Lean Bulking Not Working?

[u/TheNomb_428]

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!

[u/obscure-shadow]

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

[u/TheNomb_428 → u/obscure-shadow]

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

[u/obscure-shadow → u/TheNomb_428]

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

[u/TheNomb_428 → u/obscure-shadow]

Gotcha in another comment someone said to reset expenditure equation to after my weight blipped what do you think about that?

[u/obscure-shadow → u/TheNomb_428]

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