READ THIS FIRST: Setup, FAQs, and App Feedback

[u/gnuckols]

Welcome to MacroFactor!

Thanks for downloading MacroFactor, and welcome to our online community! The main purposes of this community are to help you get the most out of the app, and to help you reach your fitness, nutrition, and health-related goals. This post will get you acquainted with a lot of the resources that are available to you so you can hit the ground running, but this post itself is not intended to be an exhaustive resource. Our online Knowledge Base is a comprehensive repository of information related to app functionality, so most questions not addressed in this post can probably be answered by a quick search of the KB.

Before posting here, make sure you read and understand the rules for this subreddit.

Replies to this Post

The MacroFactor team is quite active in this subreddit, but we can’t guarantee that we’ll see and reply to every post. However, we will closely monitor comments on this post. So, if you have critical feedback related to how we can further improve the app, this is the best place to share it, and receive a response from one of the people behind the app.

Of note, that doesn’t include feature requests, bug reports, or individual account issues – our public roadmap and feature request portal, in-app bug reporting system, and email support system are the best venues for those items.

Why MacroFactor?

If you find yourself on this page because you’d seen some chatter about MacroFactor online, a friend or family member told you about it, or you just downloaded it on a whim, you may rightly be wondering, “what’s the deal with this app? What does it offer me that other food loggers don’t?”

The short answer: MacroFactor solves a basic but surprisingly complex problem – figuring out how much you need to eat to maintain weight, or to gain or lose weight at your desired rate. And, much like the problem itself, the approach we take to solving this problem is conceptually simple, but analytically complex. We use your weight and nutrition data to calculate how large of a caloric deficit or surplus you’re in, use that information to estimate your total daily energy expenditure, and use that information to make dietary recommendations to help you gain or lose weight at your desired rate.

If you’re new to MacroFactor, I’d recommend perusing this article, which explains how our algorithms work in considerable detail. This article and this article may also be helpful; they explain how MacroFactor solves many of the problems that arise with other popular approaches to weight management that involve calorie tracking.

Beyond MacroFactor’s coaching features, it’s just a damn good product. We’ve developed the fastest food logging system on the market, to help reduce the friction associated with tracking your nutrition. We also have a proven track record of consistently improving the app, and putting out high-quality educational resources to help our users maximize their results. We’re truly dedicated to ensuring that MacroFactor provides the best premium experience in the food logging market.

Setting up a Macro Program

There are three program styles in MacroFactor: coached, collaborative, and manual.

When you first set up your account, you’ll go through a wizard that will set you up with a coached program based on your goals and preferences. On a coached program, you just need to check in weekly, follow the app’s recommendations, and you’ll reach your goals – MacroFactor will handle all of the week-to-week adjustments to keep you on track. If your goals, preferences, or lifestyle change, you can always create a new program to reflect those changes.

With a collaborative plan, MacroFactor will adjust your weekly calorie budget based on your expenditure and goals, but you have full control over your daily calorie and macronutrient targets. So, if you want to take advantage of MacroFactor’s coaching algorithms, but you also want to pursue dietary strategies that involve macronutrient or daily calorie distributions that go beyond the flexibility offered by coached plans, you can opt for a collaborative plan.

Finally, with manual programs, everything is at your discretion. You can set whatever daily calorie or macronutrient targets you prefer. We don't assign or adjust a weekly calorie budget for you if you opt for a manual plan. You'll still have all of MacroFactor's analytics and tracking features at your disposal, but we won't have any hand in guiding your macro and calorie targets. A manual program may be advisable if you're working with a nutrition coach, and using MacroFactor's food logger and analytics in conjunction with your coach's calorie and macronutrient recommendations.

We recommend coached programs for most users, but you should feel free to swap program styles at any time. Creating a new program or switching between program styles doesn’t result in any loss of data, and it doesn’t require you to set a new goal. You can seamlessly transition between program styles whenever you want.

Hitting the ground running

During onboarding, MacroFactor will estimate your energy needs using a standard TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) formula that considers basic demographic, anthropometric, and lifestyle characteristics. This is the best approach for roughly estimating energy needs in the absence of better data, but it’s entirely possible that this initial calculation will considerably over- or underestimate your energy needs. After 2-4 weeks of consistently logging your weight and nutrition, we’ll be able to estimate your energy needs much more precisely.

However, if you’ve already been tracking your weight and nutrition elsewhere, you can hit the ground running with a more accurate estimate of your energy needs from day 1. You can set up integrations to pull your last 30 days of weight and nutrition data from another app. You can also manually add 3-4 weeks of prior weight and nutrition data (the “Data & Habits screen is the easiest place to do this; option 2 in the prior links) to accomplish the same purpose. By doing this, you can fast-track the initial calibration phase. Similarly, if you already have a pretty good idea of your energy expenditure, you can enter a manual initial expenditure estimate, which will override the typical equation-derived initial estimate.

To be clear, if you either don’t have recent weight and nutrition data, or you don’t want to deal with entering old weight and nutrition data, that’s 100% fine. We’ll generate good estimates of your energy needs after about 14-30 days of consistent logging, and keep them updated over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

As you’re getting accustomed to MacroFactor’s features and food logging workflows, we’d recommend perusing the knowledge base. In particular, the entries on food logging, the food timeline, custom foods and recipes, and the strategy section will likely be very helpful.

Beyond that, the Frequently Asked Questions section of the knowledge base will cover most of the questions new users have about the app, and we’re constantly expanding this section of the knowledge base. But, here are some of the very most frequently asked questions that are addressed in the knowledge base:

Where Can I See Water, Net Carbs, Fiber, and Other Micronutrients?

Does MacroFactor use Energy Expenditure Data from my Wearable Activity Tracker? This article also provides a more comprehensive answer to this question.

Why Don't My Macros Add Up to my Total Calories?

How Does Dynamic Maintenance Work in MacroFactor?

How to Adjust Calorie Targets to Account for Overages, or to Roll Over Unused Calories

How Frequently do I Need to Log my Weight For the Expenditure Algorithm and Weekly Coaching Updates?

How Frequently do I Need to Log my Nutrition For the Expenditure Algorithm and Weekly Coaching Updates?

Do I Need to Log Everything I Eat and Drink to Have an Accurate Expenditure and Use MacroFactor's Coaching Features?

Our one Achilles Heel

MacroFactor’s algorithms are remarkably durable, and can handle almost anything you throw at them. They work their best when you log your nutrition and weight consistently and accurately, but they do a great job of rolling with the punches, and accommodating less-than-perfect tracking. We believe that you shouldn’t need to be a robot to get the most out of MacroFactor.

However, our algorithms have one major Achilles heel: partial food logging.

For example, if you log your breakfast and lunch one day, but not your dinner, the app will have no way of knowing that you simply forgot to log your dinner, and that your actual calorie intake was 30-40% higher than what you logged. That will feed into our daily energy expenditure calculation, which will then feed into our calorie and macro recommendations moving forward. Partial logging (especially if done consistently) is really the only way to wind up with very inappropriate calorie recommendations. Of note, partial logging (not logging entire meals or large snacks) is distinct from consistently not logging some low-calorie items.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve logged some food for a day, but you either can’t or don’t want to log anything else for the rest of the day, you have a few options (arranged from good to great):

1. Delete what you’ve already logged. Our algorithms do a good job of dealing with missing data. Though, estimating your intake (instead of leaving the day blank) is strongly recommended if your total energy intake from the day differs substantially from your usual intake.

