered list below.
Every calculator
- 01Protein Calculator: Grams a Day and Per MealEnter your weight and goal to get a daily protein target in grams, a range, grams per meal and what one meal looks like as food. Chart for 100–300 lb.Beginner
- 02Calorie Calculator: Maintenance, Cut and BulkFree TDEE calculator using Mifflin-St Jeor. Get your maintenance calories, a safe target to lose fat or build muscle, and how to adjust it after 2 to 3 weeks.Beginner
- 03Macro Calculator: Protein, Carbs and FatFree macro calculator for weight loss, maintenance or muscle gain. Daily grams of protein, carbs and fat, calories and percentages, split into 3 or 4 meals.Beginner
- 04Plate Calculator: What to Put on the BarType a target weight, pick your bar and plates, and see exactly what goes on each side, in lb or kg. Plus a plates-per-side chart from 95 to 405 lb.Beginner
- 05Warm-Up Sets CalculatorEnter your working weight and reps to get every warm-up set, rounded to 5 lb or 2.5 kg, with weight per side and rest. Ramp tables for squat, bench and deadlift.Beginner
- 06DOTS and Wilks CalculatorEnter your bodyweight and squat, bench and deadlift total to get your DOTS score, original Wilks and Wilks 2020, plus a rough strength band and a DOTS chart in lb and kg.Intermediate
- 07Body Fat Calculator, US Navy Tape MethodEstimate your body fat percentage with a tape measure: the US Navy formula for men and women, fat and lean mass in lb or kg, and how to measure right.Beginner
How the calculators connect
Food: calories, then macros, then protein. The calorie calculator estimates maintenance with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and sets a target: a deficit of no more than 500 calories a day to lose fat, or 200 to 300 over maintenance to build muscle. The macro calculator takes that same target and fills it, protein first, fat second at 25 to 30% of calories, carbs with what is left. The protein calculator zooms in on the one macro that matters most for muscle: about 1.6 g per kilogram (0.7 g per pound) a day, 1.8 to 2.2 g/kg while cutting, and what that is per meal.
If you only want one food number, make it protein. It needs nothing but your bodyweight, and what 100 g of protein looks like turns the grams into food.
The bar: 1RM, then plates, then warm-up sets. Say a program like the 12-week strength program asks for 75% of your squat. One hard set of 3 to 6 reps gives the one rep max calculator enough to estimate your max, say 245 lb. Seventy-five percent is about 185 lb. The plate calculator says that is 70 lb a side on a 45 lb bar: a 45 and a 25. The warm-up calculator then ramps you there: the empty bar for 10, then about 95, 130 and 155 lb for 5, 3 and 2 reps.
Progress checks: DOTS and body fat. These two are not daily tools. Run the DOTS calculator after a training block, when your squat, bench and deadlift have moved, and the body fat calculator every four to eight weeks during a cut or a recomposition, measured the same way each time.
If you are new to lifting
You do not need a max, a strength score or percentages in your first year. Set your protein, learn to load the bar, and follow a simple beginner plan that adds a little weight each week; progressive overload does the rest. Warm-up sets matter from day one; the warm-up guide explains the ramp. Percentage work earns its place once adding weight every week has stopped working on its own. If you have not started yet, begin with the Start Lifting section.
How accurate are these numbers?
Every answer here is an estimate, and each page says how good it is.
- Calories: good to about 10% either way for most people. Eat the target for two to three weeks, watch your weekly average weight, and move it 100 to 200 calories if the scale does not do what you expected.
- One rep max: close from a set of 3 to 6 reps, looser the more reps you count, and not worth estimating past 15.
- Body fat: the tape method lands within about 3 to 4 percentage points for most adults. A reading of 20% means somewhere between about 16 and 24%, which is why the trend matters more than any single number.
- Plates and warm-ups: plain arithmetic, exact to the plates your gym has.
The food calculators will not set a target below 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men. If you are pregnant, have kidney disease or have been told to limit protein, set your numbers with your doctor. And if you are dieting while lifting, cutting without losing muscle covers what to do with the numbers once you have them.