After logging your weight and nutrition for a week, MacroFactor invites you to complete a weekly check-in, during which the app will recommend energy intake and macronutrient adjustments to help you more successfully pursue your goal. This article will discuss how MacroFactor generates those recommendations. Each Coaching Module addresses a specific problem domain. It may anticipate a question, provide targeted guidance, or make key changes to your data or program with your approval.
Changes to your energy intake recommendations are determined by three factors: expenditure changes, goal changes, and a bit of additional smoothing logic.
MacroFactor continuously estimates your average daily energy expenditure based on your energy intake and trended rate of weight change. As you continue logging your data, MacroFactor’s algorithms continue to adjust and refine this estimate. As you gain or lose weight, as you’re in an energy deficit or surplus for a longer period of time, or as your lifestyle and exercise habits change, your daily energy expenditure will change as well – MacroFactor identifies and accounts for those changes.
If you want to gain weight, you need to be in an energy surplus – you need to consume more energy than you expend. Conversely, if you want to lose weight, you need to be in an energy deficit – you need to expend more energy than you consume.
Thus, if your expenditure is increasing, that means that you need to eat more to gain weight at your desired rate, or that you can eat more while still losing weight at your desired rate. So, MacroFactor will recommend an increase in energy intake at your next check-in. Conversely, if your expenditure is decreasing, that means you can eat less while still gaining weight at your desired rate, or that you need to eat less in order to lose weight at your desired rate. So, MacroFactor will recommend a decrease in energy intake at your next check-in.
For more on how MacroFactor calculates your expenditure, be sure to read the main Expenditure article in the Knowledge Base.
MacroFactor’s recommendations and adjustments honor and reflect the goal you set. With any weight gain or weight loss goal, you specify the rate at which you’d like to gain or lose weight. A faster target rate of weight gain requires a larger energy surplus (i.e., your energy consumption needs to exceed your energy expenditure to a larger extent), and a faster target rate of weight loss requires a larger energy deficit (i.e., your energy expenditure needs to exceed your energy consumption to a larger extent).
So, when you create a new weight gain or weight loss goal, the size of your recommended energy surplus or deficit scales with your desired rate of weight gain or weight loss.
If you adjust your target rate of weight gain or weight loss at some point during the week, that change will be reflected in your next check-in. To illustrate, if your previous goal was to lose 1% of your body weight per week, and you changed your goal to a target of losing 0.5% of your body weight per week, your recommended energy intake would very likely increase at your next check-in, because a slower intended rate of weight loss requires a smaller energy deficit (i.e., it allows for a higher energy intake).
Of note, if you create a new program after you change your target rate of weight gain or weight loss, the new program will already reflect the change in goal. So, further adjustments to account for the change in your target rate of weight gain or weight loss won’t be required at your next check-in. Your next check-in will just reflect the expenditure changes that occurred after you created your new program.
Finally, note that your goal rate of weight gain or weight loss is set in terms of percentage of body weight per week. So, if you have a goal of losing 0.5% of your body weight per week, the absolute rate of weight loss will decrease over time as you lose weight. If you start at 200 pounds, losing 0.5% of your body weight per week would involve losing 1 pound per week. Once you’re 180 pounds, losing 0.5% of your body weight per week would involve losing 0.9 pounds per week. So, although this is imperceptible week-to-week, your recommended energy deficit will gradually decrease as you lose weight, and gradually increase as you gain weight.
By design, MacroFactor’s recommended weekly adjustments don’t perfectly scale 1:1 with weekly expenditure changes. MacroFactor’s coaching algorithm also has an additional intelligent smoothing layer. This additional smoothing logic helps ensure continuity of your program, and helps the coaching program avoid over-corrections if your expenditure is fluctuating.
For instance, let’s assume that you were consistently losing a pound per week while eating 2000 Calories per day. That would imply that your expenditure is approximately 2500 Calories per day. However, even without any lifestyle changes, your weight might stall for three weeks due to fluid retention, constipation, or just pure randomness. So, if you’re no longer losing weight while consuming 2000 Calories per day, that would imply that your energy expenditure had also dropped to 2000 Calories per day, and you’d need to eat 1500 Calories per day to keep losing a pound per week.
