Run a calculation step by step

What Guided Mode is

Guided Mode is a step-by-step way to run any of FitMetricLab's 102 fitness calculators. Instead of presenting a form with every field at once, it asks for a single value, waits for you to enter or pick it, then moves to the next. When it has everything the formula requires, it shows the result together with the same chart or reference scale the individual tool page would show.

The arithmetic is identical to the standalone calculators. Both call the same calculation engine, so a Body Mass Index worked out here and a Body Mass Index worked out on the BMI page cannot disagree — there is one implementation of each formula, not two. What differs is the pacing and the memory: Guided Mode keeps the values you supply and reuses them, so a sequence of related calculations gets shorter as you go.

How to use Guided Mode

1. Choose a calculation. Pick one of the options shown, or use the search box to find any calculator by name or keyword — it covers the complete set, not just the visible shortlist.
2. Answer one value at a time. Type the figure, drag the slider, or take the preset. Fields with a fixed set of answers, such as sex or activity level, appear as buttons instead of a number entry.
3. Read the result. Each calculation returns its headline figure, the supporting numbers behind it, and a chart where the underlying method has a recognised published scale.
4. Continue to the next calculation. Anything you have already entered is carried forward, so the next tool asks only for what it does not yet have. Options labelled ready need no further input.
5. Keep the working. Save a PDF report covering every calculation in the session, or open any result in its full tool page with your values already filled in.

Which calculators are available

Every calculator on the site can be run in Guided Mode, across 11 categories: Body Composition, Conversions, Cycling, Energy Expenditure, Heart Rate Zones, Macros & Intake, Progress Tracking, Running, Strength Training, Swimming, Timing & Pacing. Nothing is held back for the standalone pages, and no calculator behaves differently depending on which route you use to reach it.

How values carry between calculations

Shared inputs

The calculators use consistent names for the same quantity — weight, height, age, sex — so a value entered once is understood by every tool that needs it. Enter your weight for a Body Mass Index calculation and it is already known when you move to basal metabolic rate, protein intake, or a one-rep-max estimate.

Results that become inputs

Some outputs feed forward as well. A basal metabolic rate figure becomes an input to the total daily energy expenditure calculator; a body-fat percentage becomes an input to fat-free mass index. Guided Mode chains these automatically, so a run that would otherwise mean copying a number from one page into another happens without you handling it. A sequence that takes eleven separate field entries across four standalone pages typically takes four answers here.

Metric and imperial units

The unit selector switches every convertible field at once and can be changed at any point, including part-way through a calculation. Values you have already supplied are converted and restated rather than requested again. The stored number never changes when you switch — only the way it is displayed — so moving back and forth between systems cannot gradually distort a figure through repeated rounding. Calculators that exist specifically to compare one system against the other, such as the unit converters, keep both sets of fields as they are.

Saving a session report

Save PDF report produces one document covering the whole session: the values you supplied, then each calculation with its headline figure and supporting detail. You choose which calculations to include before it is generated. If you ran the same calculation more than once — after changing a value, for example — it appears once, using the most recent result, because the earlier figures rest on inputs that have since changed. The report is built in your browser, like everything else here.

Where your values are stored

In your browser, and nowhere else. The calculation engine runs on the page itself, so nothing you enter is transmitted to a server. The values you supply are held in your browser's local storage so that reloading the page does not lose them, and they expire automatically after 30 days. The list of calculations in the current session is kept in session storage instead, which the browser erases the moment you close the tab — so a refresh keeps your work, and closing the tab leaves nothing behind.

You can erase the stored values at any time using Clear values, the clear-data button on our Cookie Policy page, or your browser settings. If you would rather nothing were stored at all, the individual calculator pages keep nothing between visits. Full detail is in our Privacy Policy.

What Guided Mode does not do

It applies published formulas to the numbers you supply and shows the outcome. It does not interpret those numbers for you, judge whether a figure is good or bad, or produce diet, training, or medical guidance. Where a result is shown against a reference scale, that scale is a published classification from the organisation that defined it, presented for context rather than as an assessment of you.

Every formula is documented with its sources on the corresponding tool page, including the study or standard it comes from and the population it was derived from. All figures are estimates drawn from population-level research; they are not measurements of your body, and individual results vary.

Frequently asked questions