What to do if the numbers don't add up? Weight Control Calculator

It sometimes happens for weight control calculations.

The course formulas are correct, and this is also what sports nutrition scientists use.

Having said that, when it all comes together, it might require some manual adjustment so as not to exceed the desired DCN.

Here's how it can be done:

Remember that both protein and carbohydrate calculations in the Weight Control Calculator from your course materials provide you with a "range". For example, from X to X carb/protein grams, and then from X to X carb/protein calories.

In practice, it's always best to add everything up from the lower range (the smaller carb/protein intake number) and see how that approximates the desired DCN.

However, if the total sum of the lower range numbers (plus fat calories) exceeds the weight loss DCN, you can "cap" that total sum, so that the sum of the lower range numbers (plus fat) don't go over the total DCN.

To cap them, you would ideally adjust all 3 macronutrient calories (and then grams) proportionally, so they all match the desired DCN.

In order to do that, you first need to convert your lower range carb and protein numbers into percentages of the total calorie sum (not the DCN).

This means that every person will have a different percentage for each macronutrient that you can use to calculate things back.

Once you have the percentages for all 3 macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat), put them against the weight control DCN and calculate how many calories (and grams) per macronutrient that translates to.

Remember that percentages should be written as decimals in your calculations.

For example, if we hypothetically have the following:

Let's say that the target DCN for weight loss we calculated before is 1,440 calories.

But the total sum of protein, fat, and carb calories in the Weight Control Calculator gives us 1,200 calories:

• 352 protein calories + 560 carb calories + 288 fat calories = 1,200 total calories

Since there's a mismatch, we need to convert each macronutrient into percentages, like this:

• 352 protein calories ÷ 1,200 is 0.293, which is written as 29.3%
• 560 carb calories ÷ 1,200 is 0.4666, which is rounded as 46.7%
• 288 fat calories ÷ 1,200 is 0.24, which is written as 24%

All together adds to 100%.

So then your target DCN for weight loss (1,440 calories) needs to be used as your "new" 100%, from which 29.3% should come protein, 46.7% from carbs, and 24% from fat.

For example, 29.3% of DCN is calculated as 0.293 x 1,440 = 422 protein calories.

So you can work out the calories for each macronutrient from there, in the same way. And all 3 will add up to the 1,440 DCN.

Manual calculations can get complicated, though it gets easier with practice!

AUTHOR: Alex Ruani, Research Director

Updated on: 27/10/2026