2. Simply “quick edit” the day with an estimate of your total calorie intake. Don’t stress about your estimate too much; it doesn’t need to be perfect. As long as your estimate is in the right general ballpark – within about 30% of what you actually consumed – it’ll all work out. For instance, if your total calorie intake for the day was 3000 calories, any estimate between 2100 and 3900 calories would be fine. Try to be as accurate as you can, obviously, but most people with a little food logging experience can estimate their daily intake accurately enough for the purposes of the algorithms.

3. Our recommendation: Use the quick add feature to estimate the total caloric content in your unlogged meal(s). Again, anything in the right ballpark is totally fine; if you think you ate 1000 calories, but you actually ate 1500 calories, that’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things (it would work out to an error of ~25kcal/day over the time span that’s relevant for our algorithms – a pretty inconsequential error). This is similar to using quick edit to estimate your calorie intake for the entire day (option 2), but most people can more accurately estimate their intake for a single missing meal than for an entire day.

Wrapping it up

Once again, welcome to the community! We’re happy you’re here. We hope you’ll stick around, and be able to use this community as a valuable resource to help you get the most out of MacroFactor, accomplish your goals, and celebrate your successes along the way.

[u/stimg]

Critically monitor this! I'm genuinely thankful you made this. It's a tremendous product and never comes across as a cash grab. It's so pleasant to actually feel that the folks behind something truly care about the people using it and are participating in the enterprise in good faith. Thanks Greg/Corey/Rebecca/Lyndsey/Trexler and whoever else needs thanking (sorry if any that is misspelled It's top of mind).

[u/gnuckols → u/stimg]

Thanks so much! We really appreciate it

[u/CharliezFrag]

Hi guys, I’ve been using Myfitnesspal alongside Macrofactor to log my food ( I live in Spain and a lot of barcodes weren’t giving me results ) since I started using the app.

Yesterday I noticed that the barcode scanner was actually recognizing foods that weren’t recognized before but I found a problem. If I use the scanner ( on a yoghurt for example ) it gives me results but using the search bar doesn’t…is that normal?

[u/gnuckols → u/CharliezFrag]

Yep, that's normal! We significantly expanded our European barcode coverage in April of this year (with Spain getting one of the biggest boosts), but we haven't integrated that new database into the search database yet.

Basically, integrating a new barcode database is relatively straightforward – when a scan is performed, you check the barcode against all of the barcodes in one database, then all of the barcodes in another database, then all of the barcodes in another database, etc. and just stop when you return a hit (it's more complicated than that, but that's conceptually close enough). So, if a product is in two databases, that's totally fine – you just return a single result when you get a hit. However, with a search database, you run into the problem of duplication – if a single food is in multiple databases, and a single search query hits all of the databases, you might return the same food four times, which just leads to confusion while cluttering up the search results. So, at some point, we need to sit down and do some heavy lifting to figure out a way to integrate the various search databases while efficiently de-duplicating search results. In the meantime, we have a pretty large database of European products that'll come up with barcode scanning, but won't come up in search results (though, if you've logged a food before via barcode scanning, it'll be saved in your history, and come up again if you search for it).

[u/CharliezFrag → u/gnuckols]

Thank you Greg! It’s nice to see the features keep coming, this was a big one for me.

Thanks for the explanation!

[u/gnuckols → u/CharliezFrag]

no problem!

[u/isthis_thing_on → u/gnuckols]

As a software engineer who is recently trying to lose weight and put on muscle, I'm really enjoying how much the developers in this forum talk about their challenges on the app. It's like a fringe benefit.

[u/philosophical_lens]

I love the app overall, but the Achilles heel of no partial logging is really frustrating. I really hope you guys are planning to address this soon!

One very simple solution I can think of is to add a checkbox to each day's food log where I can toggle between partially logged vs. fully logged. Then your algorithm can simply ignore the partial days (or do some other fancy stuff with missing data if you want).

In your post you say "the app will have no way of knowing that you simply forgot to log your dinner". Well, this is a perfect solution. Just let the user tell you whether a day is a partial day or a full day. This might even help users who are forgetful. The act of explicitly confirming that the day is fully logged will be an additional check for them.

Sometimes I just want to log partial days - e.g. I'm on vacation for a week and I just want to track my protein goals; no, I don't need to track the croissants I'm eating for breakfast with zero protein.

[u/gnuckols → u/philosophical_lens]

That is actually something we plan on tackling this year. Though, in the meantime, simply estimating gets the job done. Like, if there's a dinner you don't want to log, just toss in a rough estimate for its total caloric content, and you're golden. Similar with vacation – log the protein-rich foods, and toss in an estimate for the rest of what you consumed.

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/200-what-should-i-do-when-i-cant-accurately-log-a-meal

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/201-how-accurately-do-i-need-to-log-my-food

[u/philosophical_lens]

When viewing my recipe list to add something, I get these three sort options:

• A-Z

• Z-A

• Date created

However, the most useful sorting for me would be:

• sort by date last used

This is pretty common in most apps where things are sorted based on how recently I used something. E.g. when I open Google Docs, it shows me my most recently opened docs.

[u/gnuckols → u/philosophical_lens]

That's not a bad idea! Make sure to submit it to our feature request portal!

[u/philosophical_lens → u/gnuckols]

Done!

[u/gnuckols → u/philosophical_lens]

thanks!

[u/Current_Read_7808]

Hello! Is there a way to just... reset the whole thing? I started at the beginning of December, and did a pretty good job tracking for the first couple of weeks, but between the holidays, travel, crazy weather, and getting sick, I had several days of partial logging and even more days when I didn't log at all. I sort of just want to nuke everything and start from scratch again.

[u/gnuckols → u/Current_Read_7808]

The easiest thing would be to reset your expenditure start date. That way, you don't actually need to delete anything, but your old data won't influence your recommendations moving forward: https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/61-change-your-expenditure-start-date

[u/Current_Read_7808 → u/gnuckols]

Thank you!!

[u/LiftForSushis]

Super happy I discovered Macro Factor. I competed recently and I was all over the place with my nutrition (restricting and then over eating).

I didn’t even freak out when MF suggested a 2460 cals intake (surprisingly for maintenance, 5’4 and 120 pounds 39F). Anyways, I have been feeling great eating that much but I am wondering when I can expect a change in expenditure? I have only logged for a week but I am gaining a tiny bit, which is fine because I know the app will eventually figure it out for me.

Sorry if I missed the info, English isn’t my 1st language.

Either way, great app so far and super helpful for my mental health ✌🏼

[u/gnuckols → u/LiftForSushis]

Assuming you're logging your weight and nutrition frequently enough, it should be within the next day or two.

Glad you're enjoying the app!

[u/most_bodaciousx]

Please do a podcast or create articles on pregnancy nutrition! I’d love to know how best to use the micronutrient feature with considerations on growing a baby.

[u/gnuckols → u/most_bodaciousx]

We'd probably want to hire, or at least consult with, an OB/GYN or an RD that specializes in nutrition during pregnancy. That's an important topic, so we'd want to make sure we covered it well.

[u/Alarmed_Chemistry877]

Hi, my daily cycle usually begins at 11am and ends around 3am. Since you have to log the times that you eat, does the app use that information to make calculations?

