Your scale gives you one number.
That number is usually lying.
Protocol tracks what actually matters: lean mass, body fat, visceral fat, calories, macros, training, and the trend line underneath it all.
Free. No trial. No nonsense.
I run a men's health clinic. Every week I see adults who train hard, eat clean, and still go nowhere. They are not lazy. They are working with bad information.
Generic calculators give them generic numbers. Coaching apps charge $300/month to repeat what the calculator already said. Tracker apps gamify the scale, which is the one number that lies the most.
I built Protocol to be what I wish my patients had between visits. Sourced math. Honest variance. Real interpretation. The whole system, on the phone they already carry.
The goal: you do not need this app forever.
Kevin Kuder, 50 and thriving
One operating system that connects every piece of your physiology to one outcome you actually care about, then teaches you to run it yourself.
Calories, protein, carbs, and fat calibrated to who you are. Sourced math. No generic targets.
Train day and rest day splits. A whole-foods database. Build meals that hit the math without spreadsheet work.
3, 4, or 5 day strength template. Volume tuned to your goal and focus. Recovery built in.
Scans when you have them. Weekly check-ins when you don't. Trends that ignore the daily noise.
The Learn library is what I'd explain to every patient if I had unlimited time.
From Kevin: Fat loss over weight loss. Body composition over the scale. The trend over the day.
A bathroom scale gives you one number. That number includes muscle, fat, water, glycogen, organ mass, bone, and the contents of your gut. Two people can weigh the same and look completely different.
Salt, carbs, hydration, humidity. A salty meal can put 3 lb on the scale by tomorrow.
Stored carbs. Each gram pulls 3 grams of water. Cut carbs, lose 5 lb fast, most isn't fat.
Adding 1 lb of muscle and losing 1 lb of fat: same scale weight, different body.
From Kevin: Trust the trend. The day means nothing.
You can train hard and eat clean and still go nowhere. Most people do. Not because they are lazy. Because they are working with bad information.
"Calories in, calories out" is true but incomplete. Hormones, sleep, stress, training type, food quality, timing, recovery, all of it moves the needle. Some pieces more than others.
Most apps track one or two of these. Then the user wonders why progress is slow.
The fix isn't more discipline. It's better information.
Let's build your starting point.
Before we ask what you have, here is what we are working with. The more accurate your input, the more useful every other number in the app becomes.
Direct measurement of fat, lean, and bone. Accuracy within 1 to 2 percentage points. The numbers we trust most. Found at men's health clinics, sports performance centers, some imaging centers.
Multi-frequency bioimpedance. Common at gyms and clinics. Accuracy within 2 to 4 points. Very consistent for tracking change in the same machine over time.
Single-frequency bioimpedance. Drifts with hydration, food, and time of day. Accuracy within 3 to 6 points. Useful as a trend indicator if you measure under identical conditions every time.
Three measurements, two minutes. Accuracy within 3 to 4 points for most builds. Better than nothing. Far better than the morning scale alone.
From Kevin: Use whatever you have. The app shows the accuracy range next to your data so you know how hard to lean on it. If you only have a bathroom scale, that is fine for now. The trend is the signal.
Pick what matches where you are right now. Body composition data is the gold standard. The system runs either way.
Six numbers and we have a starting point. Body fat is on the next screen, that one gets its own moment.
From Kevin: Be honest with the weight. The math is only as good as the inputs.
Most lifters with normal jobs pick 3. 4 and 5 are for physical labor or two-a-day athletes. Most people over-pick this. Be honest. Picking too high is the #1 reason calorie targets come back too high. How to estimate this honestly ›
This is the input that matters most. The math runs off lean mass, not bodyweight. If you know your number, enter it. If you don't, the tape-measure tool gets you within a few points.
From Kevin: If you skip this, the math still runs. It just uses a less precise formula. Add your real number after your first scan.
From a scan (DEXA, SECA, InBody, Evolt) or a clinical estimate. Most accurate option.
This is the single input that shifts your calories and macros. Pick the direction, the speed comes from the math.
From Kevin: Most of my patients should start with Maintain (recomp). It builds muscle and loses fat at the same time, the slow steady way. Change it any time.
Read the full breakdown of all seven Protocol Types ›
This tunes the volume and rep ranges in your Train tab. Same calories, different work.
Not sure? Pick "Balanced." Right for most people most of the time. You can switch later.
Honest answer here. This adjusts your target so you do not over-eat (advanced lifters) or under-eat (beginners with newbie gains coming).
Under 1 year of consistent training. 1 to 3 years. 3+ years.
Training days get higher carbs. Rest days get higher fat. Same weekly total. Your body uses the fuel where it needs it.
From Kevin: I lift 4 days. Most people do best on 3 to start. Move up after 4 to 6 weeks, once it is a habit.
Some clinical protocols shift how your body partitions calories, recovers, or regulates appetite. The math accounts for these honestly. Tissue-healing peptides do not shift metabolism, so they sit in a different bucket than growth peptides or TRT.
Pick what applies. This stays on your device. It nudges your starting math by a few percent at most.
Built from your inputs. Sourced math. Change anything anytime under Protocol in the nav.
