Welcome to the Calorie Calculator!

Presented by ZackMorris.com

When you are finished, copy and paste the summary into a spreadsheet such as Excel to save your meal plan. Here is an Excel file with an example meal plan that doesn't use macros, so is free of viruses. Be sure to create enough extra rows in Excel to hold the summary when you paste it.

You can also create a link that can be emailed to friends so that you can show them your meal plan. Be sure to tell them to paste the link as one line (sometimes sentences get broken up inside of emails). You can also create a TinyURL that is more convenient. Here are some healthy and not-so-healthy examples:

Tips And Guidelines

If you can't find your food, try a synonym. For instance, try frankfurter instead of hot dog. Also, try similar foods such as chicken for turkey, or if you can't find a light version of a food, enter half the serving size of regular.

If your food is still not in our database, you can enter your own numbers, just find the nutrition facts for your food on the package:

Fat, carbohydrate, protein, saturated fat and weight are measured in grams. Cholesterol is measured in milligrams.

Volumes are in US units. Volumes default to liquid units, dry units are roughly 1/6 larger. US dry units are equal to their dry UK counterparts, however liquid measurements vary:

• There are 1.04 US fluid ounces in 1 UK fluid ounce
• A UK pint is 20 UK fluid ounces, whereas a US pint is 16 US fluid ounces
• A UK quart is 40 UK fluid ounces, whereas a US quart is 32 US fluid ounces
• A UK gallon is 160 UK fluid ounces, whereas a US gallon is 128 US fluid ounces

Some degree of rounding error is normal, meaning the averages may not total exactly 100%.

The "2000 calorie diet" is an average over the entire population and should not be thought of as a goal. It is a multiplier, to use based on your own activity levels. A 1500 calorie weight-loss diet may work for some people, or a 4000 calorie strength-training diet may work for others. There are many methods of finding your resting or base metabolic rate (the number of calories which would maintain your current weight), which is beyond the scope of this page. For people with physically demanding jobs such as construction, 2500 calories would most likely be low enough to cause weight loss. If a person's only activity is walking a mile or less per day, 1500-2000 calories might be enough for weight loss.

The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) of protein for a 2000 calorie diet is roughly 63 grams per day for males and roughly 50 grams per day for females. However, bodybuilders typically eat up to, and even over, 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.

There is not an exact RDA for fat, carbohydrate, cholesterol, or sodium because they are age and weight dependent. However, for a 2000 calorie diet, around 300 grams of carbohydrate and less than 53 grams of fat are encouraged. Cholesterol should be less than 300 mg per 2000 calories. Saturated fat should be less than 22 grams per 2000 calories, which means less than 10% of calories come from saturated fat. Sodium should be less than 500 mg per 2000 calories. For the calculations on this page, 1500 is the minimum calories used. For example, 225 mg of cholestol would be 100% at 1500 calories, but will still be reported as 100% at 1200 calories, because any amount under 225 is safe at any calorie level.

To make the most of this calculator, look at the percentages on the last line. An active diet is often 30-40-30 fat-carbohydrate-protein. The moderately high fat and protein levels, split over 5 meals per day, keeps the body from feeling starved and storing fat. It is not recommended that athletes get less than 20% of their calories from fat. Also try to keep cholesterol and saturated fat below 100%.

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