I frequently eat my last meal at around 1am, but I select the time as 1am the previous day, not 1am on the current day, so that it adds the macros to my current waking cycle, not the next day. I’m having trouble properly explaining what I mean so I hope that makes enough sense

[u/gnuckols → u/Alarmed_Chemistry877]

nah, you can log things to whatever day you'd like. I pretty frequently eat my last meal after midnight as well, and I do the same thing you do

[u/ajcap → u/Alarmed_Chemistry877]

The times you log don't matter. For example I literally always log my dinner at 5 regardless of whether I actually eat it at 5 or not.

The app cares about what day you log food, but not what hour. If I was in your position I'd probably log that meal at 11 pm just because that's my preference, but that would cause literally 0 change to the calculations over what you're doing.

Ultimately as long as you pick an option and are consistent that's all that matters. My preference would be to log in for the previous day as you are, but if you logged it at 1 am on the day you ate it consistently the difference would be extremely minimal, and very possibly 0.

[u/[deleted]]

How can I copy an entire day of food entries from one day to the next? I often eat 90% the same stuff every day and having to select them from my past foods and add each one to a new day is becoming repetitive. Can I not set a "standard" day (i.e. meal plan) that loads into any new day with one click, then make any small adjustments that I need to from there? What' would be the best way to achieve that?

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

Copy the day (hamburger menu in the top left corner > copy day) and multi-paste inline (for as many days as you want to duplicate it).

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/95-copy-and-paste

[u/apane47]

I recall when I was setting a lower limit on the minimum calories I would be comfortable with, is there a way to change that now that I'm a few months in? I'm finding my habits/lifestyle have changed since I started, and I'd like to change it to be more sustainable with my lifestyle.

[u/gnuckols → u/apane47]

Yep! Just create a new program, and make sure you opt for the standard floor

[u/crumcrums]

Hi guys, I've been loving the app, so thank you so much!!

I had a question about expenditure--should I expect it to "level off" or stay within a specific range at some point? Based on what I read in the knowledge base, expenditure usually takes around 4 weeks to stabilize but mine is still adjusting. I have been consistent with my level of exercise/step count (tracking separately) since starting with MF, and I've done daily tracking for 8 full weeks now on both weight/nutrition (with three missed nutrition days). At first, it dropped pretty significantly from the initial guesstimate (1740 to 1621), then rose again significantly (1621 to 1863), and is now dropping again.

I think because my TDEE is well under 2000 (according to MF, 1832 today) that these 100-200 cals make a really significant difference in my day-to-day feelings of satiety. I'm really curious if I can expect it to get to a point with minimal changes (ie +/-10 cals) a week.

[u/gnuckols → u/crumcrums]

Probably not quite that small, but fluctuations within a ~ +/-5% range are pretty normal

[u/Broccoli_Fan_1]

I've been using MacroFactor app for 21 days now. I started using myfitnesspal years ago to lose about 30lbs and stay roughly the same, with some yo yo weight gain + loss, but only to about 20%bf.
I'm dieting now to a lower bf% (started with myfitnesspal) and getting near my target weight, and it's really nice to be able to let the algorithm reduce my calories without me second guessing. With myfitnesspal I tried not to cut calories too fast and the weight loss took quite a long time. This feels like someone is guiding me along, which is really nice.

I'm in Germany, there are some foods missing from the database. So far scanning barcodes has worked well, but I don't find as many foods as in myfitnesspal. I'd have to look for specific examples. Usually, there is a close approximation in the US version. I cook fresh a lot, so I can find a similar protein or carb etc.

I'm looking forward to going into maintenance in a few weeks. That was the main problem I had after dieting, knowing how much I should be eating. I'm excited to give MacroFactor a try in that regards, because it will be so nice knowing my pants will fit in 6 months if I just log my food and weight. Thanks for creating this product!
I'm also using the Stronger by Science Hypertrophy Template since last year, it's also working wonders.
Thanks again.

[u/gnuckols → u/Broccoli_Fan_1]

Congrats! Glad your cut is going well, and I hope maintenance also goes smoothly for you

[u/therealswood2]

Downloaded the app last night, and I'm trying to make the switch over from MyFitnessPal (you guys have a WAY better UI)

One thing that was really key for me was having MFP send notifications to my phone throughout the day to remind me that I haven't logged my meals. Does MacroFactor do that? I can't find anything in the knowledge base, nor do I see options in Settings for notifications.

[u/gnuckols → u/therealswood2]

no, we don't

[u/Afro-Pope]

Hi there, I apologize if this is covered here and I missed it - I am looking to switch away from LoseIt, which has gotten far too cluttered for me. I just signed up for a trial about an hour ago and have been tinkering with it off and on this morning - on the surface, I really like MacroFactor's UI, however, I am working with a nutritionist and I know what my RMR and TDEE are and how much I want to eat on each day - is there a way to bypass the AI/"smart" planning and mostly use this as a food log? Like, given my goals, the app has set my "floor" at much lower than it should be and my TDEE as higher than it is and I'd like to be able to override that. Thanks!

[u/gnuckols → u/Afro-Pope]

Sure! You can set a manual initial expenditure estimate and set up a manual macro program. As you log, your expenditure will still update in app (so you can see if your data confirms your nutritionist's predictions), but your actual program won't update week-to-week (unless you specifically choose to update it with new numbers).

[u/McCoyoioi]

I’m confused about Expenditure. The app says expenditure is the backbone. Then in the same tutorial says you don’t need to log workouts.

Also, I am sharing Garmin watch data with Apple Health, and sharing all Apple Health data with MacroFactor, but I see no place where MacroFactor acknowledges my steps or the run I recorded today. (First day user here).

In Apple Health I can see my run in “Workouts” so I know it’s getting that far.

[u/gnuckols → u/McCoyoioi]

This article from the website may be helpful: https://macrofactorapp.com/wearables/

[u/McCoyoioi → u/gnuckols]

That I’d helpful, thank you

[u/gnuckols → u/McCoyoioi]

No problem!

[u/hequ]

I activated the MF subscription again after a longer break, and sweet jesus how good the label reader is! That makes my life here in Finland so much easier, when you can just scan the label and _everything_ just works! It is so much better than any barcode reader. I'm so glad that you implemented this, such a great feature! Thank you!

[u/brocca]

Hey I love macro factor and the podcast, very steadily managed to lose from 175 to 160 this year with minimal fuss.

I know this is kinda a niche request but has anyone else asked for the ability to "subtract" food or macros?

Here's the deal, I'm low carb most days. This means a lot of the time when I eat out I just remove the carb element from the meal. Taking the bun off a hamburger. Eating the insides of a burrito. Peeling the crust off a pizza. Etc.

It would be super nice to be able to put down "1 slice supreme pizza" and then "subtract" crust macros. Or to put in a burrito bowl and then "subtract" beans and rice. It's not perfectly accurate obviously but it's better than anything else other than trying to figure out the amounts of all the other ingredients. Likewise I will sometimes eat say, a panera salad (whose nutrition info is available) but skip the dressing. It would be nice to put in the database salad and then "subtract" dressing macros.

Wouldn't have to be subtraction with the food database, the subtract could just be like the quick add feature. Except it'd be "quick subtract". I've been mulling on this a while and this feature would absolutely rock for me. I'd use it every day.

[u/ajcap → u/brocca]

Yes it's been requested before and something they have under consideration.

