Our safety limits

When Mitta works out your daily calorie target, it never goes below a fixed floor:

• 1,500 kcal if you chose male in your profile.
• 1,200 kcal if you chose female or other, or left it empty.

If the maths would give a lower number, you get the floor and the explanation says so: "Your proposal comes out at the floor of 1,200 kcal." The floor applies when your first targets are set, when a check-in proposes a new target, and on rest days when your carbs move with your training. A rest day never drops below the floor, or below your own target if you set that lower yourself. What a calorie floor is, and why we have one goes into the reason.

Four limits keep a change slow:

• Pace you choose. If your goal is to lose weight, you pick slow, normal or fast: 0.25%, 0.5% or 0.75% of your body weight per week. Fast is the top. Gaining weight uses half of that.
• 200 kcal per check-in. A new daily target moves at most 200 kcal up or down from your current one.
• Once every 14 days. A new daily target can come at most once every 14 days, so you can see what the last one did.
• No lower when you lose fast. If your weight trend shows you are already losing more than 1% of your body weight a week, the target stays where it is.

The proposal is a suggestion. You choose whether to use the new target or keep the current one.

Protein and fat have no minimum that Mitta forces on you. Your first targets start from 2.2 g of protein per kg of body weight when your goal is to lose weight and 2.0 g per kg otherwise, and from 0.9 g of fat per kg. A check-in proposal keeps your current protein target and sets fat at 0.6 g per kg or 25% of the calories, whichever is more. These are starting points, and you can change them.

When you set your own targets, the one block is this: protein and fat together cannot be more calories than your daily target (4 kcal per gram of protein, 9 per gram of fat). Then the carbs would come out negative, and the app does not let you save. How your food targets are calculated

Your own targets are yours. If you fill in a daily target by hand, the field stops at 1,200 kcal for everyone. That is the lower floor, so a man can currently enter a target between 1,200 and 1,499 kcal, below the 1,500 floor Mitta uses when it calculates one. The same goes for the 200 kcal step and the 14 days: they apply to proposals, not to numbers you type yourself.

Mitta shows its own suggestion next to your numbers, with a Why? that lists what went in. That way you can see the difference.

The coach is an AI that answers your questions and can propose changes. It has its own fixed instructions, and a few checks that run outside the AI:

• Calories. No advice below 1,500 kcal (men) or 1,200 kcal (women) a day without guidance, no fasting plans or crash diets, and no losing weight faster than 1% a week. These are instructions to the coach.
• Body mass index (BMI) below 18.5. If your latest weight and your height give a BMI under 18.5, the coach cannot propose weight loss as a goal. The server leaves the goal out, and the app checks it a second time. The same BMI limit also hides the countdown to a goal weight that is lower than your weight now.
• Signs of an eating disorder. If the coach picks up such a signal, it does not propose weight loss as a goal for the next 180 days. It points you to your GP or proud2bme.nl instead of going along with the goal. This check is only part of the coach.
• No diagnosis. The coach does not diagnose or treat anything. For persistent or sharp pain, dizziness, chest pain or breathlessness it says to stop and see a doctor or physiotherapist.

Where the BMI and eating-disorder checks apply matters: they sit in the coach and the goal-weight countdown, not in the setup where you choose your own goal.

Mitta is for adults. At sign-up you confirm you are 18 or older, and the birth year you give in your profile must make you at least 18. It is a training and food app for healthy adults. It does not diagnose, treat or monitor any condition.

If you have a medical condition, are pregnant, or are unsure whether a food target is right for you, talk to a doctor or dietitian first. Mitta's limits are a safety net, not medical advice.