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How PhysioPlan works.

A complete, research-backed training and nutrition plan from one short form. Here's how to use it — takes about two minutes.

Click "Get Your Plan"

Opens the calculator. No sign-up, no email — you're straight into it.

Pick your goal

Cutting, bulking, or recomp. Everything downstream — calories, macros, expected results — adjusts to what you choose.

Enter your stats

Weight, body fat % (optional), experience level, and training days. If you don't know your maintenance calories, the calculator estimates them for you.

Generate your plan

One click, and you get your complete plan instantly on the same screen.

What you get

Everything from one form.

Daily calorie target

Built from lean mass — not just bodyweight — accounting for BMR, NEAT, exercise, and the thermic effect of food, solved iteratively.

Macros in grams

Exact daily protein, fat, and carb targets, set from your lean mass and adjusted for whether you're cutting, bulking, or recomping.

Training volume

Sets per muscle group per week and intensity targets, scaled to your experience level so you're neither under- nor over-training.

Recommended split

Full Body, Upper/Lower, or Push-Pull-Legs — automatically matched to how many days a week you can train.

Body composition projections

Projected lean mass, fat mass, and body fat % at your goal, with realistic muscle-retention estimates. (Add body fat % to unlock.)

Timeline to goal

How many weeks to reach your target, calculated from your deficit or surplus — with the math shown, not hidden.

Example output

See it in action.

Here's what a real plan looks like — calories, macros, training volume, and timeline, all on one screen.

180 lbs · 18% BF · Cutting to 165 lbs

Daily calories 2,140

Protein

175g

Fat

72g

Carbs

189g

Training volume

8–12 sets / muscle

Timeline

14 weeks

Real results

What members are seeing.

Early results from people following their PhysioPlan.

+5 lbs muscle · 8 weeks

Gained 5 lbs of muscle over 8 weeks and added 20 lbs to his bench press.

Ethan B.

Recomp · 8 weeks

Added 5 lbs to his bench press over 8 weeks while losing 3 lbs and building muscle.

Daniel B.

+3 lbs muscle · 6 weeks

Gained 3 lbs of muscle over 6 weeks while staying lean.

Anonymous

−5 lbs · strength held

Lost 5 lbs while maintaining strength on all lifts over 6 weeks.

Daniel Z.

+5 lbs muscle · PRs

Gained 5 lbs of muscle while increasing strength every session.

Foster V.

Visible change · 4 weeks

Started getting compliments on his physique after just 4 weeks on PhysioPlan.

Jake S.

Research & Methodology

The science behind every output.

Every formula and recommendation is grounded in peer-reviewed research. This page walks through the methodology — from nutrition targets to training volume to the exact calculations behind each output.

Metabolic rate

BMR: the right formula for the right body.

Standard formulas estimate resting metabolism from total bodyweight, height, age, and sex. That works for the general population — but breaks down for lean, muscular individuals whose body composition differs most from the average. PhysioPlan selects the formula best calibrated to your body.

Formula accuracy in athletes

Standard formulas fail on trained bodies

The Mifflin-St Jeor equation is the clinical standard and predicts BMR within 10% for roughly 70–82% of the general population. But a meta-analysis of 29 studies and 1,430 athletic participants found most formulas only managed 40.7–63.7% accuracy in trained individuals — substantially worse.

↗ Mifflin et al. (1990) — Am J Clin Nutr ↗ O'Neill, Corish & Horner (2023)

Muscle 13 kcal/kg | Fat 4.5 kcal/kg

Why lean mass matters

Muscle tissue burns roughly 13 kcal/kg/day; fat tissue only 4.5. Two people at the same weight but different body fat percentages carry very different amounts of metabolically active tissue — and therefore have meaningfully different resting metabolisms that a bodyweight-only formula can't capture.

↗ Wang et al. (2010) — Am J Clin Nutr

Ten Haaf — 80.2% accuracy in athletes

An athlete-calibrated formula

For leaner, more athletic individuals, PhysioPlan uses the Ten Haaf equation — built and validated specifically on recreational athletes, where it reached 80.2% accuracy. Above the athletic body-fat range, it falls back to Mifflin-St Jeor, the best-validated general-population standard.

↗ Ten Haaf & Weijs (2014) — PLoS ONE

Calories by phase

Surplus and deficit, scaled to you.

