The Triage Ultimate Diet Set Up Calculator

Calculators, Nutrition

The Triage Ultimate Diet Set Up Calculator
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I created the Triage Ultimate Diet Set Up Calculator to help solve a very specific problem. There are many online calorie and macronutrient calculators that will help you set up your calorie and macronutrient targets. These nutrition set up calculators are helpful, however, many of them just aren’t all that accurate or they have serious flaws. For sure, they give you some numbers and that can be a nice starting point, but very often, the numbers aren’t really backed up by the best evidence-based practices. They also aren’t helpful for coaches who want a tool to help them quickly get a snapshot of what a good diet set up for someone would look like.

This calculator is based on the best available evidence for setting up an effective health-promoting diet, and you can read more about the rationale behind all of the specific targets in our comprehensive article on setting up a healthy diet. We also have a variety of other nutrition calculators that each have their own specific use cases, however, this is this calculator is based on the methods we use to get phenomenal results with our clients, and what we teach in our nutrition coaching certification course. 

This diet set up calculator is fairly intuitive to use, and it will help you to dial in your diet set up. It allows you a lot more freedom to play around with the diet, but like with most things, with more power, comes more responsibility. So if you don’t know what you are doing, then it is very easy to go wrong with a calculator like this and you may be better off using a more templated calculator such as our calorie and macronutrient calculator. 

This calculator is ideal for coaches who want to be able to very quickly get an idea of what someone’s diet should look like, while staying within good nutrition set up parameters. Of course, when coaching someone, you are always going to have to tailor the diet specifically to the individual, but it is incredibly helpful to at least have a rough baseline for the diet set up. I know many coaches work this stuff out on excel or manually, and this online diet set up calculator is a tool that coaches can use to more easily set up the diet for their clients. 

So, without further ado, here is the Triage Ultimate Diet Set-Up Calculator!

The Triage Ultimate Diet Set-Up Calculator

Optimal Diet Set Up Calculator

Optimal Diet Set Up Calculator

Calories: 0

Protein: 0 grams

Carbohydrates: 0 grams

Fiber: 0 grams

Fat: 0 grams

Saturated Fat: ≤ 0 grams

Water Intake: 0 litres

Nutrition Set Up Calculator Calculations: 

Any tool is only as good as your ability to understand and utilise it. So, to get the most out of this diet set up calculator, you do have to have a bit of an understanding of how the calculator actually works. This calculator is based on the targets we discuss in our nutrition set up mega article, and as such, you can find a more comprehensive breakdown of all of the rationale behind the targets there. We won’t go too deep into the science behind the nutritional targets, as you can get a more comprehensive understanding from the foundational nutrition set up article. However, it does help you to actually use and interpret this calculator if you do actually have a baseline understanding of the various targets and why the calculator is set up the way it is set up. So I will quickly run through some of the nutritional science and rationale behind the calculations this diet set up calculator uses. 

Calories

When setting up a diet, the first thing we generally recommend starting with is setting the calorie targets. However, this calculator already assumes you know your calorie needs. If you don’t know your calorie needs, then this calorie and macro calculator may be more beneficial for you. 

While using that calculator will give you a rough estimation of where your calories should be, with our coaching clients we generally use the “average and adjust” method of working out calorie needs. 

To do the average and adjust method you need to keep a food diary (most people just use an app like MyFitnessPal for this) for a week (ideally 2 weeks), and quite literally log everything you ingest (including liquid calories, and “bites” of food). Now the tricky thing is, ideally, you would eat as you normally would, as this will give you an idea of what the diet has looked like for the last while and make the process of figuring out maintenance calories much easier. However, even with you trying your hardest to eat as you normally would, the reality is that you will likely still adjust your caloric intake by virtue of just being more aware of it due to tracking. 

Along with tracking your food intake, we also recommend tracking your body weight first thing in the morning (ideally after you have gone to the toilet). We can then use the changes in your body weight to allow us to see if the calories you are eating are putting you in a surplus (weight gain) or a deficit (weight loss). 

At the end of the week of tracking, total up the calories from each of the 7 days and divide that number by 7, to get your average daily calorie intake for the week. We can then compare this to the trend of your weight, and comparing the two will allow us to see whether your diet is putting you in a calories surplus, calorie deficit, or has you at maintenance calories. 