However, an actual 500 Calorie change in energy expenditure is unlikely over such a short period of time. So, MacroFactor’s coaching updates effectively “hedge their bets.” Instead of dropping your energy intake recommendations by 500 Calories over those three weeks, your recommendations might only change by 200-300 Calories. So, if your energy expenditure is actually decreasing, your program updates will still be directionally correct (i.e., your recommended energy intake will still decrease), but if your energy expenditure isn’t actually decreasing (or isn’t decreasing at quite the rate implied by your weight and nutrition data), you won’t be put on a caloric roller coaster where your recommendations drop by 500 calories in three weeks, only to increase by 500 calories over the next three weeks.
In short, there are some intelligent guardrails in place within MacroFactor’s coaching logic to ensure that your week-to-week adjustments help move you in the right direction, without over-reacting to short-term weight fluctuations.
Macronutrients contain energy (about 4 Calories per gram for protein and carbohydrate, and about 9 Calories per gram for fat), so when energy intake recommendations change, macronutrient intake recommendations change as well. A couple other factors may also influence macronutrient intake targets on a week-to-week basis.
Since protein is the most important macronutrient for outcomes related to body composition (gaining muscle while gaining weight, or preserving muscle while losing weight), it’s the first macronutrient considered in program adjustments.
Protein recommendations scale with your lean mass, which is calculated from your current body weight, and your profile-level body composition category. Given your level of lean mass, your protein intake recommendations are determined by the protein category you selected when creating your program (low, medium, high, or very high), and the types of exercise you perform (protein recommendations are lowest for people who don’t exercise, higher for people who engage in aerobic exercise, and higher yet for people who do resistance training).
So, week-to-week, protein adjustments primarily scale with weight gain or weight loss. As you lose weight, your protein recommendations will decrease by a gram or two per day from time to time, and as you gain weight, your protein recommendations will increase by a gram or two per day from time to time. However, if you change your profile-level body composition category, or you adjust the type of exercise you perform, your protein recommendations will increase or decrease at your next check-in to reflect those changes.
Since protein intake doesn’t change much from week-to-week, recommended increases in energy intake primarily take the form of recommended increases in fat and carbohydrate intake. Conversely, recommended decreases in energy intake primarily take the form of recommended decreases in fat and carbohydrate intake.
For the most part, the size of the change for each micronutrient is determined by the program type you selected when creating your program – High-Carb and Low-Fat, Balanced, Low-Carb and High-Fat, or Keto. With keto as an exception, the three other program styles maintain a consistent ratio of energy intake coming from fat vs. carbohydrate.
So, on a High-Carb and Low-Fat plan, a greater proportion of your total energy intake recommendations come from carbohydrate, so carbohydrate intake recommendations will increase more than fat intake recommendations when your recommended energy intake increases, and carbohydrate intake recommendations will decrease more than fat intake recommendations when your recommended energy intake decreases. The opposite would be true with a Low-Carb and High Fat plan (i.e. fat intake recommendations would increase more when energy intake recommendations increase, and decrease more when energy intake recommendations decrease). With a balanced plan, recommended fat and carbohydrate intake will increase or decrease to a similar extent when energy intake recommendations change.
The one exception to this rule occurs when total energy intake recommendations get quite low. So, this is typically reserved for people who are trying to lose weight with a very low energy expenditure, or for people who have a particularly aggressive target rate of weight loss. Your body requires a certain level of fat intake to maintain normal physiological function, including producing sex hormones and absorbing fat-soluble vitamins. So, MacroFactor’s coached programs won’t drop your fat intake recommendations below this minimum required level of fat intake. For instance, on a “Balanced” macro program, fat and carbohydrate intake recommendations would decrease in tandem until the fat recommendation reached this minimum level – beyond that point, fat intake recommendations wouldn’t decrease further, so any further decreases in energy intake would take the form of decreases in carbohydrate intake recommendations.
