Know your numbers.
Then build the plan.
Free, in about 60 seconds. Your fight-camp calories, protein, carbs and fat, when to eat your carbs around training, and an honest read on whether your weigh-in is realistic.
Your numbers
Not sure? Leave it blank and I’ll use a formula that doesn’t need it.
Current weight, ideally a 7-day morning average.
Add your class weight and how far out you are. You get Monday checkpoint weights and a verdict on whether the cut is realistic.
Add every session you actually do in a normal week. Two sessions in one day? Add them as two rows. This replaces the usual “activity multiplier” guess with the real cost of your work.
Day by day: Change▼
Each day’s load sets its carb minimum: 3 g/kg for rest or light drilling, 3.5 for standard training, 4 for hard sparring or conditioning, 5 for two demanding sessions. Harder days get more food; the weekly total doesn’t change.
Everything that isn’t training or sleeping. Between a desk job and manual work this is worth several hundred calories a day.
RMR formula: CunninghamChange▼
Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is what you burn doing nothing at all, and every target is built on it. Cunningham is used when you enter body fat; leave body fat blank and Mifflin-St Jeor is used instead. A measured RMR overrides both. If another formula fits you better, pick it — your number for each is shown.
Measured RMR, protein, coach’s minimum▼
From a metabolic test. When it’s entered it overrides every formula.
Default on a cut: 2.2 g/kg if you’re lean (under 15% body fat for men, 23% for women) or leave body fat blank; 2.0 g/kg above that. Maintenance and bulk: 2.0. Grams stay the same as you move the loss-rate slider.
No day’s target goes below it. A higher minimum can lower your self-guided loss limit.
Under-fuelling check · 30 seconds ▼
Under-fuelling is the most common serious problem in weight-class sport. These questions flag it early. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere.
Tick anything true for the last few monthsDaily macro split
When to eat it — around your session
Hitting your macros is half the job. When the carbs land decides whether you train hard, recover, and hold muscle through the descent. Numbers below are built from your bodyweight and today’s targets.
These are starting points, not a prescription. Real macros move with how you respond, what your camp actually looks like, and how your weigh-in is structured — that is the part I do with athletes 1:1.
You have the targets. Keeping them right is the hard part.
Training-day fundamentals
Hydration & electrolytes ▼
- Daily baseline: ~35 ml/kg of bodyweight, and more in heat or heavy sweat — combat athletes routinely sweat 1–2 L per hour.
- Check, don’t guess: pale-straw urine means hydrated, dark means drink. Weigh before and after hard sessions and replace ~125–150% of the weight lost as fluid.
- Sodium is the priority electrolyte: you lose roughly 1 g of sodium per litre of sweat — salt your food or use an electrolyte drink for long or hot sessions, and especially while cutting (low-carb eating sheds water and sodium fast).
- Don’t over-drink plain water: chronically flooding with water alone can dilute sodium (hyponatremia) — match intake to sweat and pair it with sodium.
- This is day-to-day hydration. A fight-week water cut is a separate, supervised process.
Supplements that actually earn their place ▼
- Under 18? Skip caffeine, beta-alanine and bicarbonate, and talk to your doctor before creatine. Food, sleep and fluids first.
- Creatine monohydrate (3–5 g/day): the most proven supplement for strength, power and repeat efforts. Expect ~1 kg of water weight — account for it around weigh-in, but it’s safe long-term and worth staying on.
- Caffeine (~3–6 mg/kg, 45–60 min before): reliably lifts power, endurance and focus. Trial it in training first and respect your sleep.
- Beta-alanine (4–6 g/day, split doses, for at least 2–4 weeks): improves high-intensity capacity in the ~1–4 min range that maps onto rounds; the harmless skin tingle is normal.
- Sodium bicarbonate (~0.2–0.3 g/kg pre): can buffer fatigue in repeated high-intensity efforts, but GI upset is common — trial carefully, never on fight day untested.
- Vitamin D & iron: only to correct a deficiency shown on blood work — iron especially matters for female athletes.
- Glutamine: not worth much as a daily muscle supplement. Its use in post-weigh-in rehydration drinks is experimental, with little data in athletes; sodium and fluid matter far more.
- Skip the rest: fat-burners and most “recovery” blends are unproven. If you’re drug-tested, only use batch-tested products (e.g. Informed Sport) — supplements are a common source of failed tests.
Method: RMR from a measured value if you have one, otherwise Cunningham with your body fat or Mifflin-St Jeor without it (other formulas available) · maintenance from your RMR and your training · every day has a minimum that protects protein (on a cut 2.2 g/kg bodyweight, or 2.0 above 15% body fat for men and 23% for women; 2.0 otherwise), carbs for that day’s load (3–5 g/kg) and fat (the larger of 0.7 g/kg and 20% of calories) · a cut takes 75% of its deficit from fat and the rest from carbs, and can’t go faster than 1.00% a week or below those minimums (7,700 kcal per kg, a starting estimate) · every day gets the same calories above its own minimum, so the weekly total is exact. A planning estimate: meeting these floors makes a plan feasible on paper, not medically cleared. Re-run it every few weeks as your weight comes down — you burn less as you get lighter.
Weight-cut feasibility
Built from the weigh-in you entered on the Stats & calc tab: how much comes off as fat, how much is left for fight week, and whether that is realistic.
Nobody loses a fight because they didn’t know their TDEE.
They lose it because the descent started three weeks too late, the last week was guesswork, or they made weight and walked out flat. You know your numbers now. Here are three ways to run them.
Your plan, ready to save
Your targets, training and rest days and Monday checkpoints, as a page you can save or print. You run it.
Champions Performance App
Log your morning weight. It re-sets your calories and macros every week, tracks you against your checkpoints and builds meals that hit your numbers.
Nothing is charged until launch.
Me, in your corner
I build the plan around you, adjust it every week, and run your fight week and refuel with you. Nutrition and S&C as one system, the way I run it with fighters in the UFC, PFL, GLORY, UFC BJJ and ADCC.
Apply for coaching →Free to apply. Worst case, you leave the call knowing what to fix on your own.
Questions fighters ask
How is a fighter TDEE calculator different from a normal one? ▼
A normal calculator multiplies your resting burn by a generic activity factor. This one starts from your lean mass, adds the sessions you actually train (sparring, rolling, pads, S&C), splits your calories between training and rest days, caps your weekly loss by your body fat, and checks whether your weigh-in is realistic.
How many calories should I eat during fight camp? ▼
Start from your maintenance (TDEE) and take a deficit sized to lose about 0.5 to 1% of your bodyweight a week. Never go below your resting metabolic rate. Then let two weeks of morning weigh-ins tell you whether to adjust by about 150 calories a day.
How much weight can I safely cut before a weigh-in? ▼
Most of it should come off gradually as fat across camp. With a day-before weigh-in, keep the fight-week loss to roughly 2 to 4% of your bodyweight, and less for a same-day weigh-in. Under 18, don't cut water at all.
How much protein do fighters need while cutting? ▼
On a cut this calculator sets protein at 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight if you’re lean (under 15% body fat for men, 23% for women) or leave body fat blank, and 2.0 g/kg above that, because leaner athletes lose more muscle in a deficit. Those grams hold steady as you move the loss-rate slider. For maintenance and a lean bulk it uses 2.0 g/kg. You can pick anything from 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg; it never goes higher. Spread it over 3 to 5 meals.
When should fighters eat carbs around training? ▼
Put most of your carbs around your hardest sessions: a carb and protein meal 2 to 3 hours before, 30 to 60 g an hour during sessions longer than about 75 to 90 minutes, and carbs plus protein within 2 hours after.