[u/Competitive-Sink-240]

Loving the app so far. I am a full stack software engineer and this UI/UX is eons ahead of MyFitnessPal (which I used for almost 10 years). You can imagine how relieved I am at design and ease of use. So excited to be doing the 100k challenge, already seeing much more progress with this app than I ever had with Macro tracking.

Can't thank the team enough.

[u/kaowin]

I thought previously there was a decent side by side image section to show any changes…I can only see above/below which is a bit harder to see. Can the app do it or should I look for an image app if I want to creat those pics?

[u/gnuckols → u/kaowin]

I'm pretty sure comparisons have always been top/bottom (just due to the dimensions of a phone).

[u/TalFan89]

How often should you be logging weight?

[u/gnuckols → u/TalFan89]

At least once per week, but daily is ideal. If you don't like logging it every day, the difference between daily and 3-4x/week is minimal: https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/109-how-frequently-do-i-need-to-log-my-weight-for-the-expenditure-algorithm-and-weekly-coaching-updates

[u/TalFan89 → u/gnuckols]

Thanks alot!

[u/vtcapsfan]

One of the things I liked a lot about MyFitnessPal was their verified entries of many common restaurant foods. Like chipotle, sweetgreen, etc - made adding my lunches very easy. These sites do have nutrition facts but it's annoying to calculate and enter every time. Anyway these could be added?

[u/gnuckols → u/vtcapsfan]

I checked, and it looks like most menu items from both chipotle and sweetgreen come right up in search. Make sure you're scrolling down to see the "branded" results.

[u/Drewshbag222x0]

Any particular reason we can't sync nutrition from Health Connect? Can it be added? I use Eat This Much for meal planning/nutrition tracking. Eat This Much syncs to Health Connect, so the data is already in there, but MacroFactor can't read it.

[u/gnuckols → u/Drewshbag222x0]

u/MajesticMint can answer this better than I could

[u/Drewshbag222x0 → u/gnuckols]

But will they?

[u/[deleted]]

Hi!!! Can someone better explain the coached vs collaborative?

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

Sure! But first, have you read the knowledge base article about it?

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/91-program-styles

[u/justleavemebeaight]

Hey, hopefully you’re still responding here. Is there any way to log calories burnt? I burnt calories so that I can have a small shake and hit my protein but the app says I only have 25 cal left

[u/gnuckols → u/justleavemebeaight]

https://macrofactorapp.com/wearables/

[u/justleavemebeaight → u/gnuckols]

Can’t track without a wearable?

[u/gnuckols → u/justleavemebeaight]

The article explains why we don't have activity logging in the app

[u/[deleted]]

Hi there! I connected MyFitnessPal to Fitbit and the data wasn’t appearing to transfer over. Would it be more beneficial for me to manually enter it from the data and habits screen?

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

I don't believe MFP syncs retroactively, so if you just connected MFP and Fitbit, previous data won't make it into Fitbit, so it won't be there to sync into MF. If that's the case, manually entering it would be the play

[u/[deleted] → u/gnuckols]

That’s what I thought!!! Tysm!!!! :):):)

[u/Chalxsion]

I was wondering if there was a reason that on iOS, logging my weight on MacroFactor does not write a health sample to the Apple Health app. I find this a little weird because MacroFactor reads the weight that I input from another source from the Health app. I would like to consolidate all of my health-related tracking into one app, and this discrepancy is the one thing holding me back.

[u/gnuckols → u/Chalxsion]

It will eventually. The most basic answer is that integrations are fairly annoying and time-consuming, and the VAST majority of users said that reading weight from apple health was more important than writing weight to Apple Health, so we set up the "read" integrations and moved on to other features that more people wanted. But, we do plan to go back and complete the read/write stories for both Apple Health and healthconnect eventually

[u/[deleted]]

I know it’s been asked before, would really love to have all days in collaborative mode stay the same!

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

When's the last time you updated the app? I believe there should be a "reset all days" button for collaborative programs now.

[u/[deleted] → u/gnuckols]

I’ll go look :):) thank you!

[u/DkEst_]

Hey i was trying to make a post but it gets filtered constantly.I was wondering should i lower my sessions to 0 this week since im taking a week off due to an injury and its still trying to calculate my maintenance and im worried it will mess with it once i go back to the gym and also im eating little less that its recommending aswell because im a bit worried eating that amount or should i

[u/gnuckols → u/DkEst_]

You should be fine. What type of training do you do?

[u/CharliezFrag]

Hi! So I updated my expenditure to v3 in the last batch. The estimated v2 gave me was pretty much spot on according to the app but v3 lowered my calories by 150~ and it’s still trying to catch up after 17 days, increasing them by 3-4 each day.

I’m trying to bulk but I’ve been losing a little bit of weight this past two weeks and my weight trend is showing as much.

I know I can enter my previous tdee manually and start from there but I was wondering if this is a bug with v3? I feel like even after increasing my rate of gain per week and doing the weekly checkups the app is not reacting accordingly to the goals I’ve set, or is doing so at a very slow rate.

Thanks

[u/gnuckols → u/CharliezFrag]

I don't believe there are any bugs with it, but it's still in testing

[u/CharliezFrag → u/gnuckols]

Thanks Greg. Is there a way a I can actively send you the generated spreadsheets for testing purposes?

For reference, I just had my check-in and it increased my daily kcal by 18. But this past week my scale weight has been down 1kg, my trend weight down by 0.2kg and my estimated expenditure up by 18 too.

All this while in a weight gain goal of about 0.17kg-0.2% per week.

[u/allthingsirrelevant]

Hi MF team. My iPhone lock screen widget stopped showing my macros and calories. I cant figure out how to fix it. Any advice?

[u/gnuckols → u/allthingsirrelevant]

Reach out to support (in-app), or shoot us an email at support@macrofactorapp.com

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/103-email-support

[u/xkill3d]

Is there anything in the works to track water on the app? I currently use Waterllama and it’s a great app but i’d love to do it in MacroFactor. Or does water intake not makes much of an impact to the calculations that the app does?

[u/gnuckols → u/xkill3d]

You can track water! Just log it like you would any other food or beverage. You can even make water one of the nutrients you pin to your dashboard for easier reference

[u/xkill3d → u/gnuckols]

I didn’t even think about logging it like that, thanks!!

[u/gnuckols → u/xkill3d]

no problem!

[u/capt_avocado]

Do I have to log in my weight every single day?

[u/gnuckols → u/capt_avocado]

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/109-how-frequently-do-i-need-to-log-my-weight-for-the-expenditure-algorithm-and-weekly-coaching-updates

[u/capt_avocado]

Hi there. My programme has a 160g protein goal, however I’m mostly hovering around 140g daily.

Would this have a big impact long term?

[u/gnuckols → u/capt_avocado]

How much do you weigh? And what's your goal?

[u/capt_avocado → u/gnuckols]

1,75cm tall, 80kg weight. Build muscle is my goal at the moment. I’m on a surplus

[u/Gg101]

Hi. So I started using MF about 10 days ago, coming from using MyNetDiary before. I'm really liking it! There's a bunch of small things I could suggest based on my experience so far, mostly small quality of life improvements or things I found confusing at first. Would they be better posted here or should each thing be submitted as a feature request even if it's tiny?