If you gained weight, we know we are eating a surplus of the calories required to maintain your body weight. Alternatively, if you lost weight, we know you are eating fewer calories than is required to maintain your body weight. If you maintained your weight, then you are eating at a level of calories that is in balance with your overall energy expenditure. 

calories in vs calories out to get a calorie deficit, maintenance or a surplus

It requires roughly a surplus/deficit of 7,000 to 9,000 calories to gain/lose 1kg of body fat (7700 calories seems to be the generally accepted figure for 1kg of weight loss from fat). Utilising this knowledge we can make an educated guess as to what your maintenance calories are. I say educated guess because it isn’t really that simple and the body does a lot of strange things, especially in relation to water balance that makes accurately correlating weight to calories a very difficult task. If you gained 200g in the week eating your normal diet that means you were roughly in a surplus of ~1540 calories over the 7 days. Conversely, if you lost 500g you would have been in a deficit of 3850 calories for that week (using 7700 as the number of calories required to lose/gain 1kg). From this, you can work out roughly where you are in relation to your maintenance calorie needs, and although it isn’t a precise method it is actually more accurate than the calculator method, because it actually takes into account you as an individual and isn’t just a theoretical average. 

Then, eating where you now think your maintenance calories are, you can see how it affects your weight. If you are eating “at maintenance”, and you noticed a decrease or increase in weight for that over time, you may need to make adjustments to what you think is your maintenance calories. To do this you would simply reduce your daily calorie intake by 100-200 calories if you gained weight, or increase by 100-200 calories if you lost weight. You want to make adjustments to your “maintenance” calories, and not to a surplus or deficit, so finding roughly where your maintenance calories are is essential for long-term results. Then from your maintenance, you can make adjustments based on your goals.

This may seem a bit long winded, but it does actually prove to be very useful in the long run, as you can be a lot more accurate with your diet overall if you know where your maintenance calories are. 

Then, depending on the specific goal you have, you can set your calorie target. If you aren’t sure how to adjust your calories based on your specific goal, then this calorie and macronutrient calculator may be better suited for your needs as it will help you to choose an appropriate calorie target. This diet set up calculator does assume you have some knowledge already and thus it also assumes that you can set your calorie targets appropriately. If you want to set up the diet to lose weight, then you will need to set the calories to have you in a calorie deficit, and if you want to set up the diet to gain weight, you will need to set the calories to have you in a calorie surplus. If you just want to maintain your weight, then you just want to set your calories to maintenance level.

Either way, to use this diet set up calculator, you are going to need to know what level of calories you want to be eating at. From this, and combined with your weight, we can then begin to actually set up the diet. 

Protein

Once you input your weight and your calorie target, the next thing you need to decide upon to use this diet set up calculator is how much protein you want to consume. This is generally the first macronutrient we discuss when setting up a diet, as it is an extremely important macronutrient to consume, and unfortunately, most people simply don’t consume enough. It is also the macronutrient that most people are going to have to actively think about a bit more in their day to day life if they want to actually consume enough. It is fairly easy to access carbs and fats in the modern food environment, but protein is something you have to be a bit more deliberate with.

Protein is an important component of the diet, as it provides the fundamental building blocks (amino acids) for your body, and you need to consume it to help with building and repairing tissues. Protein intake is important for baseline health, as it is important for immune function, and the production of enzymes and hormones. Protein is also important because it contributes to muscle development. You do actually need to consume a variety of amino acids in the diet, especially the essential amino acids, as the body needs a broad spectrum of amino acids to create the proteins of our body (your body can’t make the essential amino acids, so these must be consumed in the diet). Good sources of protein include meat, fish, dairy products, beans, and nuts. 

The dietary recommendations for protein are generally set quite low, as they are based on older research. Newer, more accurate research suggests that higher protein intakes are required for baseline health, and this is even more true for individuals who exercise regularly and/or those who wish to optimise their health. 

