Your Numbers, Across Your Cycle

Every calorie calculator gives you one number and lets you assume it fits all twenty-eight days. This one gives you the number, then shows you the five weeks it has to survive.

Step 1 of 6

Six questions, about two minutes

You'll get your maintenance calories, a starting deficit range if a deficit is right for you, and what each phase of your cycle does to the difficulty of holding it. Your Body Literacy Map comes with it, free, by email.

Nothing here is a diagnosis or a prescription. It's an estimate built from population averages, which means it's a starting point to test against your own data, not a verdict on your body.

If food or your body already take up more room in your head than you want them to, a calorie number is unlikely to help right now, and it may make things harder. This is a fine place to stop. The Body Literacy Map is free and has no numbers in it at all.

The basics

These four go into the standard equation for estimating what your body uses in a day.

Units

Age

Height, feet

Height, inches

Weight, pounds

Your training, and how you're handling it

Count anything structured: lifting, classes, runs, rides, deliberate long walks.

0 to 1 days a weekMostly day-to-day movement. 2 to 3 days a weekTraining is a habit, not the centre of the week. 4 to 5 days a weekMost weeks you train more often than not. 6 to 7 days a weekTraining is close to daily.

Any of these lately?

Tick anything that's been true over the last few months. Tick none if none apply.

Periods have gone missing, or turned unpredictable Waking tired, not recovering between sessions Frequent illness, or niggling injuries that linger Cold all the time, hair thinning, nails brittle Training performance flat or going backwards

What are you actually after

Pick the one that matches the next few months, not the one that sounds most ambitious.

Fat lossEating below maintenance on purpose, for a defined stretch, then stopping. The scale trends down over weeks, not days. MaintenanceHolding steady while you learn your pattern, recover properly, or take a break from dieting. Often the right answer after a long stretch of restriction. Body recompositionEating at roughly maintenance with protein held high and training doing the work. Slower, and the scale barely moves. You judge it by how clothes fit and how you're lifting, not by the number.

Where you are in your cycle

Day 1 is the first day of proper bleeding. If you're not sure, say so. Your numbers don't depend on it.

I know when my last period started I'm not sure of the date Irregular, absent, or I don't currently cyclePerimenopause, hormonal contraception, or cycles that don't keep to a pattern.

Where should your numbers go

They'll appear on this page straight away. The email is your copy, so you don't have to run this again to find them.

Your numbers and your Body Literacy Map

One email. The Map is a free 28-day reference for what tends to shift and when.

We'll email you occasionally. Unsubscribe any time. Privacy

Your numbers

One number. Five weeks it has to survive.

Your number barely moves across the month. What moves is how hard it is to hold. A week that feels impossible isn't a week you failed, it's the week the plan already knew about.

Your Body Literacy Map is on its way to your inbox. It's the 28-day reference for what tends to shift and when, with no numbers in it at all.

These are estimates to test, not targets to beat. Lower is not better, and going lower is the most common way this stops working. If the number makes you want to eat less than it says, that's worth taking seriously rather than pushing through.

Your numbers, across your cycle