MacroFactor’s recommendations are determined by your desired weekly rate of weight loss, with each week treated as a self-contained unit. So, if you have a goal of losing a pound per week, but you’ve only lost 2 pounds over the last 5 weeks, MacroFactor won’t increase your target rate of weight loss to try to cajole you into “catching up,” or into trying to “make up for” being 3 pounds “behind schedule.” Rather, it simply tries to generate recommendations that will help you lose one pound this week. You may enjoy this article for more on this topic.
So, more often than not, if you’re not losing weight at your desired rate, and MacroFactor isn’t decreasing your energy intake recommendations, isn’t decreasing your energy intake recommendations as quickly as you think it should, or if it’s even increasing your energy intake recommendations, there are three potential explanations:
1) Your expenditure is “holding”
Check your expenditure page, and see whether your expenditure is currently “holding,” or if it’s been “holding” for most of the previous week.
If you’re a brand new user, this is totally expected for your first check-in. You just haven’t yet logged enough days for MacroFactor to begin confidently making adjustments. So, your recommendations are still fully informed by your initial estimated expenditure. Your recommendations during your first check-in might change by a couple of Calories (just reflecting small changes in weight during the first week), but you should expect to get a larger adjustment during your second check-in, after your expenditure has been “updating” for a full week.
Otherwise, if your expenditure is (or has been) “holding,” that just means you need to log your nutrition and/or weight more consistently in the coming weeks – you need to log your nutrition at least four days in each seven-day period (though seven days is ideal), and you need to log your weight at least once per seven-day period (though at least three days is ideal).
2) Your energy intake exceeds your energy intake recommendations
MacroFactor’s recommendations tell you how much you’d need to consume to lose weight at your desired rate during the forthcoming week. But, if you exceed those recommendations, you’re likely to lose weight slower than desired. However, your data could still indicate that your prior recommendations were appropriate, and that energy intake recommendations don’t need to decrease for the forthcoming week.
To illustrate, you might have a goal of losing one pound per week (which would require an energy deficit of about 500 Calories per day), and an expenditure of 2500 Calories per day. So, your energy intake recommendation would be 2000 Calories per day. However, if you wound up consuming an average of 2500 Calories per day while maintaining your weight, that would still suggest that the original recommendation was appropriate – you’re probably burning about 2500 Calories per day, so you should aim to consume about 2000 Calories per day to lose a pound per week. In this scenario, there wouldn’t be a reason for MacroFactor’s energy intake recommendations to significantly decrease – you’re losing weight slower than desired because your energy intake exceeds your recommendations, not because the recommendations were too high.
In short, your energy intake recommendations will decrease if your weight and nutrition data suggest that your expenditure is decreasing, but they won’t decrease simply because your rate of weight loss is slower than intended.
3) Short-term data significantly deviates from longer-term trends
As discussed above (under “intelligent smoothing”), MacroFactor’s coaching algorithms are designed to not overreact to short-term deviations from longer-term trends. If your previous energy intake targets were helping you lose weight at your desired rate, and then your weight loss stalls for a week, there are two possible explanations: either your daily energy expenditure precipitously decreased in a very short period of time, or short-term water weight fluctuations are masking the actual weight loss that’s still taking place.
Both potential explanations are theoretically plausible, but the second explanation is far more likely. So, if your rate of weight loss slows down significantly for a week or two, MacroFactor won’t immediately overreact to this short-term stall and drastically slash your energy intake recommendations. Rather, it will gradually reduce your energy intake recommendations over a period of weeks. So, if you break through this temporary plateau and start losing weight at your desired rate again, you won’t be stuck with recommendations that are way too low for a week or two, followed by a compensatory drastic increase in energy intake recommendations.
But, if the stall persists for another week or two, your recommended energy intake will continue decreasing. After 3-4 weeks of consistent data indicating that your rate of weight loss has significantly decreased, MacroFactor will be much more confident that your energy expenditure has also significantly decreased, and that your energy intake recommendations need to be significantly lower for you to achieve your desired rate of weight loss.
