Your calorie and macro targets aren't picked once and left alone — they come from a calculation that runs on your own numbers, and it's worth knowing the shape of it.
Maintenance comes first
metrIQ starts from your maintenance calories — the amount that would keep your weight exactly where it is. This is worked out from your sex, height, age and current weight (your basal metabolic rate), scaled up by your activity level. It's an estimate, not a measurement, but it's the anchor everything else is built from.
Your goal and pace set the gap
Next comes your goal and how quickly you've chosen to move toward it. If you're aiming to lose weight, metrIQ applies a deficit below maintenance; gaining applies a surplus above it. The pace you pick decides how large that gap is, within limits the app enforces regardless of how aggressive a pace you ask for — there's a floor on how low a deficit can push your calories, and a cap on how large a deficit your body composition can reasonably sustain. If your chosen pace would cross either line, metrIQ pulls the target back rather than let you run something it can't stand behind.
Protein first, then the rest
Once your calorie target is set, protein is worked out from your body composition — specifically your lean mass — rather than from whatever calories happen to be left over. That's deliberate: protein is what protects your muscle while you're in a deficit, and the requirement rises the deeper the deficit runs. Fat is carved out first, as a fixed share of your total calories, and protein is then fitted into whatever room is left once that share and a small carb floor are reserved — carbs take up whatever's left after that. If protein and fat together would leave too little room for carbs, protein is the one that gives way — but only right at the edges of a very tight budget.
Why the number moves
Your maintenance calories are calculated fresh from your current weight, not your starting weight — so as your weight changes, your maintenance figure changes with it, and your target moves along with that. This is normal and expected: a lighter body generally burns a little less, so the same pace of loss needs a slightly smaller gap over time. You don't need to do anything when this happens — it's why metrIQ recalculates rather than fixing a number on day one and leaving it there for months.
If your target ever looks off, the most likely explanation is a change in your logged weight, not a bug — check your recent weigh-ins first, then ask us if something still doesn't add up.