The general guidelines we give for protein intake is to consume somewhere between 1.5-3g of protein per kg of body weight per day, although most people will generally be best served consuming somewhere around 1.8-2.5g of protein per kg of body weight per day. This nutrition set up calculator allows you to set your protein targets somewhere between 1.5-2.5g of protein per kg of body weight per day. If you are unsure what to choose, it would be helpful to read the comprehensive diet set up article, or alternatively, you can just set it to 2g/kg, as this will likely work for most people. 

Most people tend to consume quite a lot of carbohydrates in their diet, while also neglecting protein, so some people will find that they have to adjust their diet quite a bit, and mostly their carbohydrate intake, to ensure they actually get enough protein in the diet.

As protein contains ~4 calories per gram, we can then calculate the rest of the macronutrients based on whatever calories we have left. 

Fat

After setting your calorie and protein targets, the next thing you need to decide upon is your dietary fat target. 

Fats are an essential component of the diet as they is required to aid in the assimilation of fat-soluble vitamins, and all of your cells are actually encased in a lipid (fat) layer. Dietary fat has been vilified in many media outlets, but you do actually need to consume dietary fat for optimal health. 

While the thought process that eating fat will lead to fat gain seems to be an obvious connection to make (i.e. eating fat leads to fat gain), it isn’t actually accurate. Dietary fat does provide calories, and a gram of fat contains 9 calories, which is more than twice the amount contained in protein or carbs. So it is very easy to overconsume calories when you are eating a lot of fat, but dietary fat isn’t inherently fat-promoting. 

There are a variety of fat sub-types (such as saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated), and generally, we want to try and keep saturated fat intake to less than 10% of calories, while consuming a mix of poly and monounsaturated fats. This means you should aim to consume your fats from stuff like avocados, nuts, olive oil, and leaner cuts of meat, rather than getting your fats from processed foods, fried foods or excessive quantities of butter. 

There are certain fatty acids that you need to consume in the diet (the essential fatty acids), however, these are relatively easily to consumed if you eat a generall well balanced diet and eat fatty fish a few times per week. While this diet set up calculator doesn’t give you a recommendation for this (as the recommendations don’t change all that much for different people/popualtions), our general recommendation for omega-3s (part of the essential fatty acids) is to try and get somewhere between 1-5g of omega-3 per day. This can either be consumed as part of the diet by virtue of eating fatty fish, or it can be supplemented in the form of fish, krill or algae oil.

Our diet set up calculator allows you to set your fat target intake within the range of 0.5-1.5g/kg as this seems to be the range of fat intake that works best for most people, although some people may benefit from slightly higher intake (up to 1.5g/kg). If you aren’t sure where to set this, generally somewhere between 0.8-1g/kg seems to work well for most people. 

how much fat should you eat per day

Some people do enjoy eating more fat than this, however, after about 1g of fat per kg of body weight, you generally would be better off consuming more carbohydrates. You always have to remember that the diet is a matter of trade offs, and if you set your fat target high, then you are inherently going to displace calories that could be consumed as protein or carbs. So for a generalised diet set up calculator like this one, then setting fat intake excessively high isn’t necessary. However, that doesn’t mean we think it is inappropriate for all people, and some people may actually do quite well with a relatively high fat diet.

The calculator also has a minimum fat intake of 20g per day, so if you set your calories extremely low, it will still output that you should consume at least 20g of fats per day (and this may mean it eats into your protein target, if calories are set quite low). 

Our diet set up calculator does also set a saturated fat target of consuming less than or equal to 10% of calories. It is also topped out at setting your saturated fat target to less than 70% of your total fat intake. This is to ensure you do still get a diversity of fats in the diet and aren’t excessively biased to saturated fat, even if it is still below 10% of total calories. This is generally the level of saturated fat that is recommended to reduce the likelihood of heart disease occurring due to the diet. Some people may be able to get away with more than this, while others may need to consume less than this. 

After inputting your weight and setting your calorie, protein and fat targets, you can actually let the calculator do its magic. 

Carbohydrates

After accounting for your protein and fat calories, the diet set up calculator then assigns the rest of the calories to carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are generally the preferred source of energy for the body, as they provide the fuel the body ideally wants to use to fuel our organs and muscles. We generally recommend that people base their carbohydrate intake around complex carbohydrates (such as grains, tubers, pulses, and fibre-rich fruits and vegetables) rather than simple carbohydrates (such as sugars and many refined products). 