MacroFactor’s recommendations are determined by your desired weekly rate of weight gain, with each week treated as a self-contained unit. So, if you have a goal of gaining half a pound per week, but you’ve only gained one pound over the past six weeks, MacroFactor won’t increase your target rate of weight loss to try to cajole you into “catching up,” or into trying to “make up for” being 2 pounds “behind schedule.” Rather, it simply tries to generate recommendations that will help you gain one pound this week. You may enjoy this article for more on this topic.
So, more often than not, if you’re not gaining weight at your desired rate, and MacroFactor isn’t increasing your energy intake recommendations, isn’t increasing your energy intake recommendations as quickly as you think it should, or if it’s even decreasing your energy intake recommendations, there are three potential explanations:
1) Your expenditure is “holding”
Check your expenditure page, and see whether your expenditure is currently “holding,” or if it’s been “holding” for most of the previous week.
If you’re a brand new user, this is totally expected for your first check-in. You just haven’t yet logged enough days for MacroFactor to begin confidently making adjustments. So, your recommendations are still fully informed by your initial estimated expenditure. Your recommendations during your first check-in might change by a couple of Calories (just reflecting small changes in weight during the first week), but you should expect to get a larger adjustment during your second check-in, after your expenditure has been “updating” for a full week.
Otherwise, if your expenditure is (or has been) “holding,” that just means you need to log your nutrition and/or weight more consistently in the coming weeks; you need to log your nutrition at least four days in each seven-day period (though seven days is ideal), and you need to log your weight at least once per seven-day period (though at least three days is ideal).
2) Your energy intake is below your energy intake recommendations
MacroFactor’s recommendations tell you how much you’d need to consume to gain weight at your desired rate during the forthcoming week. But, if your energy intake falls below those recommendations, you’re likely to gain weight slower than desired. However, your data could still indicate that your prior recommendations were appropriate, and that energy intake recommendations don’t need to decrease for the forthcoming week.
To illustrate, you might have a goal of gaining half a pound per week (which would require an energy surplus of about 180 Calories per day), and an expenditure of 2500 Calories per day. So, your energy intake recommendation would be 2680 Calories per day. However, if you wound up consuming an average of 2500 Calories per day while maintaining your weight, that would still suggest that the original recommendation was appropriate – you’re probably burning about 2500 Calories per day, so you should aim to consume about 2680 Calories per day to gain half a pound per week. In this scenario, there wouldn’t be a reason for MacroFactor’s energy intake recommendations to significantly increase – you’re gaining weight slower than desired because your energy intake falls below your recommendations, not because the recommendations were too low.
In short, your energy intake recommendations will increase if your weight and nutrition data suggest that your expenditure is increasing, but they won’t increase simply because your rate of weight gain is slower than intended.
3) Short-term data significantly deviates from longer-term trends
As discussed above (under “smoothing”), MacroFactor’s coaching algorithms are designed to not overreact to short-term deviations from longer-term trends. If your previous energy intake targets were helping you gain weight at your desired rate, and then your weight gain stalls for a week, there are two possible explanations: either your daily energy expenditure massively increased in a very short period of time, or short-term water weight fluctuations are masking the actual weight gain that’s still taking place.
Both potential explanations are theoretically plausible, but the second explanation is far more likely. So, if your rate of weight gain slows down significantly for a week or two, MacroFactor won’t immediately overreact to this short-term stall and drastically increase your energy intake recommendations. Rather, it will gradually increase your energy intake recommendations over a period of weeks. So, if you break through this temporary plateau and start gaining weight at your desired rate again, you won’t be stuck with recommendations that are way too high for a week or two, followed by a compensatory drastic decrease in energy intake recommendations.
But, if the stall persists for another week or two, your recommended energy intake will continue increasing. After 3-4 weeks of consistent data indicating that your rate of weight gain has significantly decreased, MacroFactor will be much more confident that your energy expenditure has significantly increased, and that your energy intake recommendations need to be significantly higher for you to achieve your desired rate of weight gain.
