The Ultimate Fitness Nutrition Calculator: Weight loss, Muscle Gain, and Body Fat

We can all agree that nutrition for athletes can be complicated.  There are a million sources of information, most of which are conflicting in their advice.  Eat paleo, no ketogenic is the way to go, but don’t forget carbs!  This article is going to cut through all that nonsense, and provide you with a spreadsheet that will automatically calculate your calories, macros, and body fat, as well as put you on the right path to achieve your nutrition goals.  Did I mention that it’s also free?  Keep reading to get this awesome tool.

Before I give you the keys to my favorite nutrition tool we need to cover what exactly this tool is designed to do.  It makes calculating the details of your nutrition easy.  It will give you calories and macro splits depending on your goals.

These are great baselines from which you will have to do some slight tinkering because we are all slightly different in our nutrition requirements.  Some folks do very well on high carb diets, some not so much.  Some need to eat much more to gain muscle etc.

Without further ado, let’s get into the best nutrition tool for athletes!


Click Here to Download the Ultimate Fitness Nutrition Calculator


Using the Document 

First things first, you need to download the spreadsheet and open it up. You should then read the first sheet titled, “Read Me.”  This will briefly cover what we are going to explain below, and is a quick reminder for future use.

When you see a red box, that is something that you will need to put some input into, either height, weight, age, etc.  It should also be noted that all measurements are in American Standard Freedom Units.

If you’d like to get even more in depth information on nutrition, fat loss, and programming for fitness athletes, check out this ebook!

Other Resources 

If you like this tool and want to learn more about nutrition, especially as it pertains to gaining muscle and losing fat, you need to check out this book, “The Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy,” by Brad Schoenfeld.  Brad is a PHd researcher and world renowned expert on muscle hypertrophy and nutrition practices.

Calculating Your Body Fat Percentage 

This is a key metric that serious athletes should track.  Honestly, it’s much more important than your weight.  I often remind new athletes that if you lose 10lbs of fat and gain 10lbs of muscle, the scale says you’ve made no progress, but the tape doesn’t lie.

The calculator uses the Navy Body Fat method, and is generally considered to be nearly as accurate as a DEXA scan and other more expensive methods.  I mean you could get a full body MRI if you have that kind of cash. If you do you should also make a donation to us!

As a side note, try not to cheat while taping.  If you are strangling your waist or hips to get better measurements you really aren’t getting anything accurate.  I generally pull the tape until it starts to indent the skin and use that measurement.

You will also see that there are some sweet graphs that will show your progress as you remeasure.  I like to measure once a week.  Twice a month is also fine, especially if body fat isn’t huge issue for you.

Maintenance Nutrition for Functional Athletes 

This sheet covers the amount of calories, and corresponding macro’s that you need to neither gain or lose weight.  The baseline equation I’ve chosen to use is the Harris-Benedict equation which has been shown to be most accurate.

The sheet will give you your BMR, or your basal metabolic rate, as well as your calories on a day you go to the gym, and days you don’t.  I’m assuming that you are doing a normal 1 hour session with a warm up, strength portion, and a WOD of 10 or so minutes in length.

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Fat Loss for Functional Fitness Athletes 

This section uses the same equation with some modifiers that I have used throughout years of coaching.  They will allow for the appropriate fat loss for most athletes.  To really lose body fat successfully you will need to read this article where you will a step by step method for losing fat.

This sheet is designed to put you at a 300-500 cal deficit which should allow you to lose about .5-1% of your bodyweight per week.  Research has shown this to be the best, and most sustainable fat loss rate.

Muscle Gain for Functional Fitness Athletes

This is for those that are looking to get jacked and tan without turning into a porker.  I’m going shoot you straight here.  You will gain some fat when building muscle, but you should not gain too much!  This sheet is designed to keep you from getting mobility scooter fat.

You will also need to read this article covering what 200 researchers recommend for gaining muscle.  There is also an included bodybuilding split at the bottom of the article.

Modifying the Sheet 

I’ve left the sheet unlocked so you can modify it if you are nerdy like me.  If you don’t want to bother with that just do a little mental math and add some calories, or subtract depending on goals.