Fat loss with lean mass preserved. Not the scale dropped at all costs. The math is calibrated so a deficit (if you have one) is moderate enough to protect muscle, and protein is high enough to make that protection work. This is body recomposition. It moves slower than generic weight loss. It also lasts.
When you enter the app, you'll land on Home. Your daily macros are there. A short tour will point out where each piece lives. Skip it anytime.
Protocol is Phase 1. There is no cloud sync, no login, no account. Your data lives on this device only.
That keeps it private. It also means: back up your data regularly. Open the More tab and tap "Export my data" once a week, save the file to your phone or cloud drive. Phase 2 will add login and sync. Until then, the export is your safety net.
Sometimes the first round of numbers and goals you enter are just to see how the app works. If that was you, no problem. The system makes it easy to wipe the slate and start with real measurements.
Starting clean resets your profile, scans, weigh-ins, training log, and meal log, then walks you back through onboarding. About 4 minutes.
SECA reports L. DEXA reports lb. About 1 L visceral equals 0.5 lb.
Best conditions: first thing in the morning, after bathroom, before water, no clothes. Consistency beats accuracy. Even 5 days a week is enough signal.
Which meal?
Honest answers beat fake numbers. Skip what you cannot measure today.
Rate where you are this week. 1 is rough, 5 is dialed. The markers a clinician will ask about.
A body composition scan gives you signal a scale never can: how much of you is muscle, how much is fat, where the fat is, and whether what you are doing is actually working.
You cannot manage what you cannot measure. The scale lies. The mirror is moody. A scan tells you fat lb, lean lb, visceral fat (the dangerous fat around your organs), and segmental data. Repeat it every 90 days and you see what actually shifted.
Search "DEXA body composition scan near me" or "InBody near me." Many men's health clinics, fitness centers, and sports performance facilities have a scanner. Bigger gyms often run promotional scans.
Cardio, mobility, recovery, exposure. Anything outside your main lifts. Doesn't drive your calorie or macro targets.
Lifting day, post-lift: Mobility, foam rolling, or sauna. Skip cold plunge near hypertrophy work (cold close to lifting may blunt the growth signal).
Rest day, recovery focus: Easy walk (30 min), Zone 2 (45 min, conversational pace), mobility, yoga, sauna.
Cutting: Lean into Zone 2 cardio + steps. Sled, hill sprints, ruck if you tolerate them. Sauna helps. Watch the total stress load if you are in a deficit.
Lean gain or bulk: Mostly mobility + recovery. Limit hard conditioning that competes with recovery.
Equipment-free: Walk, Zone 2 walk, mobility, stretching, yoga, breathwork, sunlight.
50+: Daily walks, mobility every other day, sauna 2-4x/week is a research-backed move (Laukkanen 2015 Finnish cohort: lower all-cause mortality).
Same movement pattern. Same sets, reps, and rest. Just a different way to do it based on what you have.
Your data file is now in your phone's Downloads folder. It contains everything you have logged in Protocol.
Move the file out of Downloads so you do not lose it. Email it to yourself, drop it in iCloud or Google Drive, or send it through any messaging app to your own phone or computer. Anywhere safe outside this app.
Once a week is plenty if you are logging daily. After every scan if you scan less than weekly. If you clear your browser, swap phones, or remove the app, this file is how you get your history back.
Phase 1 has no login, no cloud sync, no servers, no advertisers. Your data never leaves your device. That is privacy by design. The trade is that you own the backup. Phase 2 will add optional cloud sync.
Your browser is reporting that storage space is getting tight, or this session looks like it is running in a private/incognito window. Either one means your Protocol data may not save reliably.
Two quick fixes:
1. Export your data right now so you have a backup.
2. If you opened the app in private/incognito mode, open it again in normal mode and save to home screen from there.
Used in clinical RED-S screening (relative energy deficiency). EA = (intake minus exercise burn) divided by lean body mass in kg. Healthy is 45+. Below 30 is a red flag.
Your current lean mass: .
Rate where you are this week. 1 is rough, 5 is dialed. Same conditions, weekly cadence. These are the markers a clinician will ask about.
Adjust your macro split without changing calories. Protein can move up from the recommended floor. Carbs and fat balance against each other. The protocol math is your default. This is your override.
Floor is your recommended target. You can raise protein but not lower it. Excess protein has high thermic effect and minimal fat-storage pathway, so going above default is low-risk.
Fat balances automatically so calories and protein stay where you set them.
Change anything anytime. Your targets recalculate when you save.
Body fat enables the Katch-McArdle formula (more accurate). Update it after every scan. Activity 3 = desk job with consistent training. 4 and 5 are physical jobs or twice-a-day athletes.
Your activity level assumes a step baseline (level 3 ~ 7,500/day, level 4 ~ 12,000/day). If your actual count is materially different, the multiplier adjusts. This is the fix for "I have a desk job but walk 11k steps a day with the kids."
Clinical context that affects how the math is calibrated. Tissue-healing peptides do not change your math. Hormone optimization, growth peptides, and GLP-1s do. Read why →
Affects your gain-mode target. Beginners get a small bump (newbie-gain window). Advanced lifters get a smaller surplus (they need less to add muscle).
Wipes everything: scans, weigh-ins, training log, meals, all of it. Cannot be undone.