Calculate Your Ideal Macro Ratios

Most people obsess over macro ratios and ignore their total calories. That’s the wrong order. Calories decide whether you lose or gain weight. Macros decide what that weight is made of — muscle or fat, kept or lost.

Once you know your TDEE, the next step is splitting it between protein, carbs, and fat. Here’s the shortest honest answer.

Start with protein. Aim for 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight each day. A 75 kg person wants about 120-165 grams daily. This one number does more than any other macro decision: it protects your muscle when you’re in a deficit, fuels growth when you’re in a surplus, and keeps you full when you’re eating less. There’s a ceiling, though — going much higher than 2.2 grams per kilo doesn’t build extra muscle. It just makes your grocery bill heroic.

Set fat next. Somewhere between 20 and 35 percent of your total calories covers your hormones, vitamin absorption, and general health. For a 2,500-calorie day, that’s roughly 55 to 95 grams of fat. Go much lower than 20% for long stretches and your hormones and recovery suffer. There’s no reward for extreme low-fat diets.

Fill the rest with carbs. They’re not special, they’re not evil, and they do one job well: fuel hard training. A 2,500-calorie day with 150 grams of protein and 70 grams of fat leaves about 1,250 calories for carbs — roughly 310 grams. If you train hard, you need them. If you don’t, trade some carbs for more fat. The outcome is the same.

For fat loss, keep protein high and let carbs take the cut. You stay full, you hold onto muscle, and your deficit lives in the easiest macro to reduce. For muscle gain, keep protein solid and put the extra calories into carbs — training gets easier and recovery speeds up. For maintenance, any reasonable split works; macro ratios matter less when the goal is staying in place.

Endurance athletes need more carbs than the average. Strength athletes need slightly more protein during a cut. Outside of those cases, the numbers converge on something boring and effective.

A few things matter more than the exact split. Hitting your protein target most days. Eating whole foods for most of your calories. Getting enough fiber, which nobody ever puts on a macro tracker but which affects hunger, digestion, and how your body responds to the food you eat. And staying consistent for longer than three weeks.

A few things that don’t matter. The exact carb-to-fat ratio. Whether you eat three meals or six. Meal timing. The “anabolic window.” What you eat in the first hour after waking up. Most of what the supplement industry has spent the last decade selling.

Get your calorie target from the TDEE calculator. Set protein to about 2 grams per kilo of body weight. Set fat to 25% of your calories. Everything else is carbs. That’s 90% of the answer.