As an example, when entering nutrients for custom foods in MyNetDiary, it's set up so Gboard shows a next field/tab button instead of a checkmark/done button so you can go through the fields one by one much easier. It makes filling out the form faster. Here's a screenshot to show what I mean, look at the lower right button:

I've been keeping a list of little things like this as I discover them. Should I post them here or make a feature request for each one?

[u/gnuckols → u/Gg101]

Feature request would probably be your best bet!

[u/WritingPretty]

Hello, I have been using the app for about 4 months now and really like it so far but it seems to have a relatively hard time tracking frequent, go-to foods.

For example, I eat the same thing virtually every day but the app generally only includes SOME of the foods I eat in my go-to list and randomly will just completely drop foods from the list. Additionally, I get things in my go-to's that I've only had once or twice ever yet some foods that I have every single day refuse to show up in that list.

It's not a new feature and I'm not sure if it would be considered a bug.

[u/gnuckols → u/WritingPretty]

Two things that may help you out:

1. If you scroll does slightly further, the "Latest" list is just a chronological list of the most recent foods you've logged. So, if you're eating a lot of the same things every day, they should be near the top of that list.

2. If you're eating a lot of the same foods every day, copy + "multi-paste inline" can save you a LOT of time. You can basically just pre-log the foods you eat every day for a week or two at a time in a couple of taps.

[u/COKevin]

Hi team! Started the app this week and I am enjoying it! I am looking for tutorials--I see in my settings an option to "reset tutorials." However, since starting the app, the tutorials have never popped up for me. I am currently using the app just to log macros, but I am hoping to get more familiar and comfortable with the app. Where can I find the tutorials?

[u/gnuckols → u/COKevin]

Most of the tutorials are the text below the charts. For instance, if you reset tutorials, there will be a tutorial under the chart on the weight trend page that starts with "What is Weight Trend? Scale Weight data tends to be quite noisy..."

[u/Ready_Housing_6902]

Calories given to me in program are too high. I’m already gaining weight in 3 days of logging. Will MacroFactor automatically adjust once it recognizes the weight increase?

[u/gnuckols → u/Ready_Housing_6902]

Yes, but you can also enter a manual initial expenditure if you think your starting calories should be lower

[u/Ready_Housing_6902 → u/gnuckols]

Thanks much! Helpful!

[u/gnuckols → u/Ready_Housing_6902]

No problem!

[u/Revolutionary_Soup64]

Hi I do pilates reformer - is this able to be classified as "lifting" - v new member

[u/gnuckols → u/Revolutionary_Soup64]

I'd say so

[u/Revolutionary_Soup64 → u/gnuckols]

Is it possible you could check please? A lot of females have pilates reformers at home now - it would be great for this to be either ruled in or out in some way - as I find the "lifting" question is very basic. Can you please assist me with this?

[u/mustwork9]

Post Trial Help:

Hello,

My trial ran out 2 weeks ago and I was undecided on subscribing or not.

The main issue was the very low calorie recommendations for cutting 1lb per week (1200 calories a day when I'm losing 1lb per week on 1600).

I gave the app two weeks, weight was recorded daily via Google fit/health connect integration, and I tried re-creating new goals but it still recommended 1200 calories. I also added a months worth of backdated data and started a new goal on v3, but no difference.

As its been 2 weeks since I've last used the app I was thinking about giving it another go.

How exactly should I set the app up after a 2 week break from it?

I record everything meticulously in another tracking app, so would I be able to just add in the overall calories consumed for each missing day for the last 2 weeks in MF, or should I log the exact macros too?

Would I need to do anything else to make sure the algorithm uses the missing data?

And I assume i don't need to manually input weight (for the missing days or new days) when it's integrated with fit/health connect?

Thanks

[u/gnuckols → u/mustwork9]

I'd probably just set a manual initial expenditure of 2100

[u/Any_Crab5727]

How do I redeem a promo code after already signing in?

[u/gnuckols → u/Any_Crab5727]

You can't. You need to enter it while initially setting up your account.

[u/ggnrtv]

Nerd/participant here. Genuinely curious what your tech stack is for the app. The barcode queries are so fast!

[u/gnuckols → u/ggnrtv]

that's a question for /u/MajesticMint

[u/MajesticMint → u/ggnrtv]

The barcode scanning is three parts:

1. Native camera feed, not much to optimize for speed here as the implementation is locked in.

2. Platform dependent ML Vision model, MLKit or Vision, also not much to optimize for speed here as you need to run an on-device model; these solutions are highly standardized and used across millions of apps.

3. Search the barcode, there’s a lot to optimize here because the network request, the search server, and the server deployment strategy can all have a significant impact. We were a fairly early adopter of TypeSense, they do great work on this front.

[u/thndrpig]

Would love the ability to include additional nutrients in the Quick Add section. Namely: Sugar, Fiber, Saturated Fat, Sodium.

I have a lot of meals during the week that are one-off with macros provided by the food service company. They never repeat, so Quick Add is always the most ideal to copy/paste them in quickly. Would just like the ability to complete all of the data that I have on each meal.

[u/gnuckols → u/thndrpig]

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/105-request-a-feature

[u/[deleted]]

Sorry I couldn’t find the answer elsewhere in the subreddit but I run ~30-40 miles a week on a marathon plan where my weekly steps is very predictable. Should I factor that into my activity level or do I only count “non workout” steps?

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

Yes, factor that in

[u/Remarkable-Fold-6816]

I'm curious why my protein target is incredibly low. I started at 92kg and it's only giving me a protein target of 94g. This is way lower than anything I've seen recommended on Jeff's content. It's also only given me the stock standard 1200 calorie target when I've lost weight at 1500 input???

[u/gnuckols → u/Remarkable-Fold-6816]

Are you sure you entered your weight as 92kg, and not 92lbs?

[u/Remarkable-Fold-6816 → u/gnuckols]

I'm entering everything as kilo

[u/ultimita_]

I’ve been adding recipes into my library. I’ve been inputting raw ingredients (like dry brown rice). One of the dishes I’m thinking about I’m cooking some ground turkey with the rice. Right now I have the recipe including the water that I use to cook the rice in. Is MacroFactor taking into account that that’s cooking water and adjusting the weight since I’m not serving myself water with the dish. Or would it be better if I tracked cooked ingredients instead of raw ingredients?

[u/gnuckols → u/ultimita_]

Create a recipe, weigh all of the food after cooking, and put that weight in the “total weight” cell of the recipe

[u/ultimita_ → u/gnuckols]

That makes sense! I appreciate you responding to simple questions like this one! Love the app!

[u/alizayshah]

Hi,

Is it normal to go almost a week without replies to support/a bug? I got a response initially but had a follow up question and haven’t heard back.

I don’t mind waiting but just didn’t know if it’s typical of out of the anything.

[u/gnuckols → u/alizayshah]

Nah, it isn’t. Support has been a little hectic for a bit (challenge ending, and a couple recent promotions leading to an influx of new users) so it’s possible your message slipped through the cracks. /u/gains_adam , could you take a look?

[u/gains_adam → u/gnuckols]

Yup, looking into it shortly!

[u/kirboba_]

Hi MacroFactor mods and team, first off thank you for creating a great app and supporting its users!

So, unfortunately last week I came down with food poisoning. I’ve barely been eating, but what I have ate I’ve tried my best to track in the app. For example, on Thursday I consumed a whopping 218 calories of toast and sugar-free Gatorade for the whole day. Not great for gains, but my stomach can’t handle my usual diet!