Generic calculators add or subtract a fixed number of calories. But how much of the weight you gain or lose is muscle versus fat depends on the size of the surplus or deficit — and on your training experience.

Surplus — 200–400 cal by experience

Larger isn't always better

Faster weight gain from a larger surplus tends to add more fat without proportionally more muscle. Since beginners can gain 15–25 lb of muscle a year, intermediates 6–12, and advanced lifters just 2–4, the ideal surplus shrinks with experience.

↗ Helms et al. (2023) — Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab ↗ Smith et al. (2021) — Sports

Deficit — up to 500 cal protects LBM

The deficit threshold

A meta-analysis found that up to roughly 500 kcal/day, lean mass loss is largely prevented. Below that, fat loss isn't optimized; above it, you risk losing muscle. This threshold is a population average — the ideal deficit still varies with experience level.

↗ Murphy & Koehler (2022) — Eur J Sport Sci

Metabolic adaptation

Metabolism shifts over time

A 12-month study at a 25% deficit saw RMR fall ~101 kcal/day, 40% of it beyond what body-composition change predicts. Shorter 6-week deficits showed no drop, while steeper or longer ones did — evidence that both size and duration drive adaptation, and why plans need periodic recalibration.

↗ Martin et al. (2022) ↗ Fothergill et al. (2016) — Biggest Loser

Macronutrients

Protein, fat, and carbohydrate targets.

Calories set the direction; macros optimize the outcome — protecting muscle in a deficit and improving the muscle-to-fat ratio in a surplus. PhysioPlan sets protein and fat as evidence-based floors, then fills the rest with carbohydrate.

Cut — 2.3–3.1 g/kg lean mass

Protein during a deficit

Cutting raises protein needs to protect muscle. A systematic review found optimal intakes scale to 2.3–3.1 g/kg of lean mass — rising with both the size of the deficit and how lean you already are. PhysioPlan sets protein from lean mass, since only muscle tissue drives the requirement.

↗ Helms et al. (2014) — Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab

Bulk — 1.62 g/kg bodyweight ceiling

Protein during a surplus

In a surplus, extra protein stops helping past a ceiling. A meta-analysis found gains in lean mass capped at roughly 1.62 g/kg of bodyweight — beyond that, more protein produced no further muscle. PhysioPlan uses this as the bulk target.

↗ Morton et al. (2018) — Br J Sports Med

Fat — minimum 20% of calories

Dietary fat & hormones

A meta-analysis of 6 intervention studies found low-fat diets — at or below 20% of calories — reduced testosterone in men by 10–15% versus higher-fat diets. Cholesterol from dietary fat is the direct precursor for steroid hormone synthesis, so PhysioPlan keeps fat at a 20% floor.

↗ Whittaker & Wu (2021) — J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol

Carbs — the remainder

Carbohydrate fuels training

In hypertrophy training, roughly 80% of ATP comes from glycolysis — the breakdown of carbohydrate. Its importance caps out, though: one study found no output difference between very low and very high carb intake across 15 sets, while higher-volume protocols benefit more. PhysioPlan assigns all remaining calories to carbs.

↗ Lambert & Flynn (2002) — Sports Med ↗ Henselmans et al. (2022) — Nutrients

Digestion

The thermic effect of food.

Digesting food itself burns calories — and the amount depends on what you eat. Most calculators assign a flat ~10%, ignoring macronutrient breakdown entirely. That penalizes exactly the people most likely to use them: athletes eating high-protein diets.

Protein 20–30% | Carbs 5–10% | Fat 0–3%

TEF varies by macronutrient

Each macronutrient burns a different share of its own calories through digestion. Protein is by far the most expensive. Replacing 20% of a meal's calories with protein raised total TEF from 7.1% to 8.3% in one study and 10.5% to 14.6% in another. PhysioPlan uses the midpoints: 25% / 7.5% / 1.5%.

↗ Westerterp (2004) — Nutr Metab ↗ Westerterp-Plantenga et al. (2009)

Iterative solving

A circular relationship

TEF depends on total calories and macros — but the right calorie target depends on TEF. That circularity means it can't be solved in one pass. PhysioPlan recalculates TEF from the prescribed macros, adjusts intake, and repeats until the numbers converge.