More often than not, if you’re losing weight at (or above) your desired rate of weight loss, and MacroFactor is still decreasing (or not increasing) your energy intake recommendations, there are two potential explanations:
1) Your energy intake is below your energy intake recommendations
MacroFactor’s recommendations tell you how much you’d need to consume to lose weight at your desired rate during the forthcoming week. If your energy intake is below those recommendations, you’re likely to lose weight at a rate that matches or exceeds your target rate of weight loss. However, your data could still indicate that your prior recommendations were a bit too high, and that energy intake recommendations should decrease for the forthcoming week.
To illustrate, you might have a goal of losing one pound per week (which would require an energy deficit of about 500 Calories per day), and an expenditure of 2500 Calories per day. So, your energy intake recommendation would be 2000 Calories per day. However, if you wound up consuming an average of 1800 Calories per day while losing a pound per week, that would suggest that the original recommendation was too high – you’re achieving your desired rate of weight loss while consuming less than MacroFactor previously recommended. That implies that your energy expenditure was lower than previously estimated (it’s probably closer to 2300 Calories per day), and that your energy intake recommendations need to be closer to 1800 Calories per day to help you keep losing one pound per week. In this scenario, your data suggests that MacroFactor’s previous recommendations were a bit too high, and likely need to decrease a bit – you’re losing weight at your desired rate, but you’re doing so at a lower energy intake than previously predicted.
In short, your energy intake recommendations will decrease if your weight and nutrition data suggest that your expenditure is decreasing, and they won’t stay the same or increase simply because your rate of weight loss meets or exceeds your target rate of weight loss.
2) Short-term data significantly deviates from longer-term trends
As discussed above (under “smoothing”), MacroFactor’s coaching algorithms are designed to not overreact to short-term deviations from longer-term trends. If your previous energy intake targets were helping you lose weight at certain rate, and then your rate of weight loss significantly increases for a week, there are two possible explanations: either your daily energy expenditure drastically increased in a very short period of time, or short-term water weight fluctuations are producing the temporary illusion of a rate of weight loss that exceeds your actual rate of tissue loss.
Both potential explanations are theoretically plausible, but the second explanation is far more likely. So, if your rate of weight loss increases significantly for a week or two, MacroFactor won’t immediately overreact to this short-term change and drastically increase your energy intake recommendations. Rather, it will gradually increase your energy intake recommendations over a period of weeks, if this new rate of weight loss holds. So, if your rate of weight loss slows down again, you won’t be stuck with recommendations that are way too high for a week or two, followed by a compensatory drastic decrease in energy intake recommendations.
But, if this increased rate of weight loss persists for another week or two, your recommended energy intake will continue increasing. After 3-4 weeks of consistent data indicating that your rate of weight loss has significantly increased, MacroFactor will be much more confident that your energy expenditure has also significantly increased, and that your energy intake recommendations can be significantly higher for you to continue achieving your desired rate of weight loss.
More often than not, if you’re gaining weight at (or above) your desired rate of weight gain, and MacroFactor is still increasing (or not decreasing) your energy intake recommendations, there are two potential explanations:
1) Your energy intake exceeds your energy intake recommendations
MacroFactor’s recommendations tell you how much you’d need to consume to gain weight at your desired rate during the forthcoming week. If your energy intake is above those recommendations, you’re likely to gain weight at a rate that matches or exceeds your target rate of weight gain. However, your data could still indicate that your prior recommendations were a bit too low, and that energy intake recommendations should increase for the forthcoming week.
To illustrate, you might have a goal of gaining half a pound per week (which would require an energy surplus of about 180 Calories per day), and an expenditure of 2500 Calories per day. So, your energy intake recommendation would be 2680 Calories per day. However, if you wound up consuming an average of 2800 Calories per day while gaining half a pound per week, that would suggest that the original recommendation was too low – you’re achieving your desired rate of weight gain while consuming more than MacroFactor previously recommended. That implies that your energy expenditure was higher than previously estimated (it’s probably closer to 2620 Calories per day), and that your energy intake recommendations need to be closer to 2800 Calories per day to help you keep gaining half a pound per week. In this scenario, your data suggests that MacroFactor’s previous recommendations were a bit too low, and likely need to increase a bit – you’re gaining weight at your desired rate, but you’re doing so at a higher energy intake than previously predicted.
