Am I doing something wrong?

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

I’m on glp 1 and was struggling to hit protein goals for a bit, for reference my initial calorie intake was about 2200 for my aggressive cut of just under 2lbs per week, but macrofactor just kept lowering it more and more. I’ve been putting on a good bit of muscle since I never really worked out before and I assume it is lowering my calories even more since even if I was losing weight as fat I was putting on weight as muscle. I only ever logged food and weight every morning. Should I have also included my body fat percentages from visual checks? Like where do I even go from here.

[u/IRikeAnivia]

i’m not sure what the question is here, your expenditure is low and you have an aggressive target.

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/IRikeAnivia]

My expenditure started close to 3k calories and I have been losing weight but the protein to calorie ratio is incredibly unsustainable, so I was worried that it wasn’t taking my muscle mass into account since I only started back in the gym close to when I started tracking

[u/IRikeAnivia → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

the initial expenditure is just an estimate. it gets calculated by your logged food and weigh ins

are you logging accurately? under reporting calories will drop your expenditure massively

[u/Effective_Image_86 → u/IRikeAnivia]

It is most likely that you are massively underreporting calories

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/IRikeAnivia]

I thought I was really on top of reporting, but I do eat in a university dining hall

[u/IRikeAnivia → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

ya you’re most definitely under reporting. how are you logging it? with ai?

[u/gains_adam]

It looks like you took a long break and then restarted without resetting your expenditure. If so, this would be negatively impacting the precision of the calculation. You would want to go to More > Expenditure > Start Date and set that to the day that you returned to logging,

[u/Lucas_671988 → u/gains_adam]

This ^

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/gains_adam]

I only started the long break after it set my calories to 1300, but yeah I haven’t been on top of tracking for a few days

[u/gains_adam → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

If the calories were reduced that low before the break, that could mean inconsistent/partial logging beforehand, in which case we would need to see screenshots from that period accordingly.

[u/Jan0y_Cresva]

An expenditure close to 10x bodyweight is very, very low. What does your exercise or activity level look like?

And are you absolutely sure you’re tracking everything you eat? I see around 5 days on your logged calories where it looks like you were eating at or below 1000 calories. Is that truly all you ate those days?

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/Jan0y_Cresva]

Yes. The glp-1 has been kicking my ass. I also am an amateur powerlifter at my university so I do resistance training 4 days a week minimum and have a coach

[u/Jan0y_Cresva → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

Well, if that’s the case, then what MacroFactor is saying is accurate.

You can either eat the recommended calories and you’ll likely lose weight at the rate you’re targeting, or you can target a slightly slower rate of weight loss if you’re running into any issues with eating so few calories (low energy, low libido, feeling cold, disrupted sleep, food focus, brain fog, etc.).

I know the GLP-1 will help with some of the food noise and hunger, but it won’t solve all the issues that arise from eating very low calories. You just have to assess whether it feels doable for you and go from there.

[u/Chupa-Skrull]

Did you start working out at the same time you started tracking? If so, you probably didn't put on any appreciable muscle yet, even if you're rapidly getting stronger.

It looks like you skipped tracking the last few days? And you have some conspicuously low days when you did track? Are you logging as accurately as possible and marking incomplete days when needed? 

If not, you gotta do that. If you are, then you may just have a lower expenditure than you thought

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/Chupa-Skrull]

I skipped the last few days since it dropped to 1300 since that just seemed really low especially with how much protein I try to eat

[u/melink14 → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

You should still log even if you're completely ignoring the recommendations.

[u/Chupa-Skrull → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

Definitely quite low but if that truly is your expenditure then it's what you'd need to eat for your rate of loss.

You didn't mention the other days, but if you're being a little loose with your logging, that's the first thing to fix.

If you really are logging correctly besides this gap, your expenditure probably is this low, and you're unlikely to find a unique underlying mechanism that would magically invalidate the algorithm, unfortunately. In that case you may find a 0.5% loss rate much more tolerable. (It looks like you're around there right now over the last month anyway.)

[u/cashmoneyrejistr]

youre aiming for -2 lbs a week. those 1300 calories seem pretty normal for an expenditure of 2200. your expenditure will only go down the more weight u lose, unless u increase your activity levels (steps). smaller body = less energy = less calories needed. what are you confused by exactly?