↗ de Jonge & Bray (1997) — Obes Res

The bigger picture

Why an adaptive approach matters.

Even a methodology that accounts for lean mass, training phase, experience, macros, and TEF is still imperfect. In one six-week study of 28 trained men on identical programs, measured factors like protein intake, surplus size, and training volume explained only 18–40% of the variation in who gained muscle versus fat. Most of the difference was unexplained.

That's the case for adapting. If someone in a surplus that should be ideal starts gaining fat too quickly, they lower calories. If a new lifter gains almost no fat after months, they can push the surplus higher. And because metabolism drifts downward over a long deficit, targets need to move with it. The best plan isn't just calculated once — it recalibrates against real-world results.

↗ Smith et al. (2021) — Sports

The method

How the adjustment is calculated.

The Adaptive Tracker turns that principle into a concrete rule. Rather than guessing when to change calories, it measures your actual rate of weight change, compares it to your target, and corrects the difference using the energy content of body tissue. Four ideas keep it honest.

1 — Trend, not noise

Compare smoothed averages, not single weigh-ins

Body weight swings two to three pounds day to day on water, sodium, and carbohydrate alone — none of it fat. Comparing any two single mornings can therefore be badly misleading. Instead, the tracker averages the weigh-ins clustered near the start of the window against those near the end, and measures the change between those two averages. A single salty dinner gets absorbed into the trend rather than driving a false correction.

2 — Wait for signal

A minimum two-week window

Meaningful trends need time to separate from daily noise. The tracker collects at least two weeks of data before it will suggest anything — matching the check-in cadence used across the community and long enough for a real rate of change to emerge.

3 — Proportional correction

Scale the change to the gap

Roughly 3,500 calories separates you from a pound of body mass. If your measured rate misses your target by a given amount per week, the daily calorie change needed to close that gap follows directly from that relationship — a larger miss earns a larger correction, a small one only a nudge.

weekly gap = actual rate − target rate  (lbs/week)
daily change = −(weekly gap × 3,500) ÷ 7  (calories)

Target −0.5 lb/week, but the smoothed trend shows +0.5 lb/week → a gap of 1.0 lb/week → about a −500 cal/day correction.

4 — You decide

The tool recommends; it never overrides

Every adjustment is presented as a suggestion you can apply or dismiss. The methodology is a guide, not an authority — the number is only ever a starting point for your own judgment, and if a recommendation ever looks implausibly low, that's usually a sign to re-check the inputs rather than follow it blindly.

Training

Training recommendations

Frequency — 2–3x per muscle

Training frequency & hypertrophy

A landmark meta-analysis established that training each muscle group at least twice per week produces superior hypertrophic outcomes compared to once per week.

↗ Schoenfeld, Ogborn & Krieger (2016) — Sports Medicine

Volume — 6–22 sets/muscle/week

Volume dose-response

Hypertrophy follows a dose-response relationship with volume up to a recoverable ceiling. Israetel's volume landmark framework (MEV, MAV, MRV) and Schoenfeld's meta-analysis form the basis for the experience-differentiated ranges.

↗ Schoenfeld et al. (2017) — J Sports Sci

Intensity — RPE 7–9.5

Proximity to failure

RPE provides a practical intensity metric. Beginners train further from failure to build motor patterns; advanced lifters train closer to maintain the hypertrophic stimulus as the adaptive ceiling rises.

↗ Schoenfeld & Grgic (2019) — Strength & Cond J

Recomposition

Simultaneous muscle gain & fat loss

A systematic review confirmed recomposition in resistance-trained individuals across multiple RCTs. Rate is highest in beginners and declines sharply with experience.

↗ Barakat et al. (2020) — Strength & Conditioning Journal

Formulas

How it's calculated.

A plain-English walkthrough of every calculation that runs when you hit Generate. Each step feeds into the next.

Step 1

How many calories does your body burn at rest?

Instead of one formula for everyone, PhysioPlan picks the one best calibrated to your body. Leaner, athletic individuals get the Ten Haaf equation (built on athletes, using lean mass); everyone else gets Mifflin-St Jeor, the general-population clinical standard.

// Athletic (men <20% BF, women <28% BF):
Resting Cal = (95.272 × LeanMass_kg + 2026.161) ÷ 4.184

// General population:
Resting Cal = (10 × wt_kg) + (6.25 × ht_cm) − (5 × age) + s
// s = +5 for men, −161 for women

A lean 180 lb athlete at 12% BF → ~72 kg lean mass → Ten Haaf estimates ~2,120 cal/day at rest.

