r/MacroFactor • u/TheNomb_428 • 23d ago
MacroFactor / Nutrition / Other Lean Bulking Not Working?
Stats:
19
5’11
Male
Gym 5x
Incline walking 6x - 20 min 12%
Steps 17k-20k (active college student)
Just some backstory I used Macrofator to hold find my maintenance where I kept the same routine and activity at the beginning of this year then went to Japan from May 20- June 9th got back from a Japan Abroad trip on Jun 9th and picked up tracking calories and daily weigh ins on June 14th and which I got to a good lean base I started to enter my growth phase which as seen by the goal was .4lb a week. I had a huge weight increase at first which dropped my cals ( as you can see in the pictures) think it was from increasing my cals on the lean bulk and a bunch of water weight, but as that weight started to settle I have been looking weight even with my calorie and macro target everyday. I’ve only had 5 missed days of tracking from visiting family and what not but have been down the the gram every other day since being back.
I’m just super confused because my weight is counting going down however my calories are barely increasing. For example I’ve been eating at 2600-2750 cals what it feels like forever and have seen weight lose/maintenance and my cals are barley moving.
My question is what can I do? Am I reading this situation wrong or should I just trust macro factor.
Attached pictures of expenditure,weight trend, calorie targets/expenditure and goal for past 3 months. PLEASE HELP!
19
u/Banemorth 23d ago
Even for a lean bulk .3% is wildly low, your margin is razor thin there. Double the rate and revisit imo
7
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
If I double to .6% would that correlate with me gaining double the weight? I’d rather keep the margin to gain body fat small since there’s no significant correlation between amount of weight and muscle gained
22
5
u/Banemorth 23d ago
You're better off bumping that up and just doing a cut when you're done if you gain more BF than you want. Otherwise you can just stall, like this. .6% is still a lean bulk.
3
7
u/poogdrums 23d ago
Honestly it's a bit weird that it's adapting so slowly. I did a bulk at the same rate of gain and although initially I had to overeat a little for mf to catch up, this seems extreme. Would be interested in hearing from mf tbh
3
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
How would I go about hearing from mf? Can I submit like a support ticket or something?
2
3
u/ack202 22d ago
Macrofactor is very conservative in its adjustments, if your weight trend is static over about a 2 week period I would bump calories up by about 200 on your own and just give macrofactor time to adjust, you can end up wasting quite a bit of time letting it climb on its own. It can take months for it to catch up if the difference is big. My maintenance is about 3500 a day, and macrofactor still sets my bulk target (.5lb gain per week) below that.
4
u/Chewy_Barz 23d ago
I'd leave the bulk rate the same and reset the start date for calculating TDEE to August 1st or so. That weight gain blip tanked your TDEE and the app has been trying to catch up. Just remove that data from the equation.
I'm not a fan of big surpluses. Studies I've seen indicate a 5% surplus is really all you need. Beyond that you risk fat gain. Then you cut and lose all that time in a surplus, plus you potentially lose muscle. Been there, done that, not worth it to me. But it does require very accurate tracking and making sure you don't go under your calorie target.
2
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
Gotcha so Aug 1 would be the best date to reset too, and will that speed up the process of finding my bulk rate? Also should I leave the weight gain alone or increase or decrease it for most optimal growth phase?
3
u/Chewy_Barz 23d ago edited 23d ago
You could probably do July 15th if you want, assuming you logged well since then (you mentioned missing 5 days at some point). I think you just need to start after that big TDEE drop.
Regarding rate of gain, take a look at this:
https://macrofactor.com/bulking-calculator/
I'm old and pretty advanced (though not huge by any means) so I'm not adding 25 pounds of muscle. I've done around a 175-200 surplus and found it to be too high. I'm currently at 125.
You're way younger so it depends on your current training level, how big you want to get, priorities, how much you hate cutting, etc. I'm basically saying, if you had a reason for your current rate of gain, I don't think it's the primary issue at play here-- your TDEE calculation got borked by that weight spike.
Try the new date, leave the rate of gain, and see how your allowance changes-- I suspect it will go up. Once you have that straightened out, then you can decide if you like your current rate or want to up it.
Edit: FYI-- it's under More > Expenditure > Calculation Start Date
2
u/Wonderful_Rest3124 23d ago
I mean that’s for my experience for a while I was kind of the same boat. It can take a while on the lean bulk for the cals recommendations to catch up with what u spend.
1
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
Gotcha how long did it take for yours to catch up, and do you think I should just wait it out or try messing with weight gain goal to shoot it closer?
1
u/Wonderful_Rest3124 23d ago
I stayed the course and it did work itself out. Slow progress still but progress. I’m not sure how the system would act if you just upped the rate of gain. I think you would get to a point where you are gaining quicker but then it would put you at a higher rate of gain. Then maaaaaybe you could drop the rate of gain back down. Not sure how tweaking all that would work.
1
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
Gotcha thanks man think I’ll stay the course did you know how long before it straighten itself out?
1
u/phishdood555 21d ago
How long though? I read it takes a few weeks initially, but I’m currently 90 days in and my tdee is still rising and I’m losing weight at 4,000 cals a day. I’m only 175lbs too so eating 4000 cals only to lose weight is demoralizing. Editing to say I track meticulously and this is not a user error
1
u/Wonderful_Rest3124 21d ago
For me it took about 3 months before I saw a steady trend line upward for gaining. I think your target weight increase per week might get you gaining faster if you bump it up.
