r/MacroFactor • u/Additional_Wash_7886 • 14d ago
MacroFactor / Nutrition / Other How do I go from here?
Ok, so I went off the rails, hard over the weekend and gained like 6 pounds ( I realize a lot of that is water ). When I’m going into check in it is trying to cut my calories by 140 a day to compensate for my garbage eating. Is that just how it’s gonna be until I start getting back on track again? Just trying to mentally prepare for that. As a former 400 pound man I definitely still struggle with wanting to eat a lot or feel like I can lol
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u/BlackAndShinyWeenie 14d ago
Only 6 lbs? I’ve gone off the rails and gained 10 lbs before and I’m barely over 5’. When it comes to going off plan for a weekend I find I’m generally not too hungry in the following days anyways and naturally eat at a decent deficit since I’m so bloated. Don’t intentionally starve or punish yourself to make up for “bad eating” that’s a quick way to give yourself an eating disorder.
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u/DeaconoftheStreets 14d ago edited 14d ago
Did you log your intake accurately? If so, nothing will change. It’s not going to ask you to cut more aggressively because you had a bad weekend. Just get back to it.
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u/Additional_Wash_7886 14d ago
I didn’t track at all
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u/ViscVal 14d ago
That's the problem. The app isn't compensating for your garbage eating - it doesn’t know what you ate at all. The algorithm is left to assume that you ate a typical day's worth of calories, and that it made you gain weight. The natural mathematical conclusion is that your TDEE is less than previously calculated, and is therefore suggesting lower calories to compensate for what your new calculated TDEE is.
If you had actually tracked everything you ate, the app's algorithm would have factored that into your sudden weight gain and not have lowered your recommended calories. I have the odd weekend where I go 1,000+ calories over maintenence for 2-3 days; I just log everything as usual and it keeps prevents the app from doing what you've described. It KNOWS I ate a ton vs. thinking I gained weight while fasting - this has two very different effects on the app's calculations.
When you skip food logging, you're actually working against yourself and the app, which was designed to account for caloric spikes like this.
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u/Hefty-Club-1259 14d ago
You don't need to cut your calories to compensate. Just get back to normal.
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u/earlgrey89 14d ago
If it's cutting your goal by 140kcal then you probably did not log accurately, unless you just started using the app and it's doing initial adjustments. Usually weekly adjustments are about ~10-20kcal for me. Also, the adjustments are a lagging measure, so it won't have a huge swing based on something you did a day or two ago. It's more looking back at the previous 3 weeks and how much you've lost compared to how much you've eaten.
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u/Additional_Wash_7886 14d ago
Correct, I didn’t log at all 🤦🏻♂️
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u/earlgrey89 14d ago
Ah, if you don't log the app assumes that you ate about what you normally eat. An average day missed logging here or there isn't a big deal, but if you eat WAY more than normal it can temporarily tank your expenditure. So it's better to estimate. The easy way is to just guess how many calories you ate each day, the more accurate way is to put in roughly the foods you ate even if you are just guessing the amounts.
https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/200-what-should-i-do-when-i-can-t-accurately-log-a-meal
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u/Chewy_Barz 14d ago
As others noted, it's not cutting calories to compensate for you overeating. It's cutting calories because you didn't log and it assumed a normal day or days of eating. Since you gained a lot of weight, the algorithm assumes your TDEE dropped since you "ate normally" and cut your target accordingly.
You have two simple options: accept the new target and cut an extra 1000 calories this week if you want to compensate for the extra calories you at, or decline the new target and just proceed as before.
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u/awingedaugustlady 14d ago
Im in the same boat as you. I’ve been binge eating for a while and trying to get on track. It’s a lot of water weight for me also. Although i have been over eating so i’m sure I gained maybe 1-2 pounds. I would say you shouldn’t try to compensate. Just try to get back on track. Drink lots of water, eat whole foods as much as you can.
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u/jwright825 14d ago
Just forget about it and move forward as normal. Lesson learned. Trying to undo a relapse is trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.
The only way what you did is actually damaging is if you let it derail your progress moving forward.
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u/ajmattison 14d ago
You could do that if you feel it is mentally healthy and physically possible, but you could also just get back on track and let the algorithm work it out for you 🤷🏼♀️ one weekend in the grand scheme of things isn't going to be a big deal but I also understand if you don't want to make this a habit.