this software tells it like it is. put in your age, height, weight, activity level, and your desired weekly weight change (loss/gain) and this program spits out all the answers. it tells you what your your target weight should be. it tells you how many calories to eat. it even breaks it up into protein, carbs, and fat targets. it calculates your bmi, bee, and tdee. don't know what they are? just a click will send you to the website, to a page for each. the website has a lot of great articles and stuff.