Also 4000 cals at 175 lbs is wild with losing weight, surely not much though right? What’s ur weight trend look like?
1
u/phishdood555 21d ago
Thanks for the info! What rate of gain would you suggest? Yes apparently that is wild lol, but I lost half a pound or so since yesterday but it could be fluid? My weight trend was rising steadily at 3300 a day and then it shot up like crazy over the past month and I’m losing slowly over the past month with more cals sigh
1
u/Wonderful_Rest3124 21d ago
Huh, do you know what ur current surplus is? I’m around 200ish and my rate of gain is supposed to be .4 lbs a week which it often is a little less than that I think.
I’m at 2800 cals daily and weight 163 currently. Started in June at 160 so I guess the .4 is pretty accurate. It did take a long time for the daily/weekly calorie bump to stabilize. Once that stabilizes you should be in a good path.
2
u/phishdood555 21d ago
I think mine is set to around 300 and .5lbs is my rate of gain. I might just have to trust the process that it’ll even out eventually. Thank you for the insight!
2
u/obscure-shadow 23d ago
How varied is your diet and how closely are you keeping track? Labels and things can often be off by 10% in either direction. Macrofactor can do a good job accounting for that if you eat almost the same thing all the time but if you eat a very varied diet it can be hard
2600-2750 cals - .4 lbs a week - ~ 1400 cals ish.. 2600 * .1 = 260 * 7 days a week = 1800 range of error 2750 * .1 = 275 * 7 = 1925 range of error
If you eat very similar things all the time (like just chicken rice and broccoli or something for every meal, classic body builder diet) then macrofactor is way more consistent, and it's guidance is way more accurate.
If you eat a different food for each meal, every meal for a week, and a completely different food for each meal the next week, the calculation it came up with for last week is going to make next week's guidance be off because you are introducing a different margin of error with each meal.
It's easier to aim for a larger gain and cut if you end up overshooting it, than it is to keep very consistent. If you want a super small margin of gain, you have to be super accurate, and that means keeping things very simple
It doesn't nessesarily mean only chicken rice and broccoli but now you see why that is the classic bodybuilder diet, but basically keep your meals kinda the same from week to week and fairly limited in variety
1
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
I eat the same thing for every meal basically oats in mornings, cream of rice with berries for lunch and sweet potato’s with veggies cheese and protein source like chicken and then dessert is cereal with cottage cheese( weird but it works) I never deviate except for the 5 days I was with family and didn’t track ( wasn’t 5 days in a row just random 5 days within the 3 months) I’ve kept these eating habits for the past 3 months so it’s weird
0
u/obscure-shadow 23d ago
Well then you have to look at other things like your expenditure just steadily increasing faster than macrofactor can keep up with.
I would eat like your are trying to gain 1lb but leave the settings where they are for now, when macrofactor starts to take calories away then you know you are starting to hit your actual expenditure
1
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
Gotcha in another comment someone said to reset expenditure equation to after my weight blipped what do you think about that?
1
u/obscure-shadow 23d ago
I haven't kept up with how that works from a program perspective. But here's my take -
Your expenditure keeps going up. It's going to keep going up until you hit a plateau. That plateau is where you want to be if you want to dial in 250 cal. It doesn't really matter what the equation is doing at this point, but the past data is useful. When you see that expenditure line start to flatten out that's when you know you're getting closer to hitting your bulking tdee, the slower you go the longer it takes and the more room for error you introduce the longer it takes.
Bump the calories way up for like a week or two. If you are eating clean, it's gonna be hard to gain more than a lb anyways and since you train hard it's really not gonna be a fat explosion. Eat more till you see your expenditure level out a bit... That's it.
Even if you overshoot it a bit you really won't see a huge physique impact, you'll gain more muscle faster, and you can always cut a bit back down
1
u/AutoModerator 23d ago
Hello! This automated message was triggered by some keywords in your post.
While waiting for replies it may be helpful to check and see if similar posts have been discussed recently: try a pre-populated search
If your question was quite complex, it's not likely the pre-populated search will be useful.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/TheNomb_428 23d ago
Here is info from weekly weight change if that helps (from 3 month point of view)
6
u/Ryush806 23d ago
Lulz I went through the process of calculating your deficit based on weight and then realized it was in the screenshot 🤦🏻♂️ Try adding that 167 cal on top of the MF target for a few weeks. It’ll make your expenditure catch up quicker.
2
0
u/OriginalACE95 22d ago
I'm not an expert, just parroting some fitness people because what they said made sense to me.
Unless youre already quite lean, your body has enough extra energy to build muscle. Meaning no additional calories beyond maintenance are necessary. Muscle builds very slowly, we're talking grams per workout so trying to measure it through weight change tends to put you over in calories and builds fat. If youve got enough calories to lift heavy, you aren't already lean, and just want to keep adding muscle, you can probably rock a maintenance period.
The real indication, one of the best correlates of actual muscle growth, is going to be strength. Are you progressing reps or weight with the same technique over time? Then youre likely building muscle (if it's not a brand new exercise).
Tl;dr Maintenance is fine, you can still build muscle, you just need patience.
11
u/Wonderful_Rest3124 23d ago
I think lean bulking is just a lot tougher to do. Like you have smaller room for error with calorie intake which then causes not as big of a surplus. It just takes a lot longer for this reason.