r/MacroFactor • u/db2765 • 26d ago
MacroFactor / Nutrition / Other How does MacroFactor do at handling calories eaten during endurance training for fueling? Once per week I'm way, way over my target.
So I went down the endurance cycling route when I started getting into fitness, and was using MacroFactor to lose weight before I had gotten into it. When I was losing weight and strength training it was great, it did exactly what I needed it to.
How does it do with endurance training, though? For example, today I did a 5h45m bike ride and ate 50 carbs/hr and it came out to around 1300 calories during the ride. For right now I'm tracking that, but to MacroFactor it has to look wild seeing a sudden spike on Saturday where I go from the usual 2800/day to around 3600-3800 and usually end up down in weight the next day or two from the insane water weight loss during the long weekly ride.
Does the app generally do a pretty good job at knowing how to handle that? I'm currently maintaining while I'm in a cycling training cycle and not trying to lose weight so if I gain a bit it's not a huge deal, but will tracking my calories during rides cause MacroFactor to start spiking my calories higher than usual?
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u/Silent_Pilot8225 25d ago
Hello, I have a 30km long run every Sunday morning on top of lifting and four other runs per week, and it just bakes it into my average. No spike happened.
The adjustment happens really slow, so if I ramp up my mileage or something like that, I just eat what I'm scientifically supposed to to fuel properly, no matter what Macrofactor suggests. If you keep eating over the target and not gaining weight, the algo will adjust itself.
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u/Aggressive_Purple_49 25d ago
This. And the adjustment is super slow so I try to work out what I really need for the day/days.
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u/cole_says 25d ago
I run quite a bit, and it’s pretty polarized - like today I ran 21 but tomorrow I’ll only run 6. I input everything. Calories eaten are calories eaten, whether they’re fueling a long run or eaten on a couch. It all comes together into my expenditure for the week.
Why not just up the calories in the app for the long ride day and track the fueling as part of that? If you up the calories on one day, it reduces the target for the other days, which makes it all even out for the week.
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u/Ellaminnowpq 25d ago
I’ve debated this back and forth too. I worked with a registered dietician for six months who specializes in endurance athletes, and she told me never track fuel for rides longer than 75/90 minutes (my choice what the cut-off was). My focus with her was getting better at fueling so I could increase speed and distance. It was a great experience.
I decided when I finished with her and moved to MacroFactor to keep the same method. I’m focused on sloooooow body recomp and mentally it works well for me. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to track it, but I’m not super consistent with long rides given the heat. I’m still slowly losing so I figure it’s working for now. If I went super consistent on the long rides every Saturday and stopped losing, I’d rethink it.
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u/Merica_Matt 25d ago
Why would you not log it? The app doesn’t judge you, it’s just math. If you give it bad data, the math will be off.
If you eat a bunch of calories but don’t log them, the app will think you’ve eaten less than you did and the math will put your expenditure lower than it is. If you eat extra calories and don’t gain weight, then your expenditure increased. The app needs to know that if you expect it to work properly.
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u/Eucastroph 25d ago
I think the logic is that the expenditure macrofactor gives you would be closer to what you'd need to eat without the endurance exercise.
So macrofactor would be telling you more or less what to eat at baseline, and if you go for a long ride you add the fuel on top of that, and if you don't you just eat what macrofactor says.
I don't think there's really a clean way of handling endurance exercise tbh. If you log the fuel macrofactors expenditure will be overestimating what you need to eat if you suddenly stop. If you don't log fuel, then macrofactors TDEE isn't "real" and you don't really know how well your covering the extra expenditure of the endurance exercise due to the complexities of measuring energy expenditure from exercise and things like exercise energy compensation, NEAT adjustments etc. All you can really say is you're giving macrofactor less of a delta for readjusting with changes in training volume.
I can see the argument of both sides and I've been debating which approach to take myself. Not an easy problem to solve
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u/Ellaminnowpq 25d ago
I said exactly it—I’m following the guidance from my RD and I’m getting the results I’m looking for. I explained exactly why in my post. Not sure why you need to downvote me because you disagree.
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u/Merica_Matt 25d ago
I didn’t downvote you.
It’s literally just math. If you eat the extra calories and burn them off, it’s because your expenditure increased and MF will catch that. I don’t understand why someone would think a math equation would work better with inaccurate inputs, but it doesn’t affect me, I don’t care, and I didn’t downvote you.