Your carbohydrate needs are going to be largely dictated by your activity levels, and this is why the diet set up calculator uses the rest of the available calories for carbohydrates. However, it is important to realise that if you set your protein and fat targets quite high, you will likely find that your carbohydrate target can be quite low (especially if calories are low).

Similarly, our calculator calculates carbohydrates based on whatever calories are left after protein and fat targets are set, however, you may prefer a lower carbohydrate diet. If this is the case, you can adjust your fat targets higher, which will lead to a lower carbohydrate allocation. 

However, the calculator is set up to not allow carbohydrates to drop below 25g per day, and as a result, if calories are quite low (or you set your protein and/or fat targets quite high relative to available calories), then the calculator will eat into fat (and potentially protein) targets to ensure the minimum of 25g of carbs per day is maintained.

Fibre

Fibre is often only given a passing courtesy mention when discussing diet set up, however, it is actually an incredibly beneficial component of the diet and deserves more focused attention. Adequate fibre intake is important for digestive health, and adequate dietary fibre intake is associated with better health outcomes across the board. Ensuring adequate fibre intake also tends to result in a better dietary pattern overall. 

Fibre intake guidelines can be quite diverse, depending on where exactly you look, but a good starting place is that 10-15g of fibre should be consumed for every 1,000 calories consumed. Our calculator calculates the fibre target as 15g of fibre for every 1000 calories consumed, so you could potentially eat a little bit less than this and still reap the benefits of higher fibre intakes. Our calculator also sets the minimum target of 25g of fibre per day, as this is generally seen as the lowest intake that should be eaten by adults. 

Those eating very low calories may find that they do better eating slightly higher amounts of fibre (as it leads to more satiety), however, those eating relatively high calories may find they need to consume less than the recommendations (as they may feel too full to eat sufficient calories).

Water

Water is another component of the diet that very often gets overlooked, and as a result, many people simply don’t consume enough. Water is essential to life, and you need to consume it in macronutrient sized quantities for optimal health. Water is the basis for the various fluids in your body (like your blood), and it is vital for most of the cellular processes that occur in your body. Your body is mostly water, as it makes up about 45-75% of your body (depending on your body composition and overall size). So consuming enough water is incredibly important. Despite this, most people don’t consume an optimal amount of water.

The research isn’t as clear as we would like with regards to exactly how much water you should consume, but what seems to work in the real world is to set water intake based on body weight or calorie intake, depending on which is higher. The diet set up calculator sets water intake as 40mL/kg or 1.5mL per calorie, whichever is higher (this way we account for smaller individuals who are very active, and for larger individuals who aren’t very active). 

However, some individuals may actually need more than this, especially if they are very active or they live in very hot environments that lead them to sweat more. So this should just be seen as a baseline, and you will need to further refine it based on the real world.

Diet Set Up Calculator Baselines

And that is how the diet set up calculator works! In summary, the diet set up calculator is going to calculate your baseline diet as follows:

Calories and MacrosTarget Amounts
CaloriesYou can set this to have you losing weight (calorie deficit), maintaining weight (maintenance calories), or gaining weight (calorie surplus).
ProteinYou can set this between 1.5-2.5g per kilogram of body weight (if you are unsure where to set this, stick with 2g/kg).
FatsYou can set this between 0.5-1.5g per kilogram of body weight (if you are unsure where to set this, stick with 0.8g/kg). There is a minimum intake of 20g per day. 
Saturated FatSaturated fat is set to less than or equal to 10% of calories, and less than 70% of total fat calories.
CarbohydratesThe rest of the available calories are assigned to carbohydrates, with a minimum intake of 25g per day.
Fibre15g per 1,000 calories with a minimum intake of 25g per day.
WaterWater intake is set to 40mL/kg or 1.5mL per calorie, whichever is higher.

Important Notes On The Calculations

Now, there are a few important points to keep in mind when using this calculator, as it is easy to incorrectly use a tool like this diet set up calculator if you don’t know what you are doing. 

