Pyke

Where Pyke's numbers come from

Pyke is a tracking tool, not medical advice. These are the published sources behind each number it shows or uses.

Resting metabolic rate

Pyke estimates the calories your body burns at rest from your sex, age, height and weight, and builds your daily target on top of that.

Resting rate from lean mass

If you give a body-fat estimate between 5 and 60%, Pyke works out your lean mass and uses 370 + 21.6 kcal per kg of lean mass as your resting rate instead. It only does this when that figure is at least 85% of the estimate above: a body-fat guess that puts your resting rate far below it is more likely a wrong guess than a real body, and a low resting rate would mean eating too little. When it is not used, the screen says so.

Activity level multipliers

Your activity answer (mostly seated, lightly active, moderately active, very active) multiplies your resting rate by 1.2, 1.375, 1.55 or 1.725 to estimate total daily burn. If you tell Pyke your job instead, a mostly seated job uses 1.2, a job on your feet 1.55 and a physical job 1.725.

Daily steps bands

If you tell Pyke how many steps you take a day, in total and including training, that beats both answers above. Under 5,000 steps uses 1.2, 5,000 to 7,499 uses 1.375, 7,500 to 9,999 uses 1.55, 10,000 to 12,499 uses 1.725, and 12,500 or more uses 1.9. The step bands are the published ones below; matching each band to a multiplier is Pyke's own choice.

Training sessions

If you tell Pyke how many days a week you train and how long a session lasts, it adds the session's burn on top of your activity answer: 4 kcal per kg of body weight per hour of training, spread across the week. That is a moderate figure among the published values for resistance training. It is not added when your steps set the multiplier (your steps already include the session) or when your maintenance comes from a wearable or from your own log (they already saw the session).

Protein target

Pyke sets your protein target between 1.8 and 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight. If you gave a body-fat estimate that Pyke used, protein is set per kg of lean mass instead: 2.6 g when losing fat and 2.2 g otherwise. If your goal weight is below your current weight, protein is set from the goal weight.

Fat target and carb preference

Pyke sets your fat target at 27% of your daily calories (balanced), 35% if you prefer lower carb, or 20% if you prefer higher carb. Carbohydrate takes the rest.

Rate of loss or gain

Pyke sets your pace as a share of your body weight each week: losing between 0.5% and 1% a week, or gaining between 0.25% and 0.45% a week. Recomposition uses half the loss rate. A deficit is never larger than 25% of your maintenance calories, and a surplus is never more than 500 kcal a day, because gaining faster than that is mostly fat.

Calorie floors

Pyke never lets a calculated target fall below 1,200 kcal a day for women, or 1,500 kcal for men and when sex is not stated. While you are breastfeeding the floor is 1,800 kcal. During pregnancy Pyke calculates no target at all; a number you enter from your doctor's or dietitian's plan is not saved below 1,200 kcal.

Breastfeeding

Pyke never sets a deficit while you are breastfeeding. Your target is your maintenance plus 330 kcal a day while your baby is under 6 months old, or plus 400 kcal from 6 months, and never below 1,800 kcal. Talk to your doctor or dietitian about what is right for you.

Checked against what happened

After 14 to 21 days of logged food and weigh-ins, Pyke can check your maintenance against what actually happened. Over the last 21 days it averages the days you logged in full, fits a line through your weigh-ins, and counts each kg gained or lost as 7,700 kcal. It needs at least 14 logged days and 4 weigh-ins spread across the window, and moves your maintenance by at most 300 kcal at a time. It only ever proposes the change; nothing moves until you confirm it.

Daily burn from a wearable

If you connect a WHOOP, Pyke can offer its daily burn in place of an estimate. It averages the last 14 complete days, ending yesterday, leaves out any day more than 30% away from the middle value, and needs at least 10 days that remain. Apple Health is not used for this, because the figure it shares is the energy burned by activity, not your whole day. This is Pyke's own rule, not a published method.

Water target

Pyke shows a water target of 2.5 L a day for everyone.

Sleep and readiness

Pyke's readiness reading anchors on 8 hours of sleep: more sleep scores higher, up to the cap, with 8 hours as the anchor. 8 hours sits inside the 7 to 9 hour range recommended for adults.

Activity and steps

Pyke's default step target is a fixed ladder - 7,000 steps a day, rising to 8,000 and then 10,000 as you progress - not a number derived from either source below; a program can carry its own step target instead. They are cited as the evidence that daily steps and weekly activity matter for health, which is why Pyke tracks and targets them at all.

Muscle soreness on the recovery heatmap

Pyke marks a muscle as very sore up to 24 hours after training it, sore up to 48 hours, then recovering up to 96 hours, with an easing band from 48 to 72 hours in between.

Training frequency and weekly volume guidance given to Coach AI

When Coach AI drafts or revises your program, the frequency and set-volume guidance it works from follows:

Resting heart rate and HRV, shown for context

When a wearable is connected, Pyke displays your resting heart rate and HRV alongside the readiness reading. They are shown for context and do not feed into or change the score - the estimate above is computed from sleep alone, and a connected WHOOP's recovery percentage is WHOOP's own score (see WHOOP recovery below). The citation below is background on why resting heart rate and HRV are meaningful recovery signals worth showing, not a source for how Pyke's reading is calculated.

Blood markers

If you add a blood test, Pyke shows what each result it recognises measures, in general terms, and whether it sits below, inside or above the range printed on your report. The explanation text is written by Pyke and never by the AI, and it stays inside food, training and rest: it never diagnoses, never names a condition and never suggests a supplement, a dose or a medication. Any result marked low or high is for you and your doctor to discuss. The sources behind each explanation are below.

Reference ranges differ between labs; the range printed on your report is the one that applies. Talk to your doctor about any flagged result.

WHOOP recovery

If you connect a WHOOP account, the recovery percentage Pyke shows is WHOOP's own score, computed by WHOOP and passed through unchanged. Pyke does not calculate it.

Coach AI replies are generated text and can be wrong. They are not medical advice. Talk to a doctor before changing your diet or training if you have a medical condition.