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Body recomposition calculator.
Build muscle while getting leaner, instead of doing one and then the other. Enter your stats for a maintenance figure, a recomposition target and the protein it rests on - and a straight answer about whether this is the right approach for you.
How a recomposition is worked out
What recomposition actually is. Losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time, so your weight barely moves while your shape does. It is not a compromise between cutting and bulking - it is a different plan, run at or just under maintenance, where the training and the protein do the work that a surplus would otherwise do.
The calories. Maintenance comes from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and an activity multiplier, exactly as on the TDEE calculator. The pace then sets the gap: level with maintenance, 5% under, or 8% under. Note the floor - an "aggressive" recomposition is still a small deficit, never a cut. Push past that and you are cutting, whatever you call it.
The protein. 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight, the highest figure of any goal, because this is the only one trying to add tissue while energy is restricted. That clears the roughly 1.62 g/kg plateau Morton et al. (2018) found across 49 trials, and sits inside the 2.3-3.1 g per kg of fat-free mass Helms et al. (2014) recommend under energy restriction. The protein calculator shows the fat-free-mass figure if you know your body fat.
The training is not optional here. On a cut, training protects what you already have; on a recomposition it is the entire mechanism. Without progressive resistance training - a reason for your body to keep and add muscle - eating at maintenance with high protein does nothing at all, and you simply stay as you are. That is the honest version of the trade.
The scales are the wrong instrument. A recomposition that is working can show no weight change for two months, which is exactly the reading that makes people quit. Judge it on a tape measure, on photographs in the same light, and on what you are lifting for the same number of reps. If all three are moving and the scale is not, that is a success, not a plateau.
Expect it to be slow, and expect that to be fine. Because the calorie gap is small by design, everything happens over months rather than weeks. The upside is that there is nothing to recover from: no crash, no rebound, no phase where you feel awful and train badly. If you want a date on a scale reading instead, the goal weight calculator is the honest tool for that question - and it will tell you when it cannot give you one.
No target is ever suggested below 1200 kcal a day. If the arithmetic lands lower, it is raised to that floor - the same limit the app applies everywhere.
Related calculators
TDEE calculator · Macro calculator · Calories burned calculator · Goal weight calculator · Protein calculator · Health terms
This is an estimate and a starting point, not medical advice. Every equation of this kind is a population average, so your real burn can sit a few hundred kcal either side of it. Track for two or three weeks and adjust to what actually happens on the scales. If you are pregnant, managing a health condition or unsure, speak to a doctor or dietitian first.
There is no account here and no tracking cookie, so nothing you enter is saved to a profile or tied to you. The sums run on our server, and your answers travel in the page address - which is what makes a result shareable, so treat a link you send as carrying those numbers with it.
Now log against it
A number is only useful if you can hit it. Whey to Go tracks food and training against targets like these - on your device, with no account and nothing sold.