This calculator will allow you to set your calories to whatever you see fit. As a result, it is leaving you with a lot of room to incorrectly set your calories. You have to set your calories appropriately if you do actually want to see results, and to use this calculator effectively, you have to be able to set your calories correctly. While we touched on how to do this in this article, if you are really unsure about where your calories should be, then I would recommend that you go back and read the diet fundamentals article and perhaps also use our calorie and macro calculator.

The calculator does allow you to set your protein intake within the guidelines of 1.5-2.5g/kg, which works for the vast majority of people and situations. However, overweight individuals may not need as much protein as even 1.5g of protein per kg. There may still be benefits to consuming this amount of protein for the overweight individual (as it improves satiety), but it is important to note that this is a potential limitation of this calculator. Similarly, some individuals may actually need more than 2.5g of protein per kg, and the calculator doesn’t account for this. However, the reality is that most people under-consume protein, and setting the target close to 2g per kg is probably the best bet for the vast majority of people.

As you can also set your fat targets (between 0.6-1.5g per kg), this does actually give you a lot of wiggle room with the diet set up, however, this extra wiggle room does mean you have more room to set things up incorrectly. As the calculator will allocate whatever calories are left to carbohydrates, after accounting for the protein and fat targets, you can set your protein and fat targets too high, and thus eat too few carbohydrates for your needs. I have tried to account for this somewhat, by setting the calculator up so it will not allow you to set your carbs less than 25g of carbs per day. If your calories are low enough and/or you set your protein/fats quite high, then the calculator will eat into fat calories to ensure that at least 25g of carbs per day. If your calories are low enough that your fats get to 20g per day, then it will begin eating into the calories allocated to protein. So it is important to choose a calorie target that is actually appropriate for your goals, but that also makes sense with the way you want to set up the diet (i.e. your protein and fat targets).

The calculator also sets saturated fat targets based on the best available evidence for the prevention of heart disease. However, the saturated fat target of ≤10% of calories could be too high for someone who has an increased risk for heart disease and really needs to be more wary of their saturated fat intake. Some people may also be able to get away with slightly higher intakes, if everything else in their diet and lifestyle is on point (and their genetics don’t increase their risk for heart disease). 

The diet set up calculator will automatically calculate your carbs based on whatever calories are left after protein and fats are accounted for, but this can leave you in a situation where you are not fuelling correctly for your specific goals. You may want to consume a lot of protein and you may also have a preference for higher fat intakes, and as a result, your carbohydrate intake is lowered. However, if your training is heavily dependent on glucose as the fuel source, then under-consuming carbohydrates is going to lead to reduced performance potential. So you do have to be smart with how you choose to set things up. 

The calculator will also set the fibre targets based on the goal of consuming 15g of fibre for every 1000 calories consumed. We generally recommend that people consume 10-15g of fibre per 1,000 calories, so this target is set on the high end. The only real issue with this is that this target could be too high if you are trying to gain weight (as you may feel too full) and potentially too low if you are trying to lose weight (as you may want extra fibre to help you feel fuller). So there is some flexibility here, and you don’t have to perfectly follow the target here. However, the calculator won’t allow fibre to go below 25g per day at a minimum, and this is generally the lowest amount we would recommend anyone eat regularly. 

Finally, the calculator also gives you a water target (based on 40mL/kg or 1.5mL per calorie, whichever is higher), however, these can be too low if you live in a climate that is warmer or you are someone who sweats a lot. So the water recommendation will need to be adjusted based on your unique needs. 

Common Mistakes: 

There are some common mistakes that you should be aware of when using a tool like this diet set up calculator if you want to get the most out of it. Some of these mistakes involve actually using the diet set up calculator, and some of them are concerned about the mistakes that are commonly made when you try to put the diet into practice. 

Calories

As you have control over the calorie target, entering the incorrect calories for your goal is probably the most common mistake that people make. It is important to realise that because you have control over the calorie target, you do have the potential to set things up in an unsustainable manner for your specific goals, or to set things up so that they don’t actually achieve the goals you want to achieve. 

For example, you may want fat loss, but you only set your calories at a maintenance level and thus don’t see the results you want. Similarly, you may want to gain muscle, but you set your calories excessively high, resulting in excessive fat gain. 