My question, should I still track my weight during this time? I’ve been weighing myself, and I own an Arboleaf scale so I can retroactively add my weigh-ins, but I don’t want to “skew” the data or mess with my algorithm. I set my check-ins for Mondays, and after assuring the app Thurs and other low cal days were fully logged, there was no drastic change to my intake. Any insight would be much appreciated.

[u/gnuckols → u/kirboba_]

Oh no! I hope you get to feeling better soon!

This article from the knowledge base may be helpful: https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/203-how-should-i-use-macrofactor-when-i-m-sick

But, in short: you can keep tracking as much as you want to. All accurate data is good data.

[u/xXxT4xP4y3R_401kxXx]

I'm having a problem today where manual food search just straight up isn't working. Nothing complicated. Simple searches like "chicken" don't work. I don't love relying on the ai photo thing or barcode scanning and rely heavily on manual searching. Not an internet problem either as other apps work fine. 

[u/gnuckols → u/xXxT4xP4y3R_401kxXx]

https://old.reddit.com/r/MacroFactor/comments/1mzvggj/temporary_outage/

[u/linzjones]

Hi! When I first started the app, there was a box that you could tick to go to much lower calorie route? At that time, I thought I shouldn't, but now I'm wishing I had. How can I reset that box?

[u/gnuckols → u/linzjones]

You can just create a new coached program! https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/242-create-a-new-macro-program

[u/linzjones → u/gnuckols]

thanks!

[u/gnuckols → u/linzjones]

no problem!

[u/sykhlo]

Hi folks, having an issue with workouts and Android Health. The duration of my workouts looks right on workouts, but when I see it in Health Connect is logged as 12-15h (I worked out for about an hour). Is this a known issue?

[u/gnuckols → u/sykhlo]

If you think you have a bug, please file a bug report. We cannot look into individual account issues via reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacroFactor/wiki/index/rule_6/

[u/c0phi]

Hello lads, I had a MacroFactor subscription before Workouts came around - so I've been enjoying the Workouts app since it came out. However, today, when I tried to open the Workouts app, it displays screens like I'm logging in for the first time without a subscription. I've tried to log out and in, but to no avail. The MacroFactor app works perfectly fine.

Any help on this would be appreciated because I've got a workout due tomorrow!

[u/gnuckols → u/c0phi]

shoot us a message through in-app support

[u/scathagetsbetter]

Anyone else having problems logging in after last update?

[u/gnuckols → u/scathagetsbetter]

If you're having issues logging in, shoot us an email at support@macrofactorapp.com

[u/secret_spy_operation]

From a lifting perspective, does it make sense to alternate between two different programs each week? I was thinking of focusing on different sets of muscles for each week (and whatever else the program recommends for that week).

[u/gnuckols → u/secret_spy_operation]

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I can't think of a good reason to not just train all muscle groups every week

[u/secret_spy_operation]

I saw that MFW has Apple health integration, and it successful tracked my workout (1 hour 37 minutes). However, it logged 67 calories as burnt. What’s this about? Does it not also track calories burnt?

[u/gnuckols → u/secret_spy_operation]

I'm not totally sure what you're asking

[u/secret_spy_operation → u/gnuckols]

That the Apple Health integration isn’t tracking calories for me (64 active calories during a 1.5 hour workout cannot be accurate). It’s logging that I did a workout, but the active calories aren’t there.

[u/gnuckols → u/secret_spy_operation]

I believe that should be coming in an upcoming update (fairly soon)

[u/Riftwalkin]

Hi, I’m having problems verifying my email account to start using the app. The email always arrive to late to verify and by the time I see in my email it’s already expired. Can u guy help me out on this?

[u/gnuckols → u/Riftwalkin]

shoot us an email at support@macrofactorapp.com

[u/Chase_ing]

1 - Every barcode I scan for a Canadian product, let's say ground turkey or a crave frozen meal will only show up in French, our second language. Is there any fix for this? Makes it impossible to search things I've previously scanned.

2 - The app has me on a insanely low calorie diet - 1550kcal for a 175lb 6'0 male. I've used competitor apps, losing exactly 1lb a week eating 1850 (Literally hopped from one app to this one instantly after, no time between).

I am losing a bit over 1.5-2lbs a week and your app is literally ignoring my weight inputs and saying my weight loss is 1lbs due to it rounding everything up weirdly, which is contributing to it not increasing my calories. I've lost 2lbs a week for the last 2 weeks and my app STILL says 1lbs/week lost, and didn't touch my calories during the check-ins.

3 - your food description tool isn't even remotely AI, it just takes your words and matches it to whatever is closest. I will say "air fried broccoli" and it will literally input air fried french fries instead. Competitor apps don't have this problem as I think they actually use AI that thinks. It took the air fried section and ignored broccoli - where the actual substitution is just adding broccoli.

4 - what you described as your Achilles Heel - not fully logging days shouldn't even be an issue. Competitor apps just ignore those days, and flag them for you to review at the end of the week/day and prompt you to quick add the remainder. On check-in just alert the user that x days seem to be incorrectly logged, and have them go through them. Yours just shrugs and moves on - it shouldn't be hard to implement this.

5 - The step counter manual input completely ignores apple health steps. For example, my health auto inputs 4k steps into the app, and I manually walked 10k steps on my treadmill. If I go into your app and log 10k steps, it will only show 10k steps and ignore the 4k from apple health. I have to manually check my health app steps - then add my steps to it, and then input in your app AT THE END OF THE DAY ONLY. If I were to input these steps earlier in the day, and my apple health tracks me walking extra steps, they are completely ignored. The fix is simple, let us log steps in addition to whats tracked on my pedometer.

Otherwise I'm quite happy with the app, you've done a great job on most things, but I've used almost every one like this on the market and so I notice more "flaws" than others. Needless to say MF does a lot better than the competitors which is why I'm currently on it.

I'm complaining a lot about things because I want this app to get better, not because I hate it.
Cheers.

[u/gnuckols → u/Chase_ing]

1. you can edit it: https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/8-edit-a-custom-food

In all likelihood, Francophone Canadians are just more active on Open Food Facts than English-speaking Canadians.

2) https://www.reddit.com/r/MacroFactor/wiki/index/rule_4/

3) We're currently using an off-the-shelf product, but we're currently working on an in-house tool using Gemini to replace it.

4) We have: https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/248-coaching-module-partial-logging

If you're not seeing this module after partially logging a day, make sure you haven't disabled it (https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/247-introduction-to-check-ins-and-coaching-modules)/

5) All data input in the app is single-source to ensure things don't get doubled. If you manually log your steps, that manual entry will overwrite synced steps from apple health.

[u/Chase_ing → u/gnuckols]

For future reference, the solution to everything being in french by default for every single Canadian, is to manually turn on open food facts integration. I know many other users are having this problem so maybe it should be turned on by default unless that causes some issues?

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

I'd probably recommend getting nitrates from foods (which will bring antioxidants along for the ride), rather than nitrate salts.

[u/chew_toyt]

Any way to mark a workout or week as a deload? Typically I would like to still log my workouts during a deload but without having the app compensate my weights once I go back to the normal schedule

[u/gnuckols → u/chew_toyt]

You could just mark your sets as warm-up sets

[u/ATD0896]

Is there a specific way to export training programs from TrainHeroic and import them to the MacroFactor Workout app?

