nutrition, down to the macro.
A food database 1,300+ deep, calories derived from macros so the numbers never lie.
a calorie is never stored.
A stored calorie is a number waiting to lie. Edit the protein and forget the total, and the food claims an energy it no longer has. Trainbase prices every macro at the Atwater factors, 4 kilocalories a gram of protein and carbohydrate and 9 a gram of fat, and adds them up on demand. The energy is always exactly the food, because it was never a separate field that could drift.
One database of 1,300+ foods, every one of them honest by construction. Change a gram and the calorie moves with it.
the day is the sum of its macros.
Take one athlete's target day: 180 g of protein, 200 g of carbohydrate, 70 g of fat. Priced at 4, 4, and 9, that is 720, 800, and 630 kilocalories. The ring's centre is those three arcs added together, 2,150 kcal, sized by the energy each macro earns rather than by its grams. Fat is a third of the calories on a quarter of the grams, and the chart shows it.
- protein, 180 g720 kcal33%
- carbohydrate, 200 g800 kcal37%
- fat, 70 g630 kcal29%
the math holds on every row.
A handful of staples, per 100 grams, with the derived energy in the last column. The kcal is never typed in: it is 4 times the protein, plus 4 times the carbohydrate, plus 9 times the fat, computed every time the food is read. Round the macros and the energy rounds with them.
| food (per 100 g) | protein | carb | fat | derived kcal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| chicken breast | 31 g | 0 g | 3.6 g | 156 |
| salmon, atlantic | 20 g | 0 g | 13 g | 197 |
| whole egg | 13 g | 1.1 g | 11 g | 155 |
| white rice, cooked | 2.7 g | 28 g | 0.3 g | 126 |
| almonds | 21 g | 22 g | 49 g | 613 |
| broccoli | 2.8 g | 7 g | 0.4 g | 43 |
| olive oil | 0 g | 0 g | 100 g | 900 |
Each derived kcal is 4p + 4c + 9f rounded to the nearest whole, for example chicken: 4 x 31 + 4 x 0 + 9 x 3.6 = 156. Olive oil is pure fat, so its 100 g earns the full 900.
protein per calorie, the honest comparison.
Total protein flatters calorie-dense foods. The fair question for a coach building a deficit is how much protein a food brings per 100 kilocalories spent. On that scale a lean cut wins by a wide margin, and a nut, for all its protein, is mostly fat you are paying for.
two ways to hold a calorie.
Most food apps store a calorie field next to the macros. The moment anyone edits a macro, the two can disagree, and nobody knows which one to trust. Deriving the calorie removes the question entirely, because there is only ever one number and it is always the macros.
| stored-calorie apps | trainbase, derived | |
|---|---|---|
| where the calorie lives | a saved field beside the macros | computed from macros on read |
| edit a macro | calorie can fall out of sync | calorie moves with it, always |
| source of truth | two numbers, ambiguous | one number, the macros |
| data drift over time | accumulates silently | impossible by construction |
| custom foods by a coach | must remember to recompute | nothing to recompute, ever |
The 4 / 4 / 9 Atwater factors are the standard general values. A few foods, such as fibre-rich plants and sugar alcohols, carry small adjustments; Trainbase uses the standard factors for the library.
the honest answers.
Why not just store the calorie like everyone else?
Because a stored calorie and its macros can disagree the instant either is edited, and then no one knows which is right. Deriving the calorie means there is only one number to trust, and it is always exactly the macros priced at 4, 4, and 9.
How much protein should a client actually eat?
For someone training to retain or build lean tissue, 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight a day is the commonly cited range. Leaner and more advanced athletes sit toward the top of it; a coach sets the target per client.
Are the 4 / 4 / 9 factors exact?
They are the standard general Atwater factors and they are accurate for the great majority of whole foods. A handful of cases, high-fibre plants and sugar alcohols among them, have small refinements, but the library uses the standard factors so every food is computed the same honest way.
Can a coach add their own foods?
Yes. A trainer-owned food is private to the coach who created it and never appears in another coach's library. It carries macros only, so its calorie is derived the same way as every company food, with nothing to recompute and nothing to drift.