Carnivore Diet Macro Calculator
This calculator gives you a daily calorie, protein and fat target for a carnivore diet: calories come from your resting energy expenditure multiplied by your activity level, protein is set from your goal body weight, fat fills the calories protein does not account for, and carbs are zero. The full method is shown further down the page.
Your Daily Calorie Target
calories per day
—
Protein
—g
—% of calories
Fat
—g
—% of calories
Carbs
0g
carnivore baseline
Protein is —% of calories, above the 35% upper end of the Institute of Medicine's Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range for adults. That range was set for general diets; talk to your doctor if you plan to stay here long-term, especially with kidney disease.
Your protein target on its own accounts for more calories than the calorie target, so fat is shown as 0 g. That combination usually means the goal weight is far above the current weight — check both entries, and treat the calorie figure as the one to revisit.
What That Looks Like
About — oz of cooked ribeye covers the protein, and brings — g of the fat. That is also roughly — large eggs' worth of protein.
About the Zero
A strictly meat-based diet has no carbohydrate to speak of, but eggs and dairy carry trace carbs that add up faster than most people expect. The Hidden Carbs in Dairy counter shows what yours come to.
How This Calculator Works
1. Resting energy
Resting energy expenditure comes from the Mifflin–St Jeor equation, published in 1990 and still the one most commonly used in practice:
Men: 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age + 5
Women: 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age − 161
Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, Hill LA, Scott BJ, Daugherty SA, Koh YO. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;51(2):241–247. PubMed
2. Activity factor
Resting energy is multiplied by an activity factor. These are the conventional estimates used across the field — they are not part of the Mifflin paper, and they are not measured for you.
| Activity level | Factor |
|---|---|
| Sedentary — desk job, minimal exercise | ×1.2 |
| Lightly Active — light exercise 1–3 days/week | ×1.375 |
| Moderately Active — exercise 3–5 days/week | ×1.55 |
| Very Active — hard exercise 6–7 days/week | ×1.725 |
| Athlete — twice daily training or physical labor | ×1.9 |
3. Goal adjustment
The maintenance figure is then adjusted for your goal:
- Fat Loss -20%
- Maintenance 0%
- Muscle Gain +10%
These are this calculator's defaults, not a clinical prescription. A different deficit or surplus may suit you better; nothing published fixes these at these values.
4. Protein
Protein uses the same goal-weight method as the Protein Target Calculator — the two pages call the same code, so they cannot disagree. It is 0.8–1.2 g per lb of goal body weight depending on your goal, multiplied by an activity factor of 1–1.2, and capped at 1.2 g per lb of goal weight. It is goal body weight, not lean mass — this calculator has no way to know your body-fat percentage. These multipliers are also this calculator's own choices.
5. Fat and carbs
Protein calories (4 kcal per gram) are subtracted from the calorie target, and everything left over is fat at 9 kcal per gram. Carbohydrate is 0 g, which is the carnivore baseline rather than a recommendation for everyone.
Educational and informational purposes only. Not medical or nutritional advice. Consult your healthcare provider before making dietary changes. Predictive equations can be off by 10% or more for an individual; adjust from your own results over a few weeks.