Step 2

How many calories do you burn moving around?

Your resting burn is the baseline. On top of that, your body burns calories through everyday movement (NEAT) and actual workouts, scaled separately.

Daily movement = Resting Calories × activity multiplier
// Sedentary × 1.2  |  Moderately Active × 1.35  |  Very Active × 1.5
Workout calories = (training days/week × 300) ÷ 7

Step 3

How many calories does digestion burn?

Digesting food costs calories. Protein is the most expensive at 25%, carbs 7.5%, fat 1.5%. Because TEF depends on macros which depend on total calories which include TEF — this is solved iteratively until the result stabilizes.

TEF = (Protein_kcal × 0.25) + (Carb_kcal × 0.075) + (Fat_kcal × 0.015)
Maintenance = NEAT + Exercise + TEF
// Solved iteratively until convergence

Step 4

What's your daily calorie target?

Here's the subtle part most calculators get wrong. You can't just subtract 500 from maintenance — changing calories changes the macro split, which changes TEF, which changes the true target. So the deficit (or surplus) is solved with a second iteration: guess a target, compute its macros and TEF, then set the next guess to base + TEF − deficit, and repeat until it converges. Bulk surplus scales smaller with experience, since advanced lifters' adaptive ceiling is lower.

// base = NEAT + Exercise (pre-TEF)
target = base + TEF(target) − deficit
// Cut deficit:  300 / 500 / 750
// Bulk surplus: 400 / 300 / 200 (Beginner / Inter / Adv)
// Solved iteratively until convergence

For our 82 kg example, a flat −500 would give 2,836 cal — but solving properly yields 2,803 cal, because the leaner macro split at a deficit carries a slightly different thermic cost.

Step 5

How are calories split into macros?

Protein is set from the research: lean mass on a cut, a bodyweight ceiling on a bulk. Fat is held at a 20% floor to protect hormones. Every remaining calorie goes to carbohydrate to fuel training.

// Protein
Cut / Recomp:  2.7g × LeanMass_kg  (2.3–3.1 range)
Bulk:          1.62g × Bodyweight_kg  (ceiling)

// Fat & carbs
Fat = (0.20 × Target Cals) ÷ 9
Carbs = (Target Cals − P×4 − F×9) ÷ 4

Step 6

Where does the weight change come from?

Not all weight lost on a cut is fat — some is muscle. Not all weight gained on a bulk is muscle — some is fat. The model accounts for both based on experience level and deficit or surplus size.

Cut:  LBM_lost = totalWeightLost × ratio
// Beginner 0–10%  |  Intermediate 10–20%  |  Advanced 15–30%

Bulk: LBM_gained = totalGain × 0.70  |  Fat_gained = totalGain × 0.30

Step 7

How long will it take?

One pound of body fat contains roughly 3,500 calories. Dividing the total calorie gap by your daily deficit gives the number of weeks to goal.

Weeks = (pounds to lose × 3,500) ÷ (daily deficit × 7)

Example: 20 lbs at −500 cal/day → (20 × 3,500) ÷ (500 × 7) = 20 weeks

Step 8

How the plan recalibrates over time

Every number above is an estimate — your body is the real data. Every two weeks, the tracker compares your smoothed weight trend against your target rate and corrects the difference using the same ~3,500-calorie-per-pound relationship. Weight is averaged across nearby weigh-ins first, so day-to-day water and food swings don't trigger a false change.

weekly gap = actual rate − target rate  (lbs/week)
daily change = −(weekly gap × 3,500) ÷ 7  (calories)
new target = current calories + daily change

Example: target −0.5 lb/week, smoothed trend shows +0.5 → gap of 1.0 lb/week → about a −500 cal/day correction. You choose whether to apply it.

Community

Join the community.

Get your plan, share your goals, and track real progress alongside others working toward theirs. Here's who's in it right now.

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Members

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Cutting

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Bulking

—

Recomping

Growing — new members join every day.

Join the community

Member results

Real outcomes from real members.

Early results from the community.

Founder · recomp

Lost 9 lbs of fat while increasing every lift over 8 weeks.