In short, your energy intake recommendations will increase if your weight and nutrition data suggest that your expenditure is increasing, and they won’t stay the same or decrease simply because your rate of weight gain meets or exceeds your target rate of weight gain.
2) Short-term data significantly deviates from longer-term trends
As discussed above (under “smoothing”), MacroFactor’s coaching algorithms are designed to not overreact to short-term deviations from longer-term trends. If your previous energy intake targets were helping you gain weight at certain rate, and then your rate of weight gain significantly increases for a week, there are two possible explanations: either your daily energy expenditure drastically decreased in a very short period of time, or short-term water weight fluctuations are producing the temporary illusion of a rate of weight gain that exceeds your actual rate of tissue gain.
Both potential explanations are theoretically plausible, but the second explanation is far more likely. So, if your rate of weight gain increases significantly for a week or two, MacroFactor won’t immediately overreact to this short-term change and drastically decrease your energy intake recommendations. Rather, it will gradually decrease your energy intake recommendations over a period of weeks, if this new rate of weight gain holds. So, if your rate of weight gain slows down again, you won’t be stuck with recommendations that are way too low for a week or two, followed by a compensatory drastic increase in energy intake recommendations.
But, if this increased rate of weight gain persists for another week or two, your recommended energy intake will continue decreasing. After 3-4 weeks of consistent data indicating that your rate of weight gain has significantly increased, MacroFactor will be much more confident that your energy expenditure has also significantly decreased, and that your energy intake recommendations can be significantly lower for you to continue achieving your desired rate of weight gain.
People in our Facebook group and subreddit are occasionally amused (or confused) when their energy intake recommendations only increase or decrease by <10 Calories per week. But, there are two common explanations for these very small adjustments.
1) You’re a brand new user
As mentioned above, this is totally expected for your first check-in if you’re a brand new user. You just haven’t yet logged enough days for MacroFactor to begin confidently making adjustments. So, your recommendations are still fully informed by your initial estimated expenditure. Your recommendations during your first check-in might change by a couple of Calories (just reflecting small changes in weight during the first week), but you should expect to get a larger adjustment during your second check-in, after your expenditure has been “updating” for a full week.
2) Your Expenditure hasn’t changed much
If your calculated expenditure hasn’t changed much, your energy intake recommendations are unlikely to change much. That should be pretty intuitive. However, when there’s confusion about small adjustments, the primary question tends to be why MacroFactor would even bother with such small adjustments in the first place? Why not just wait until the energy intake recommendations would change by 25 or 50 or 100 Calories?
The simplest answer is that any such threshold would be inherently arbitrary. A 1 Calorie change is obviously inconsequential, and a 200 Calorie change is obviously consequential, but how would you draw a clear line between a consequential and an inconsequential change? Is it at 5 Calories? 10 Calories? 25 Calories? 50 Calories? And if so, why? Why would a 25 Calorie change be consequential, but a 24 Calorie change wouldn’t be?
Ultimately, we think it’s simplest to just recommend adjustments of the magnitude your data calls for. Sometimes those adjustments will be larger, but sometimes they’ll be quite small. And, if you don’t like the idea of changing your daily energy intake targets by 3 Calories, you can always dismiss a check-in, and check in at a later date (when you’d need a larger adjustment).
As mentioned above, protein recommendations scale with lean body mass, which is a product of your weight and your profile-level body composition category. So, as you lose weight while in the same body composition category, your protein recommendations will decrease slightly. If you’ve lost quite a bit of weight during your current weight loss phase, or if you think you’ve experienced significant body recomposition, it may not be a bad idea to revisit your profile-level body composition category, and make changes if needed. When you move into a category with a lower range of body fat percentages, your protein intake recommendation will increase a bit at your next check-in.
Now that you understand how MacroFactor makes weight loss or weight gain adjustments, you might enjoy one of these articles next:
Interpreting the Energy Balance Widget
How Should I Interpret Changes to my Energy Expenditure?
