Carbohydrate Calculator
Carbohydrate fuels activity, so the target comes from your bodyweight and how much you train — not from a percentage of your calories, which cannot see your training at all. The page also covers the floor beneath the number, the fibre inside it, and the sugar cap on top.
5.5 g per kg of bodyweight, which is 1540 kcal — 64.2% of your calorie target.
What sits inside and around it
- Fibre target
- 34 g
- Part of the total, not extra.
- Net carbohydrate
- 351 g
- Total minus fibre.
- Free sugar, WHO limit
- 60 g
- Under 30 g is better still.
- Free sugar, AHA cap
- 36 g
- An absolute figure, not a share.
Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Why not a percentage of calories?
Because carbohydrate is fuel, and a percentage of your intake knows nothing about what you are fuelling. The two come apart hardest exactly where it matters — an endurance athlete eating at a deficit, who needs the most carbohydrate and has the fewest calories to express it in.
| Method | Carbohydrate | What it assumes |
|---|---|---|
| 55% of 2,000 kcal | 275 g | That fuel need follows appetite. It does not. |
| 7 g/kg for endurance training | 490 g | That the training being done sets the requirement. |
The gap is 215 g a day — enough glycogen to decide whether the last hour of a session happens at all. Note also what the training-load figure implies: at 490 g, carbohydrate alone is 98% of a 2,000 kcal intake, which is the calculator telling you something true and useful — that this athlete cannot hold that training load on that calorie target, whatever the split.
Carbohydrate by training load
From the ACSM and ISSN position stands, with the grams worked out at your bodyweight. These are fuelling figures for people training; the general-population guidance sits nearer the bottom of the range.
| Load | Per kg | Your target | Typical day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 3 g | 210 g | Little or no deliberate training. |
| Light training | 4 g | 280 g | Low-intensity or skill-based, under an hour a day. |
| Moderate training | 5.5 g | 385 g | About an hour a day of moderate intensity. |
| Endurance training | 7 g | 490 g | One to three hours a day of moderate to high intensity. |
| Extreme endurance | 10 g | 700 g | Four hours or more a day — stage racing, ultra distance. |
Glycemic index against glycemic load
Index measures how fast a fixed 50 g of carbohydrate raises blood glucose. Load scales that by how much carbohydrate a realistic portion actually holds. Watch watermelon: a frightening index of 76, and a load of 5, because a serving contains almost no carbohydrate. Load is the figure that corresponds to eating.
| Food | Serving | Carbs | GI | GL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glucose (reference) | 50 g | 50 g | 100 | 50 |
| Potato, boiled | 150 g | 20 g | 78 | 16 |
| Watermelon | 120 g | 6 g | 76 | 5 |
| White bread | 30 g slice | 14 g | 75 | 11 |
| Wholemeal bread | 30 g slice | 12 g | 74 | 9 |
| White rice, boiled | 150 g | 43 g | 73 | 31 |
| Brown rice, boiled | 150 g | 33 g | 68 | 22 |
| Sweet potato, boiled | 150 g | 25 g | 63 | 16 |
| Porridge oats | 250 g | 22 g | 55 | 12 |
| Banana | 120 g | 23 g | 51 | 12 |
| Pasta, white, boiled | 180 g | 48 g | 49 | 24 |
| Apple | 120 g | 13 g | 36 | 5 |
| Lentils, boiled | 150 g | 18 g | 32 | 6 |
| Chickpeas, boiled | 150 g | 30 g | 28 | 8 |
Index bands are low at 55 and under, high at 70 and over. Load bands are low at 10 and under, high at 20 and over per serving. Both are measured on foods eaten alone; adding fat, protein or acid to a meal slows gastric emptying and lowers the real response, so a mixed meal behaves better than its highest-index component suggests.
What this cannot tell you
A gram total says nothing about where the carbohydrate comes from, and the difference between lentils and confectionery does not appear anywhere in this arithmetic. Fibre, micronutrients and satiety all travel with the food rather than with the number.
The training-load bands also assume the training is happening. They are fuelling recommendations, so taking the endurance figure without the endurance training simply means eating more carbohydrate than you are using. And anyone managing diabetes has a different set of considerations entirely — carbohydrate counting for insulin dosing is a clinical skill, not a calculator output.
