Check where your health stands

Your BMI, on Indian cut-offs

The 25 and 30 thresholds most calculators use were set on European and American bodies. Indians carry more fat and less muscle at the same BMI, and the risk of diabetes and heart disease starts climbing earlier. The Indian grade ladder puts the normal range at 18.5 to 23, and treats 23 upward as the first grade rather than as healthy.

Waist matters as much as the number. Above 90 cm for a man, or 80 cm for a woman, is the point the Indian guidance flags regardless of what BMI says. Fill in the waist field if you have a tape — it is the single most useful thing on the form.

A BMI is a ratio of height to weight and nothing more. It cannot tell muscle from fat, and it says nothing about a specific person's health. Use it as a prompt to ask a question, not as an answer.

Your daily targets, and a day of food

The calculator works out roughly how many calories you burn in a day, adjusts for whether you want to lose, hold or gain, and turns that into a protein, carbohydrate and fat target. Protein is the one most Indian vegetarian diets fall short on, so it is called out separately.

It then lays out a sample vegetarian day built from ordinary Indian foods rather than imported powders, and five rules that do most of the work. Nothing is sold to you at the end of it, and no supplement is recommended.

If the numbers worry you

A number on a page cannot tell you what to do about it. If something here has unsettled you, start with a doctor — and if you want energy work alongside whatever they advise, these are the sessions people usually come to us for.