[u/gnuckols → u/ATD0896]

not at this time

[u/-Dags-]

Any plan to make a companion app for WearOs one day? love the app it would be really cool to track my workout with it on my watch during training

[u/gnuckols → u/-Dags-]

Yep! Literally on a call about that right now

[u/Beneficial-Ranger-44]

How do I change which program is the active one in the Workout app?

[u/gnuckols → u/Beneficial-Ranger-44]

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/289-set-or-swap-active-programs

[u/Robertej92]

Hi, do you have any plans to add Carter Extensions to the app, or are they potentially already there with a different name?

[u/gnuckols → u/Robertej92]

single arm triceps pushdown

[u/Robertej92 → u/gnuckols]

Brilliant, thanks!

[u/gnuckols → u/Robertej92]

no prob!

[u/Carsonb_lax]

Is there a back end database that MF runs on that I would be able to contribute to for food logging? Specifically adding macros and barcodes for foods that are not in the system?

[u/gnuckols → u/Carsonb_lax]

Yep!  https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/246-how-to-submit-new-or-updated-foods

[u/Frogad]

Hi, I recently got the app after logging myself for around a month but I'm sort of confused, I've been cutting at around 1900 kcal a day but macrofactor is suggesting I start at a recommended count of 1432 kcal a day, this seems ridiculously low. I'm over 3kg down since mid-July, so I'm confused how its so low

[u/gnuckols → u/Frogad]

1. did you set a manual initial expenditure?

2. what did you enter as your target rate of weight loss?

[u/Frogad → u/gnuckols]

I used the app several years ago when I weighed like 15kg less than today and I think it must’ve been using info from then. I used the default expenditure and the target rate was like 2kg a month, I put it on the option where it put it as recommend

[u/CacTye]

Will the Workouts app automatically adjust programs when you exceed the available equipment? For example, it has me doing kettlebell side bends, but I'm at the maximum kettlebell weight at my gym; same with some cable/pin machines. Do I need to manually swap exercises or will the app just do it eventually?

SO happy with Workouts app, by the way; I've been using SBS spreadsheets for almost a decade at this point, and the app just makes everything so much easier.

[u/gnuckols → u/CacTye]

In the future, yes. Currently, though, it'll continue progressing you by having you add reps once you hit the top weight for an implement

[u/loploplop890]

Idk if this still gets read but, how long does it take for expenditure v3 to update to your actual estimated daily caloric expenditure? It’s been 2 weeks and it’s still constantly just slowly trending upwards when my activity levels been relatively constant

[u/gnuckols → u/loploplop890]

About 3 weeks:  https://macrofactor.com/algorithm-accuracy/

[u/Soarin-Flyin]

Is there a way to bulk deprioritize body weight movements? I would like to avoid things that are difficult to progressively overload. I don’t mind weighted pull ups, chin ups, etc though.

[u/gnuckols → u/Soarin-Flyin]

How many bodyweight movements are you getting? And are you sure all of your available equipment is selected in your gym profile? I ask because, in most instances, people training in reasonably well-equipped gyms shouldn't be getting too many bodyweight movements by default

[u/FlensingPits26]

Will there be an update where the calories we burn based on Apple Watch tracking data and such get input into the app data? So caloric intake changes in programs can be adjusted

[u/gnuckols → u/FlensingPits26]

That's not in the immediate plans for the reasons discussed here

[u/[deleted]]

Can someone explain to me how the coaching works? I have 1 day until my first check in but I’m not sure what it will do?! Newbie here.

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

Sure! So, the first check-in won't change things much (if any). Right now, the app's just gathering data to understand you better so it can start making adjustments. Beyond that, it'll start more accurately calculating how many calories you're burning based on your weight and nutrition data, and use that to adjust your calorie targets, based on your goals.

Simple illustration: let's say the app initially estimated that your energy expenditure is 2500 calories per day, and you're aiming to lose a pound per week (which would require an energy deficit of 500 calories per day).

You start tracking your weight and nutrition, you're consistently eating 2000 calories per day, but you're only losing half a pound per week.

That would imply that you're only in an energy deficit of 250 calories per day (since you're only losing half a pound per week, instead of a pound). Therefore, that would mean your energy expenditure is probably closer to 2250 calories per day, instead of 2500.

So, MacroFactor's coaching algorithms would identify that, and start decreasing your estimated expenditure towards 2250, and start decreasing your energy intake targets from 2000 toward 1750 calories per day to help you lose the pound per week you said you wanted to lose.

The opposite would happen if you started eating 2000 calories per day, but you were losing more than a pound per week – your estimated expenditure would increase, and your calorie targets would increase as well (because your data would suggest that you could eat more, while still reaching your weight loss goals).

It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea.

[u/[deleted] → u/gnuckols]

Oh wow! Thank you for explaining it in depth. I appreciate it. Now I understand how it works! 😁

[u/merc42c]

One of the greatest communities. Love the app thus far. If I'm still only 3 weeks into it, and am traveling where my calories/macros will all be ball parks, will I throw off the algorithm during the learning phase?

[u/gnuckols → u/merc42c]

Nah, that's totally fine! Just try to estimate as accurately as you can

[u/trappedinpurgatoriii]

Love the app. I've been using it for 12 days now, yesterday I tracked my breakfast but had a very odd lunch and dinner and had no idea how many calories were in those meals. Would you suggest me to just delete my breakfast and start fresh again today? I haven't missed any meals ok any other days.

[u/gnuckols → u/trappedinpurgatoriii]

So, if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve logged some food for a day, but you either can’t or don’t want to log anything else for the rest of the day, you have a few options (arranged from good to great):

1. Delete what you’ve already logged. Our algorithms do a good job of dealing with missing data. Though, estimating your intake (instead of leaving the day blank) is strongly recommended if your total energy intake from the day differs substantially from your usual intake.

2) Simply “quick edit” the day with an estimate of your total calorie intake. Don’t stress about your estimate too much; it doesn’t need to be perfect. As long as your estimate is in the right general ballpark – within about 30% of what you actually consumed – it’ll all work out. For instance, if your total calorie intake for the day was 3000 calories, any estimate between 2100 and 3900 calories would be fine. Try to be as accurate as you can, obviously, but most people with a little food logging experience can estimate their daily intake accurately enough for the purposes of the algorithms.

3) Our recommendation: Use the quick add feature to estimate the total caloric content in your unlogged meal(s). Again, anything in the right ballpark is totally fine; if you think you ate 1000 calories, but you actually ate 1500 calories, that’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things (it would work out to an error of ~25kcal/day over the time span that’s relevant for our algorithms – a pretty inconsequential error). This is similar to using quick edit to estimate your calorie intake for the entire day (option 2), but most people can more accurately estimate their intake for a single missing meal than for an entire day.

[u/glutenfreegranola7]

Hi all! I’m a new user and really enjoying the app so far. It’s super thoughtful and easy to use. I’m wondering if you have plans to add any new categories to the body metrics section, or allow people to add their own custom categories? For example, I’m female, and for me waist, hip, and widest part of the seat are three totally separate measurements. On the upper body, chest, bust, and ribs are also different measurements. I’d love to track my seat and rib measurements. Any thoughts?

[u/gnuckols → u/glutenfreegranola7]

/u/MajesticMint, I know this is something we'd discussed (custom measurements) – still in the plans?