Medical disclaimer. This calculator is for general information and education only. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for professional care. If you have diabetes, insulin resistance, or any condition affecting blood glucose, carbohydrate intake should be planned with your clinical team rather than from a general-purpose tool.Speak to a doctor or a registered dietitian before making significant dietary changes.Last reviewed .
Frequently asked questions
How many carbohydrates should I eat per day?
It depends far more on how much you train than on how much you eat. The sports nutrition position stands state the requirement per kilogram of bodyweight: roughly 3 to 5 g/kg for light activity, 5 to 7 for about an hour a day, 6 to 10 for one to three hours, and up to 12 for extreme endurance loads. The Institute of Medicine also sets an RDA of 130 g a day and an acceptable range of 45 to 65% of calories, but those are population figures for general health rather than fuelling targets.
Why set carbohydrate from bodyweight rather than a percentage of calories?
Because carbohydrate fuels activity, and a percentage cannot see your training. A 70 kg endurance athlete eating 2,000 kcal gets 275 g from the usual "55% of calories" rule, when their training load calls for about 490 g — an under-fuelling of over 215 g a day. Percentages are a fine way to describe a diet after the fact, but a poor way to set one.
What is the 130 g minimum for?
It is the Institute of Medicine's RDA, set by the brain's obligate glucose demand rather than by any performance consideration. It is a floor, not a target. Low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets go below it deliberately and adapt by producing ketones for part of that demand, which is a legitimate choice made knowingly. Falling under it by accident, because a percentage rule happened to land there, is a different matter — this calculator says so when your target does.
Do I count total or net carbohydrates?
Total carbohydrate is what the label states. Net carbohydrate subtracts fibre, and often sugar alcohols, on the reasoning that they are poorly absorbed. Fibre is a fair subtraction. Sugar alcohols are only partly absorbed and vary widely — erythritol is near zero, maltitol is not — so this page halves them rather than removing them outright. Net carbs are a dieting convention, not a regulated definition, so comparing the figure across brands is unreliable.
How much fibre should I get, and does it count toward my carbs?
It counts toward them, not on top of them — fibre is a type of carbohydrate, which is a detail most calculators omit. The common target is 14 g per 1,000 kcal, so about 34 g at 2,400 kcal. Because it is largely unabsorbed, its usable energy is well under the 4 kcal per gram the carbohydrate total assumes, which is the same reason it is subtracted to get net carbs.
How much sugar is too much?
The WHO recommends free sugars stay under 10% of energy, and suggests under 5% for additional benefit — about 60 g and 30 g respectively at 2,400 kcal. The American Heart Association sets absolute caps instead: 36 g a day for men and 25 g for women. "Free" or "added" sugars means those put into food, plus honey, syrups and fruit juice — not the sugar naturally present in whole fruit or milk, which behaves quite differently because of what it arrives with.
What is the difference between glycemic index and glycemic load?
Glycemic index measures how fast a fixed 50 g of carbohydrate raises blood glucose. Glycemic load scales that by how much carbohydrate a realistic portion actually contains. The difference matters: watermelon has a glycemic index of 76, which sounds alarming, but a 120 g serving holds only 6 g of carbohydrate, giving a glycemic load of 5 — trivial. Load corresponds to eating; index corresponds to a laboratory dose.
Are all carbohydrates equivalent?
Not for satiety, blood glucose response, or micronutrient content. Whole grains, legumes, fruit and vegetables deliver fibre and micronutrients alongside their carbohydrate; refined sugar delivers neither. The calculator works in grams because grams are what you can measure, but two diets hitting the same total can differ substantially in how full they leave you — and satiety is usually what decides whether a plan survives.
Should I eat carbohydrates around training?
It matters most when sessions are long, hard, or close together. Glycogen is the limiting fuel above roughly 65% of maximum effort, and restoring it between sessions is what timing is for. For someone training once a day with 24 hours to recover, total daily intake does nearly all the work and timing is a refinement. For someone training twice a day or racing, carbohydrate immediately after the first session is doing something real.
Is my data saved or uploaded anywhere?
No. Every calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored, or logged, and the page keeps working offline once loaded. If you share the page URL after calculating, the figures you entered are in the link — clear the query string first if you would rather not pass them on.