So it is important that you do actually spend some time ensuring that your calorie target is actually accurate and appropriate. 

Protein

The second mistake people often make is not setting their protein target appropriately for their goals. Most people would do best to just set their protein target as 2g per kg, but depending on your background, you are either going to think this is incredibly high or incredibly low. If you are coming from the background of eating like the general population, and you are currently not even consuming 1g of protein per kg, you may think that even 1.5g per kg is very high. If you are a bodybuilder who has been consuming 3+g of protein per kg per day for the last 10 years, you may think that 2g per kg is a very low amount of protein. 

However, for most people, somewhere around the 2g per kg mark does seem to result in the best outcomes. Unfortunately, this is where most people go wrong with both the calculation and then the implementation. Most people tend to set the protein target as low as it allows, and then they don’t even eat this much when they actually try to implement the diet. 

If you do struggle with consuming even 1.5g of protein per kg, then it is perfectly fine to initially set this as the target. This is something I very often do with my clients, but the key to making this work long-term is to actually come up with systems and good dietary habits, so you can actually regularly consume this amount of protein daily. For most people, the thing they will need to focus on most is consuming some sort of protein at breakfast, and then also eating more protein for lunch too. 

Ignoring Diet Quality

Unfortunately, it is much easier to discuss setting up the diet from the perspective of calories and macros, and as a result, many people think that this is all there is to the diet. But this ignores the importance of diet quality. So the mistake that many people make is that they end up focusing solely on the calories and macros, and not focusing enough on eating a well-balanced diet.

While discussing diet quality is beyond the scope of this article, it is an incredibly important aspect of a healthy diet and not focusing on it is a mistake. 

Selectively Following The Targets

Another major mistake that people make when utilising a tool like this diet set up calculator is that they pick and choose which targets to follow. The vast majority of people reading this will conveniently end up ignoring the fibre target that the calculator spits out. They may also ignore the saturated fat target, and often also the water target. 

This is a mistake, and unfortunately, setting up the diet isn’t like an "al a carte" menu where you can just pick and choose what you want. To set up a health-promoting diet, you need to set up everything correctly. 

Not Following Good Food Timing Guidelines

The final mistake that people make is that they disregard the timing of nutrients. While the absolute quantity of the various nutrients is of utmost importance, there are still better and worse ways to distribute those nutrients across the day. 

For most people, consuming calories relatively evenly spread across the day, with less consumed in the ~2 hours before bed, will lead to the best results. Biasing more of these calories around training will also result in better performance and recovery from that training. 

Protein also needs to be relatively evenly spaced out across the day to really get the most out of the intake, especially if muscle building is the goal. Similarly, carbs and fats should generally be fairly evenly spread across the day. Spacing water intake across the day is also important, as you need to consume water throughout the day to avoid being dehydrated at any point throughout the day. 

The Triage Ultimate Diet Set Up Calculator Summary

Hopefully, this diet set up calculator has given you a nice additional tool to help you to really dial in your diet, or the diet of your clients. Being able to play around with specific targets while still staying within good general guidelines can be quite helpful, especially as you try to refine the diet based on individual preferences and goals. 

If you would like more help with your diet (or training), we do have online coaching spaces available. If you are interested in learning more about the diet and how to coach people to a better diet pattern, we also have an Online Nutrition Coaching Certification program that may be of interest to you. We also recommend reading our foundational nutrition article, along with our foundational articles on sleep and stress management, if you really want to learn more about how to optimise your lifestyle. 

You can also sign up for our newsletter and YouTube channel if you wish to stay up to date with our content. You can also subscribe to our podcast on Spotify if you prefer to listen to content.

Paddy Farrell
www.triagemethod.com

Hey, I'm Paddy!

I am a coach who loves to help people master their health and fitness. I am a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and I have a degree in Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science. I have been coaching people for over 10 years now.

When I grew up, you couldn't find great health and fitness information, and you still can't really. So my content aims to solve that!

I enjoy training in the gym, doing martial arts and hiking in the mountains (around Europe, mainly). I am also an avid reader of history, politics and science. When I am not in the mountains, exercising or reading, you will likely find me in a museum.