Emmett G.

+5 lbs muscle · 8 weeks

Gained 5 lbs of muscle over 8 weeks and added 20 lbs to his bench press.

Ethan B.

Recomp · 8 weeks

Added 5 lbs to his bench press over 8 weeks while losing 3 lbs and building muscle.

Daniel B.

+3 lbs muscle · 6 weeks

Gained 3 lbs of muscle over 6 weeks while staying lean.

Anonymous

−5 lbs · strength held

Lost 5 lbs while maintaining strength on all lifts over 6 weeks.

Daniel Z.

+5 lbs muscle · PRs

Gained 5 lbs of muscle while increasing strength every session.

Foster V.

Visible change · 4 weeks

Started getting compliments on his physique after just 4 weeks on PhysioPlan.

Jake S.

How it works

Three steps.

Get your plan

Use the calculator to generate your personalized calorie, macro, and training plan. Takes 2 minutes.

Share your goals

Fill out the short form with your starting stats and what you're working toward.

Check in every two weeks

A short check-in every two weeks tracks your progress. Adjust targets based on real results.

New — Adaptive Tracker

A plan that adjusts to your real results.

Any calculator — including this one — can only estimate your starting point. Your body is the real data. That's the core argument of the research behind PhysioPlan: the best plan isn't calculated once, it recalibrates as you go.

The Tracker puts that into practice. Log your weight over time, and every two weeks it compares your actual trend against your target. If you're drifting — gaining when you meant to hold, losing slower than planned — it recommends a calorie adjustment. You decide whether to take it.

Trend, not noise

Daily weight swings a few pounds on water, sodium, and carbs alone. The Tracker averages nearby weigh-ins and waits a full two weeks before suggesting anything, so a single salty dinner never triggers a change.

Proportional adjustments

The further you are from your target rate, the larger the correction — scaled directly to the gap using the ~3,500 calories-per-pound relationship, not arbitrary fixed steps.

You stay in control

It only ever suggests. Apply the new number or keep your current one — the choice is always yours, and your data never leaves your device.

What you'll be asked

Short check-ins every two weeks.

None take more than 5 minutes.

Day 1

Name & sex

Goal & specific target

Current weight & body fat %

Training experience level

PhysioPlan's calculated calorie target

Current lift & estimated 1RM (if strength goal)

Baseline photo (optional)

Data use consent

Every 2 weeks

Current weight (fasted, morning)

Working weight for each tracked lift

Days out of 14 within 10% of calorie target

Training sessions completed out of planned

Open comments (optional)

Final check-in

Physical outcomes

Final weight (fasted, morning)

Final working weight for each tracked lift

Overall adherence

Calorie & macro consistency — full period (1–10)

Training consistency — full period (1–10)

Average days per week PhysioPlan was used

Satisfaction

Would you continue using PhysioPlan? Why?

Likelihood to recommend (0–10)

Overall satisfaction (1–10)

Qualitative

Most valuable thing about PhysioPlan

Biggest limitation or thing you'd change

Any other comments (optional)

The idea behind PhysioPlan

Getting in shape is straightforward in theory — eat right, train hard, be consistent. But the advice online is either too generic to be useful or so contradictory you don't know where to start. Calculators that multiply your bodyweight by 15. Influencers telling you opposite things about protein. Programs that don't account for your actual experience level or goals.

I got frustrated with that. I've been training seriously for 3 years — running cut and bulk cycles, tracking nutrition, and learning what actually moves the needle. When I dug into the research, I found things that explained a lot. Most TDEE calculators, for example, completely ignore the thermic effect of food — the fact that your body burns up to 25% of protein calories just through digestion. That single oversight means millions of people are eating "correctly" by generic standards and still not hitting their goals. Another: two people at the same bodyweight but different body fat percentages have meaningfully different metabolisms, yet almost every calculator treats them identically.

I have a love for math, so when I found gaps like these I built PhysioPlan to fix them — using the actual formulas from peer-reviewed research rather than the shortcuts everyone else settles for. The goal is simple: give you a plan that's genuinely accurate, so you can stop guessing and start making real progress.

Share your goals using the form and I'll follow up with you throughout your journey.

Ready to get started?

Get your plan, share your goals, and I'll follow up. Your progress helps make PhysioPlan better for everyone.

Join the community