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Formerly called PCOS, now renamed PMOS · Built for Indian women

PCOS/PMOS Nutrition &
Calorie Calculator.

Six simple questions. You get your daily calorie number, your carb, protein and fat targets, and a sample day of Indian meals, all in plain English.

Start the calculator →

Takes about 2 minutes · Free · No sign-up · Educational tool, not a diagnosis

  1. 1Tell us your age, height, weight and how active you are
  2. 2Say what you want to work on and what you eat
  3. 3Get your calorie target, food targets and a sample day
✓ About 2 minutes
✓ Follows international PCOS/PMOS guidelines
✓ Indian foods and Indian BMI cut-offs
✓ No jargon unless you ask for it

This calculator does not diagnose PCOS/PMOS. It gives you a safe nutrition starting point based on your body size, activity, goal and pregnancy status, so you can discuss it with your doctor or dietitian.

Six quick questions

About 2 minutes. Nothing is saved to our servers, and there is nothing to sign up for.

This is for adult women who have PCOS, or think they might. It gives you a starting point to discuss with a dietitian or doctor. It is not a diagnosis and it does not replace medical advice. If you are pregnant, have a history of disordered eating, or have another serious health condition, please talk to your doctor before changing how much you eat.
Your age, height and weight * These three numbers tell us roughly how many calories your body burns just to keep you alive: breathing, heartbeat, staying warm.
Why we ask this

We put your age, height and weight into a standard equation (Mifflin-St Jeor, 1990) that estimates your resting energy: the calories you would burn in a day even if you stayed in bed. That is the base we build everything else on.

Height and weight together also give your BMI, which we use to decide how big a calorie cut is sensible for you. We use the Indian and South Asian BMI cut-offs (23 and 27.5) rather than the Western ones (25 and 30), because South Asian women develop insulin problems at a lower body size.

How active are you in a normal week? * Pick the line that sounds most like a typical week, not your best week. If you are unsure between two, choose the lower one.
Why we ask this

Your resting energy gets multiplied by an activity factor to estimate what you actually burn in a day. The factors used here are the standard WHO/FAO bands: 1.2 for mostly sitting, up to 1.9 for extremely active.

Separately from calories, the PCOS/PMOS guidelines suggest at least 150 minutes a week of activity that raises your heart rate, plus two sessions of strength work, and about 250 minutes a week if weight loss is the goal. Exercise helps insulin work better even if the scale does not move.

What do you want to work on? * You do not have to reach a "normal" BMI to feel better. Losing about 5 to 10% of your current weight is enough to improve periods, ovulation and blood sugar for most women with PCOS.
Why we ask this

The international PCOS/PMOS guidelines (2023) found that losing 5 to 10% of body weight over about six months produces a real improvement in blood-sugar control, in periods and ovulation, and in mood, even when BMI never reaches the "normal" band. That is why the moderate option is built around that target rather than around a goal weight.

Your answer here sets the size of the calorie cut, but we also check it against your BMI. If the two do not match, for example a large cut at a healthy BMI, you will get a warning in your results rather than a silently unsafe number.

Has a doctor mentioned insulin resistance or high blood sugar? * Insulin is the hormone that moves sugar out of your blood. "Insulin resistance" means your body has to make extra insulin to do the same job. It is very common with PCOS and it changes which foods suit you best. Not sure? Pick the middle option.
Why we ask this

Roughly half to three-quarters of women with PCOS have insulin resistance, including women who are slim. Extra insulin in the blood pushes the ovaries to make more testosterone, which is what drives irregular periods, acne and extra hair growth. So food choices that keep insulin steadier tend to help the hormonal picture too.

Your answer picks a starting eating pattern for you: a moderate-carbohydrate, slow-releasing pattern if insulin is likely to be an issue, or a Mediterranean-style pattern if it is not. You can change that choice under "Advanced settings" further down.

This question does not diagnose anything. If you picked the middle option, it is worth asking your doctor about HbA1c, fasting glucose, or an OGTT (a glucose tolerance test). Fasting insulin or HOMA-IR may be used by some clinicians, but they are not routine diagnostic tests for everyone, and the 2023 international guideline notes that the insulin assays available in ordinary labs have limited clinical usefulness.

What do you eat? * This only changes the example meals we show you. Your calorie and food targets stay exactly the same either way.
Are you pregnant or hoping to be? * This changes the safety advice you get. If you are pregnant we remove the calorie cut completely, because eating less is not safe in pregnancy.
Why we ask this

Cutting calories during pregnancy can deprive the baby, so if you tell us you are pregnant we set your target to maintenance no matter what you chose in question 3, and we remind you about screening for gestational diabetes, which is more common with PCOS.

