SCIENCE · SHOW YOUR WORK
Sources of Recommendations
Last updated: July 16, 2026
The short version:
- Every target Tomo gives you — calories, macros, pace, fasting hours, exercise burn, water — comes from published equations and public health guidance, cited below.
- Tomo is a coach and an educator, not a medical device. It doesn't diagnose, treat or prevent anything.
- If you're pregnant, under 18, or managing a condition — an eating disorder, diabetes, anything that touches food — talk to a professional before acting on any number in the app.
- AI estimates from photos are estimates. Good ones, but estimates.
01What Tomo is (and isn't)
Tomo is a nutrition-tracking coach: it helps you notice what you eat, keeps score gently, and turns published nutrition science into daily targets. It is not a medical app. Nothing it says is a diagnosis, a treatment or a prescription, and none of the organizations cited on this page are affiliated with or endorse Tomo — we simply build on their published work.
The app deliberately refuses some things: it never grades a food choice as “good” or “bad”, it never recommends a pace beyond published safety ceilings, and it applies gentler, more conservative targets for anyone under 18.
02Calorie targets
Your daily calorie budget starts from your basal metabolic rate (BMR), computed with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation:
- Female: (10 × weight kg) + (6.25 × height cm) − (5 × age) − 161
- Male: (10 × weight kg) + (6.25 × height cm) − (5 × age) + 5
- Another gender: the average of the two constants (−78)
BMR is scaled to total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) with standard activity multipliers (1.2 sedentary → 1.725 very active), then shifted for your goal using the ≈7,700 kcal per kg of body weight convention.
03Safety floors and pace limits
Tomo hard-clamps what it will recommend, no matter what a goal asks for:
- Calorie floors of 1,200 kcal (female) / 1,500 kcal (male) — the NHLBI low-calorie-diet band edges. Tomo never plans below them.
- Weight-change pace is capped at ~0.9 kg (2 lb) per week — the CDC's healthy-pace ceiling — with a personal recommended band of 0.5–1% of body weight per week.
04Protein, carbs and fat
Protein is anchored to 1.2–2.2 g per kg of reference weight, table-driven by activity level and nudged up in a deficit — the International Society of Sports Nutrition’s published range. Fat keeps a minimum share of calories as a hormonal-health guardrail, and the whole split stays inside the National Academies’ Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges (protein 10–35%, fat 20–35%, carbs 45–65% of calories).
05BMI
Where the app references BMI (weight ÷ height²), it uses it the way the CDC describes: a screening signal, not a verdict on health. Tomo also uses it protectively — some features, like fasting goals, are simply never offered below a healthy-range threshold.
06Fasting guidance
Tomo’s optional fasting feature reflects the published evidence that intermittent fasting can support weight loss by lowering insulin and improving metabolic markers. The app only ever suggests an overnight window of 12–16 hours, never more than an hour beyond the rhythm you already keep — and never offers fasting goals to users under 18 or below a healthy BMI.
07Exercise calories
Logged exercise is converted to calories with the ACSM metabolic equation — kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × weight kg ÷ 200 — using MET values taken activity-by-activity from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. No invented constants: if an activity isn’t in the Compendium, Tomo falls back to its published light / moderate / vigorous anchors.
08Water
The default water goal is 2.0 L per day (8 × 250 ml glasses), adjustable to taste — a nudge in line with the European Food Safety Authority’s adequate-intake values, not a prescription. Thirst, climate and training all move the real number.
09Under-18 users
Tomo blocks accounts under 13 entirely and treats 13–17 as a protected bracket: more conservative calorie targets, no aggressive pace options, and no fasting features — in line with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidance that dieting and fasting are risk factors for adolescents, and that the focus should be healthy habits, not restriction.
10AI estimates
Meal photos are analyzed by AI vision models that estimate dishes, portions and nutrition. These estimates are useful for trends and honest about being approximate — a plate photographed twice can score slightly differently. Portions are always editable, and your corrections win over the model’s guess.
Questions about anything on this page: support@tomitomo.app.