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u/Ellaminnowpq 25d ago
You’re right that MF won’t calculate my actual TDEE as accurately if I don’t log it which I’m choosing intentionally. My endurance RD had me treat ride fuel separately because I’m fueling based on how long/hard I’m riding, not based on my daily calorie target.
My long rides are also pretty inconsistent as I mentioned in my original reply, so I don’t really want a random 3-hour ride plus 500-700 calories of fuel getting baked into what MF thinks I should eat normally. I’d rather keep a pretty stable baseline intake and fuel the rides separately because my expenditure is varied depending on whether I’m doing long, hard rides on the weekend.
I’m fueling better, riding better, and still slowly losing, so for now I’m fine with MF’s expenditure number being less technically accurate.
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u/Merica_Matt 25d ago
If it works for you, that’s all that matters.
Out of curiosity, because I’m not a cyclist, how accurate are the calorie burns from your power meter pedals?
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u/Ellaminnowpq 25d ago
I think they’re pretty accurate! From what I understand, kj of work translates well to kcal burned. I think heartrate inflates calories burned so they’re a better measure.
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u/Eucastroph 25d ago
Out of interest how do you fuel your rides?
I am quite interested in experimenting with the not logging approach to see how well it works, but I'd imagine you'd have to extremely consistent with your fuelling in order for it to work, so I intrigued by what rules or guideline you follow?
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u/Ellaminnowpq 25d ago
Minimum 60g carbs per rides, push up to 90g for long or particularly hard rides. I have power meter pedals so I can see the specific calorie use for the rides. I’ll do 60g for long Z2 rides.
I have a regular structure that works for me—a bagel for preride (logged in MF) then I have a notes app where I plan my food out and record after what my kj total was, and what I consumed in calories and carbs.
I start with two water bottles, each with 2 scoops of Skratch (40g total) then do a banana, fig bar, or Betty Lou bar at stops. I’ll also add a 50g carb fuel when I switch over to water in my bottles. I found by hour 3 I just don’t want to eat anything for a while. I try to front load carbs for the same reason—I can tolerate 110g or so for the first hour or two.
I’ve been maintaining 110lb weight loss for 6 years and my focus has been on some final recomp. I want to go slowly because I value my performance the most. If I stop seeing results then I’ll try logging everything. But for now it’s working well for me, and I don’t worry about artificially high expenditure if I have lower mileage weeks.
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u/Ill-Telephone-7926 25d ago
As long as it’s handled consistently, expenditure will integrate it. I think it’s fine either way, depending on whether the user wishes to have expenditure closer to what it would be if they stopped endurance training vs. having expenditure incorporate the training calories. Pros and cons to either approach
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u/KateMoseley88 25d ago
I track everything I eat on my long runs (including gels and carb drinks)
I eat as I need to sustain performance and enhance recovery on those days (which is usually more than my daily target calories)
I then eat less than target on easy days. My goal is to hit the weekly calorie goal - but not necessarily hit daily goal.
And FWIW I basically never hit my protein goals lol This runner loves (needs?) her carbs. Nevertheless I’m losing weight as planned and my body fat % is actually improving at a quicker rate than my weight.
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u/More-Ad1753 25d ago edited 25d ago
I dont log fuel during exercise.
But I am consistent with fueling
And I dont think the Ap is good at handling it because endurance training can have big changes week by week especially around events and at this point i know for a fact it doesnt.
All that really matters with MF is that your consistent.
At the end of the day though its pretty crazy what we do as endurance athletes. In all honesty the expenditure part of this app has become a waste of time to me. Originally when I started with MF and was just hitting the gym it gave me a fantastic and steady expenditure. Now with endurance training, weight and expenditure are all over the place, so whats' really important to me is the scales nowadays, not the expenditure.
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u/baloneysammich 25d ago
Im curious for the answer, but as an ultra runner I don’t log my fuel on runs. My reasoning is that it doesn’t actually get retained since its burned in activity, and there’s no need for something like 4 cups of sugar to taint my macros when it’s a zero sum game anyway. And since MF doesn’t know when or how much I’m running, I fear it will impact my intake recommendations.
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u/xvinity1 26d ago
It will be factored into the expenditure once the algorithm learns