If you are trying to get pregnant, the guidelines suggest a gentler approach: a small calorie reduction rather than a big one, a glucose tolerance test before or early in pregnancy, and folic acid started before you conceive.

Advanced settings Optional. We have already chosen sensible values for you.
Your eating pattern Already chosen for you based on your answer to question 4. Change it only if you or your dietitian prefer a different style. All three work equally well as long as the calories match, so pick whichever you can actually stick to.
Why we ask this

The international guidelines are explicit that no single diet pattern beats the others for PCOS. What matters most is the total calories and whether you can keep it up (Teede 2023). Slow-release, low-glycaemic-index carbohydrate has the best evidence when insulin resistance is present; the lower-carbohydrate pattern has short-term evidence for weight and hormone changes; the Mediterranean pattern has the best long-term heart evidence.

Lower my estimate a little EXPERIMENTAL Leave this off unless a doctor has specifically told you that your metabolism measures unusually low. Research does not support the popular idea that PCOS gives you a much slower metabolism.
Why this is switched off

A 2025 review pooling 13 studies (Kirwan et al.) compared resting energy in women with and without PCOS. The average difference was about 30 calories a day, which is less than one small biscuit and is not a reliable finding in either direction. The authors also warn that telling women they have a "slow metabolism" can make disordered eating more likely.

The control is kept here only for clinicians whose patient has had resting energy actually measured and found to be low.

Based on the international PCOS/PMOS guidelines (2023), the Mifflin-St Jeor energy equation (1990) and WHO/FAO activity bands. Every source is listed at the bottom of your results.

TALK TO A DIETITIAN

One-to-one PCOS nutrition support

A meal plan built around your own blood tests, your kitchen and what you actually like eating, from dietitians who work with PCOS every day.

Book a consultation →

WHAT YOU GET FROM THIS TOOL

One calorie numberHow much to eat in a day, adjusted for your body and how active you are
Carbs, protein and fat in gramsFor the whole day and split across breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks
A sample day of Indian foodRotis, dals, millets and sabzis, sized to your target
An honest take on supplementsWhich ones have real evidence behind them and which do not
The sources, if you want themEvery number traced back to a named guideline or study

CLINICAL REFERENCES

Teede HJ et al. (2026)PMOS name change: The Lancet. DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00717-8
Teede HJ et al. (2023)Int'l Evidence-Based PCOS Guidelines. Hum Reprod 38(9):1655–1679
Moran LJ et al. (2013)Diet composition in PCOS: systematic review. J Acad Nutr Diet 113(4):520–545
Kirwan R et al. (2025)REE in PCOS: systematic review & meta-analysis. medRxiv (13 studies, Bayesian). DOI:10.64898/2025.12.03.25341536
Mifflin MD et al. (1990)Predictive REE equation. Am J Clin Nutr 51(2):241–247
Szczuko M et al. (2021)Nutrition and lifestyle in PCOS/PMOS. Nutrients 13(7):2452

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PCOS was formally renamed Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) by a global consensus process in 2026, because the old name implied ovarian cysts that are neither required for diagnosis nor the main problem, and it hid the endocrine and metabolic features that actually drive the condition. This tool uses the new name, and keeps PCOS alongside it while the transition is under way. The calculator itself estimates your energy needs with Mifflin-St Jeor, applies an insulin-resistance correction, and turns the result into macro targets and Indian low-GI meal suggestions.