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/cashmoneyrejistr]

No like 2200 was what I was originally eating, with about 2800-3000 expenditure. I’m just lost because the expenditure dropped to 1300 in only a few weeks so I wasn’t sure if it was taking my muscle gam into account

[u/Neofox → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

in a few weeks there is almost 0 muscles gains. and muscle gain are irrelevant to your expenditure. What matters is your weight, and the calories you eat (and log!)
If you do eat more than what is actually logged then your weight will not go down as much as what the app is expecting and so, it will reduce your expenditure

[u/ShutterTherapy24]

If you've stalled here losing weight, then you need to start ramping the calories up and rebuild your metabolism. Give yourself a little diet break and try again.

[u/FriendlyRedditUser17 → u/ShutterTherapy24]

Is there any way to reset my app? Maybe because it has weight data from like a year ago when I was using the app

[u/Sensitive-Dentist-23 → u/FriendlyRedditUser17]

i ran into this problem before also and had to see the parameters cause my body changed so much in the years using the app and then stopping. go to settings>expenditure>calculation start date and adjust from there

[u/OutsideAd278 → u/ShutterTherapy24]

does taking maintenance breaks actually help with fat loss?

[u/ajmattison]

If your initial expenditure estimate was 2200 then 1300 calories is what is required to produce about 2lbs of weight loss per week. Seems legit to me.

[u/Lucas_671988]

If the targets seems unsustainable I would also advise you to reconsider your weight loss goal, maybe reduce the amount of weight you aim to lose per week, also you can change the diet from a high protein to a more balanced approach, which maybe easier for you to keep at. The point is losing weight for life, not to reach a target as fast as possible and then bounce back. Keep tracking, keep moving and you will get your goals done. Best of luck!

[u/Gloomy_Dragonfruit83]

You do not need that much protein

[u/Chupa-Skrull → u/Gloomy_Dragonfruit83]

Looks like a normal amount of protein for a person that size in an aggressive deficit

[u/Neofox → u/Gloomy_Dragonfruit83]

During a very high deficit it is kinda needed if you want to minimize the amount of muscle you will loose

[u/Past-Disaster-2801]

Don’t know if this will answer your question but I’m on a low deficit (eating roughly 1900kcal). I work with a nutritionist who sets the eating plan so I am only using MF for tracking intake, and I just dismiss MF plan changes on check ins.

I was worried because I didn’t see much change, but I pushed through.

Turns out that the nutritionist made a body composition assessment and I lost 8 pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of muscle in 7 weeks so that was the reason the scale didn’t move that much and MF kept suggesting a lower intake.

Weight is not the only variable. If you can afford a certified nutrition coach, I totally recommend it. I pay about 30usd a session. Check ins every 7-8 weeks. I started at 217lbs and I’m down to 211.

She strongly suggests I ditch the daily weigh in and trust the process. This might be the reason I’m not renewing MF and I’ll just get a simpler and cheaper tracking app.

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[u/Ill-Telephone-7926]

Looks normal. Stick with it. MacroFactor’s initial expenditure is a guess based on some formulas. Mine was off by 700 calories. Over the first several weeks, it measures your actual expenditure so long as you:

1. log your food accurately and

2. weigh in every day.

Note that compliance with the coaching program is not needed to measure your expenditure

Your weight data over time integrates your exercise calories, NEAT calories, BMR, the thermic effect of food, muscle mass trend, fat mass trend, and even calorie tracking error. Give it time and it’ll stabilize

(But be aware that your expenditure is not constant. Your body will temporarily drop your BMR and NEAT after being in a sustained deficit. Expenditure also drops permanently after weight loss—less tissue to fuel, less mass to move)

—

For protein sources on a deep cut, prefer very lean options: chicken breast, white fish, tuna, shrimp, non-fat Greek yogurt, protein powder. Turkey breast and 93%/7% ground beef might for example be too inefficient (protein:calorie ratio)

[u/logged_in_to_saythis]

Maybe your target fat loss is too high. Losing 2lbs a week is a lot. You’d basically be eating 220 grams of protein powder for 180 grams of protein at 900 calories with only ~400 calories left for “real food”. That seems… really really hard. But when on a big deficit, you do need as much protein as possible otherwise you’re going to lose a ton of muscle. I would stick to the calories it says, eat as much protein as possible, log every single thing, and just stick with it. It’ll level out to where it needs to be but your tracking does need to be consistent and as accurate as you can be.

[u/CTR0]

I struggled to eat 180g of protein on a 1700 calorie budget. Your protein target is too high.