Adding or subtracting calories should be done in 200-300 cal increments until you see the desired results.  I cannot stress this enough.  If your nutrition is working currently then DON’T CHANGE IT!  Changes are only needed when you plateau.

Now get out there and start working on your customized nutrition plan.  If you have any questions put them in the comments section.  I get notifications for those and I can answer them much quicker.

If you like fitness and want all your friends to know just how awesome you really are, then tell them you grabbed this awesome ebook!

Check It Out!

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19 thoughts on “The Ultimate Fitness Nutrition Calculator: Weight loss, Muscle Gain, and Body Fat”

  1. Great Article. I was just looking into how to do this, and found your information helpful. I am working on gaining muscle without adding too much fat.

    I’ll let you know the results.

    Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Oh great information! So when you’re super short like me 4 feet 11 – its telling me my calorie intake for weight loss is like 1116 (for gym days) and 1016 calories for non gym days. Do you feel like this is still something I should follow? I guess I am small like a middle school kid (ok lets be real they’re all probably taller then me).

    Reply
    • Hi Cam !
      For smaller athletes I recommend a 200-300 calorie deficit. So use the maintenance tab and then just subtract 200-300 from there. If you lose weight great, if not you can increase the deficit. Let me know if you have any other questions.

      Reply
  3. I downloaded the excel, but I’m wondering if the calculations are off for females. There’s no way my body fat percentage is 32.5%. Or perhaps my coach has some broken calipers!
    Height: 68.5 in.
    Neck: 13.5
    Waist: 31.8
    Hips: 41.5

    Reply
    • Most research indicates that measuring bodyfat via the tape is generally within 3% or so. Calipers can be very good but it does rely on the measurer being very precise. I ran your numbers through some other calcs that I use and they show roughly the same 29-32 or so percent. Remember even if this is higher than you’d like it’s just a number at the end of the day, really no different than if I told you your elbow was 10 inches long. lol

      Reply
    • Just checked it and the read me tab looked ok. Basically you need to fill in the red boxes only. You might try another browser. It worked fine in chrome.

      Reply
  4. Dear Jake,
    First of all, thx for sharing such usefull info to us. Secondly, I must admit how I’m little bit confused right now. The calculator for Fatloss said my BMR is 1818-ok. On gym days I should consume 1668 kcal and none gym days 1518. This is extremely low from my point of view-but, I’m not an expert. However, very most of other calculators taking into account TDEE which is for me around 2700kcal, and from that nr reducing 500kcal which is 2200. Another truth is that I’m stucked right now, meaning no further loose of fat, but calorie input from spreadsheet seemed very low. So pls let me know your opinion on this. Just to note that I’m male, 35yold, 80kg, 179 cm, BF 18,4%-according the calculator. Training 3-4 times/w, combo BB&CF. Really hope how you will see this post. BR

    Reply
    • Yeah a lot of online calculators overestimate athletes needs. WODS only burn around 200 cal at most. So you really are only using like 2100 ish calories per day you go to the gym. The simplest method for you is to eat around 300 cal less per day than what you burn and see if you start losing weight again. If not go to 500 calories below what you currently are eating. Let me know if you have other questions.

      Reply
  5. Hi! Been Douglas cf for a while now but want to try your programming. Female, 37 years, works out 4-5 times a week ( and a bit cardio the other days). Which program should I start with? They all look awesome!

    Reply
  6. Hi, the Dropbox link to the spreadsheet doesn’t seem to be working. Any chance I could get my hands on this calculator spreadsheet?

    Reply
    • It might be unless you’re pretty handy with excel. I might recommend just converting your measurements to US then inputting. Could save you some time.

      Reply
      • Hi Jake,

        So you suggest we use converting measurements (in) to US, is it US pounds?

        It is quite frustrating trying to convert kg’s and cm’s to your ‘in”

        Thank you

        Reply
  7. When filling out the tab labeled Muscle Gain, do I put my current weight, desired weight, or constantly adjust as I am gaining weight?

    Reply

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