Every word this tool uses, in plain English

Calorie (kcal)
A unit of energy in food. Your body uses energy all day, even asleep. "1,600 calories a day" just means the amount of food energy you aim to eat.
Resting energy (also called BMR or REE)
The calories your body burns doing nothing at all: heartbeat, breathing, keeping warm, repairing itself. For most women this is well over half of the daily total.
Daily burn (also called TDEE)
Your resting energy plus everything you do: walking, housework, work, exercise. Eat this much and your weight stays roughly the same.
Calorie deficit
Eating less than you burn, which is what makes weight come down. A deficit of about 500 calories a day works out at roughly half a kilo a week.
BMI
Your weight compared with your height. It is a rough screening number, not a verdict on your health. This tool uses the Indian and South Asian cut-offs, where 23 and above counts as overweight and 27.5 and above as obese, because South Asian bodies carry risk at a lower weight.
Insulin and insulin resistance
Insulin is the hormone that moves sugar out of your blood and into your cells. If your cells stop responding well, your body makes more and more insulin to compensate. That is insulin resistance, and it is behind a lot of what PCOS does to periods, skin and hair.
HOMA-IR
A number some clinicians calculate from two fasting blood tests, glucose and insulin, to estimate how insulin-resistant you are. It is not a routine test, and the international guideline points out that ordinary insulin assays have limited clinical usefulness. The tests your doctor is more likely to order are HbA1c, fasting glucose or an OGTT. You do not need any of them to use this tool.
Glycaemic index (GI)
How fast a food raises your blood sugar. Under 55 is low, meaning slow and steady: dals, beans, most millets, curd, most fruit and vegetables. Above 70 is high and fast: white rice, maida, white bread, sugary drinks.
Carbs, protein and fat (the "macros")
The three things food energy comes from. Carbohydrate is rice, roti, potato, fruit and sugar; protein is dal, curd, paneer, eggs, fish and meat; fat is oil, ghee, nuts and seeds. We give you a gram target for each.
Androgens and testosterone
Hormones everyone has, but often higher than usual in PCOS. Higher levels are what cause extra facial or body hair, acne and thinning scalp hair.
Ovulation
Releasing an egg, which normally happens once a cycle. In PCOS it often happens late or not at all, which is why periods become irregular and why getting pregnant can take longer.
PMOS
The new official name for PCOS: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. Same condition, better name. You will see both for a few years.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PCOS now called PMOS?

Yes. In 2026 an international consensus process involving 56 academic, clinical and patient organisations, and surveys of more than 14,000 people with the condition and health professionals, renamed polycystic ovary syndrome to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS). The old name was judged inaccurate because it implies pathological ovarian cysts, and because it obscured the endocrine and metabolic features that matter most.

Implementation is deliberately gradual, so you will see both names in use for some time. They refer to the same condition.

How many calories should I eat with PCOS?

There is no single number, and anyone who gives you one without asking your height, weight, age and activity is guessing. This calculator estimates what your body burns at rest from your height, weight and age using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, multiplies that by an activity factor, then subtracts a deficit sized to your BMI and your goal.

It does not assume PCOS gives you a slower metabolism: a 2025 review of 13 studies found the difference in resting energy between women with and without PCOS averaged about 30 calories a day, which is not meaningful. Any deficit is capped so intake never falls below a physiological floor, because very low intakes worsen the hormonal picture and raise the risk of disordered eating.

What is the best diet for PCOS?

The international guidelines are clear that no single dietary pattern is superior for PCOS. Low-GI, Mediterranean and moderately lower-carbohydrate patterns all show benefit, and adherence matters more than the specific pattern. That is why this tool offers Indian food templates rather than prescribing one diet.

What is consistently useful: lowering the glycaemic load of meals, adequate protein, unsaturated fats in place of saturated, and enough fibre. Weight loss of roughly 5 to 10 percent improves ovulation and insulin sensitivity where weight loss is appropriate.

Can diet reverse PCOS or restore ovulation?

PCOS is not curable, but its features respond substantially to nutrition and activity. Modest weight loss can restore ovulatory cycles in a meaningful proportion of women who are above a healthy weight, and improves insulin sensitivity, androgen levels and cycle regularity. Lean women with PCOS also benefit from improved diet quality and activity without weight loss being the goal.

Why does PCOS affect Indian women differently?

South Asian women develop visceral fat and insulin resistance at a lower body size than European populations, sometimes described as the thin-fat phenotype. Insulin resistance can therefore be marked at a BMI that looks unremarkable, which is why this tool uses Asian BMI thresholds and Indian food templates rather than Western defaults.

Do I need supplements such as inositol or vitamin D?

Vitamin D deficiency is very common in Indian women and worth testing and correcting on advice. Inositol has supportive but not definitive evidence for insulin sensitivity and cycle regularity. Neither replaces diet, activity or prescribed treatment.

Discuss supplements with your doctor or dietitian rather than starting them from a calculator, particularly if you are trying to conceive or taking other medication.

This calculator is for learning and for starting a conversation with your dietitian or doctor. It is not a diagnosis and it cannot replace personal medical advice. It follows the international PCOS/PMOS guidelines (2023) wherever good evidence exists, but a lot of diet research in PCOS is small and short, so treat the numbers as a sensible starting point rather than a prescription. If you are pregnant, have ever struggled with disordered eating, are being treated for another serious condition, or your BMI is very high or very low, please get personal supervision before changing how much you eat. The name change from PCOS to PMOS comes from Teede HJ and colleagues, The Lancet, 2026.

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