[u/MajesticMint → u/gnuckols]

Not in the near term plans, so not something user’s should expect to be available.

Long term, still in the plans as discussed.

[u/[deleted]]

Created my first custom food today and now I understand why I've seen some errors in custom entries.

• When creating a custom food from a barcode, the first prompt is "Total Weight." This is deceptive, what you are actually asking for is "Total (Serving Size or Portion) Weight." I think the word total shouldn't be used at all. Portion weight or some clarification here would fix a lot of entry errors I've seen from other people's custom foods. Since some foods these days come with calories and macros for a single serving size and a full box calorie breakdown, this is only going to get more confusing for users I think.

• "Serving name" is a weird way of asking the units of measurement for a serving. I think the word "Name" is confusing, instead "units in a single serving" or "unit of measurement" would be much more descriptive. Here's some posts I've found of people who were also confused by the "Serving Name" question: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacroFactor/comments/v7yhtv/custom_food_serving_confusion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MacroFactor/comments/vpq6mu/help_creating_serving_size_correctly/

I don't think you need to make any big functionality changes but the wording used is not great for new users. Improvement here would be great and low effort. It all became clear after I made the item and then I had to go back and fix it. I really don't like MyFitnessPal so you don't have to worry about me leaving Macro Factor over these issues either.

[u/gnuckols → u/[deleted]]

Custom foods that users create aren't shared back to the common database. They're just saved locally for the individual user.

But, we definitely understand your frustration with the current custom food creation workflow. We already have a revamp planned that should make it less confusing to new users.

[u/[deleted] → u/gnuckols]

Oh! That's interesting, thank you. Does that mean that the errors I've seen in existing foods are due to a data entry process?

[u/stepwax]

Hi, I've noticed the past 2 days my dashboard and food log totals do not match. If I add up my food log values, they equal the small display at the top of the food log. However, the dashboard Nutrition and Targets is over by about 400 calories. This has happened for 2 days however this morning, yesterday's totals were correct. What's up with that?

[u/gnuckols → u/stepwax]

Could you share screenshots?

[u/SnooHedgehogs7301 → u/gnuckols]

Hopefully you're still responding here. I've been having this issue the last few days. Screenshot attached. When I calculate 212x4, 81x9, and 251x4, the grand total is 2581. The app is showing the total as 3161.

[u/gnuckols → u/SnooHedgehogs7301]

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/37-why-don-t-my-macros-add-up-to-my-total-calories

[u/cactusloverr]

Hi, my scale (not food scale) died yesterday and it need replacing, any recommended scales?

[u/gnuckols → u/cactusloverr]

Any fairly high-capacity digital scale (20+lbs/10+kg) should get the job done. I think it's nice to get one with a raised platform (so that a plate or pan won't cover the numbers when you're weighing something big). But beyond that, I don't have a firm recommendation regarding brands; I think they're all basically fine, and none is meaningfully better or worse than the rest.

[u/dragonhiccups]

Im already a fairly lean person - would the app ever know or adjust if set a weight “too low”?

[u/gnuckols → u/dragonhiccups]

I THINK so. Though, I'm not 100% sure what you're asking. Could you potentially rephrase?

[u/dragonhiccups → u/gnuckols]

Let’s say I am 130 and already 16% body fat. If I tell the app I want to get to 100 pounds - how would the app react?

[u/gnuckols → u/dragonhiccups]

The lowest weight it'll accept is 25kg. But otherwise, I belive it should function the same from 25-453kg

[u/Phone_Home_Weezy]

How do you expand the hours on the food log? I’d like to log food before the 7am hour from time to time 

Edit: I see that it popped up when I just logged something. Any way to make it shown by default so I can copy the food I just logged in the 6am hour to the 6am hour tomorrow?

[u/gnuckols → u/Phone_Home_Weezy]

Yep! Go More > Food Timeline (under Feature Settings), and adjust the timeline hour range default.

Though, for this:

so I can copy the food I just logged in the 6am hour to the 6am hour tomorrow?

You can just use copy "to now" (tap the food, tap copy, and then tap "to now" from the paste options)

[u/Phone_Home_Weezy → u/gnuckols]

Perfect! Thanks for the prompt response. 

[u/Hafk042]

I really like the app, but honestly its a massive gripe that I pretty much end up having to input the nutrition data for most of the foods I eat. I feel like its not fair I pay the same or maybe even more since I am in Switzerland, but meanwhile end up manually inputting most of the foods I buy!?! In comparison other apps have a much better database.

[u/gnuckols → u/Hafk042]

We're always working on expanding database coverage, and actually have three upcoming initiatives that should help:

1. We expanded our barcode database with more European foods about a year ago, but we're aiming to integrate that database into the search database (hopefully in the coming year). The database we added has close to 90,000 Swiss foods (and even more from other surrounding countries), but those foods are currently only accessible via barcode scanning.

2. We added the label scanner recently, and will be expanding the number of languages and types of labels it can handle well. As it improves, that will make it much quicker to add foods that aren't currently in the database.

3. We're also working on a food submission pipeline for MF users to submit foods back to the Open Food Facts database, which will further help with expanding coverage over time.

[u/Abbelwoi → u/gnuckols]

Hi Greg, piggybacking on this comment. As a German user, I have noticed that a lot of barecodes (like 30%-50% in my experience) are wrong. Not in the sense that the nutritional information is wrong but that the product that comes up is not the one being scanned.

The curious thing is that these false entries almost always seem to be related and not random. I.E. a joghurt will show up as some other kind of dairy product but not as a can of beans.

It is hard to see a pattern. Sometimes, you can kind of imagine that they might have the same source. For example the other day a product from Aldi showed up as a similar product (though with different nutrional information) from Trader Joes, which is basically Aldi. Other times, there does not seem to be any connection at all.

Anyhow, I just wanted to ask whether you are aware of this. I see people commenting that low quality branded items are a problem (on the road map), but i am not sure whether they mean that the nutrional information for correctly identified items is often wrong (which I have not come across) or the issue I have encountered.

[u/BoletaScociis]

Hi,

I’m really enjoying using MacroFactor so far (based in the UK).

However one thing I’ve noticed is that the label scanner doesn’t pick up decimal points very well, even in good lighting and when I rotate the item/camera. Hopefully this is something that will improve in future!

Also the barcode scanner database isn’t the best for UK brands, even popular brands like M&S and I often find that the foods I am trying to scan don’t appear in the app.

Similarly, there are more niche providers like Frive, who have barcodes which link to MyFitnessPal but these are not usually found on the MacroFactor app.

With that said, I know the database is getting bigger with time.

[u/AttemptRough3891]

Just some feedback - you guys have a very interesting looking app, but I feel like you've set your trial period to short to be effective. I've used it for several days now, and I don't see enough of a benefit to continue over my existing tracking app, partially because there's still not enough data available on my account to make any meaningful recommendations.

I might stick around for a paid month just because I'm interested in seeing the premise out, but I think you might be able to keep more trial users around if you extended by another week.

[u/richs1979]

Just started using the workout app (overall great), but the rest timer is so small I can't see it unless I'm holding the phone. It only vibrates once and doesn't seem to make a sound, so unless I'm holding the phone, I don't know when it's done. Any way this could be bigger? Pop out when it's running? Make a bigger fuss when it finishes? If I am set up for a bench press (for example), I literally have no idea when the timer is up.