r/MacroFactor

Some background: 21M, 5’9”, 162lb, and i’d guesstimate i’m anywhere from 25-28% BF

I weightlift 4x a week and do 10% incline walking @ 3mph daily.

MF says it believes my expenditure is 1750 and so has me eating 1250 calories daily w/ a 127g protein goal. This is after several weeks of check-ins, and seems incredibly low to me but oh well 🫩

Before anyone asks, yes, I am incredibly meticulous about tracking calories, so much so to the point that I track things like the 10 calories in energy drinks, I track the calories in my pills & supplements, when I eat out it’s only at places that have their caloric info published, and JUST to be safe i multiply their listed value by 1.2x for tracking to account for serving size differences.

I started my weight loss at around 165lbs on March 5th, given that i’m at 162lbs now on May 12th something just isn’t adding up. Water weight isn’t going to persist for 2 months.

I just feel so defeated. Slogging through the day barely eating anything, hungry 24/7, just for the scale nor my body to reflect any results. At a 500 calorie deficit I should be at around 157lbs after 8 weeks no?

And then there’s the days I just feel so defeated I overeat, they’re rare but they happen i.e. yesterday when I ate 2400 cals.

I even got bloodwork done, everything was normal. Does anyone have any advice? I know it’s literally calories in vs. calories out, i’m not disagreeing, i just feel so stuck.

Edit: Weigh-in’s happen @ the same time, same place, nearly everyday & immediately after waking up

Hi all, looking for a bit of advice because I feel like I’ve hit a plateau and I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing wrong or what I should adjust.

For context, I joined the gym last October and before that I honestly wasn’t physically active at all. I’m 23, male, 6’6 and currently around 95kg. My overall goal right now is body recomposition, trying to lose the “skinny fat” look while building muscle and strength at the same time.

Since starting the gym, I’ve been consistently tracking my calories, recovery, and overall nutrition. I’m currently eating around maintenance calories because I didn’t want to commit to a full bulk while still carrying more body fat than I’d like. Primarly around the abdomin.

When I first started training, I followed the plan my gym customised for me. Over time though, I realised it felt very excessive in terms of exercise volume, and being 6’6, a lot of the machines just don’t feel built for my proportions. I often struggle to get comfortable positioning-wise, and some movements feel awkward rather than effective.

Because of that, I switched over to Jeff Nippard. I first completed his Ultimate Body Transformation System, which I enjoyed, and I’m currently running his Pure Bodybuilding. I definitely prefer this style of training because it relies more on cables and free weights rather than machines, which seem to suit my build much better.

The issue I’m having is that a lot of my lifts seem to have completely stagnated. For example, I’ve been stuck at 80kg on the seated leg curl for quite a while now. I can complete the sets, but it still feels difficult enough that progressing further seems unrealistic right now. At the same time, if I lower the weight to 75kg, it suddenly feels far too easy. This kind of “in-between” plateau seems to be happening across multiple exercises, not just leg curls.

I also feel like I’m not seeing much noticeable muscle growth physically. I know being taller means it naturally takes longer for muscle to visibly fill out your frame compared to someone shorter, but I still expected to see a bit more progress by now considering I’ve been training consistently for months.

For additional context:

* I train around 4–5 times per week * I recently bought a treadmill and now aim for 10k steps daily * I also run around 3–4 times per week * Sleep is generally decent, usually around 7–8 hours * I try to progressively overload where possible and train close to failure on most working sets

Part of me is wondering whether I’m maybe doing too much overall cardio/activity while trying to recomp, or whether eating at maintenance is slowing down strength and muscle gains more than I expected. I’m also unsure whether this is just a normal stage for beginners once the “newbie gains” phase slows down.

Would really appreciate any advice from people who’ve experienced something similar, especially taller lifters or anyone who’s gone through a recomp phase successfully. [Here is my current physique and physique before starting in the gym](https://imgur.com/a/z5CJHVv)

I know that if you are consistent either way then it doesnt really matter, but i also know that raw is typically better. Thanks!

Hey guys.
I've been using MF for a month or so.
I'm currently trying to lose weight and go from 95kg to 85kg.
I'm 185cm, 95kg, low 20s BF%.
I've been trying to lose weight for about a month or so using MF, with a 0.5% BF loss per week (started at 0.75% but was too much)
This week i decided to back to "maintenance" calories 'cause it was becoming too much of a mental burden to be honest ( i have problems with my body image and not seeing the scale go down takes a toll on me )

After 2/3 week MF was giving me like 1500kcals per day on a coached program with moderate protein category and it was too little for me to continue working out and living in a good way, but even after 3 weeks at 1700kcals i had lost almost zero weight, maybe a kg or so but i think it was all water.

Please help.

I will add a screenshot for the new cut program that I want to start from today (95kg to 85kg, coached, moderate protein, -0.5kg and -0.5% goal rate)

https://preview.redd.it/880w8lcv8q0h1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e812d43b4a80a478e6219c37bc768c16c490648

https://preview.redd.it/no5cof5w7q0h1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=59eec2419b1918f9c0f8bfaeaafea2e7a2101211

https://preview.redd.it/gnzdm65w7q0h1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=2db360724a58dc4356746ec441325fb4b8250fc3

https://preview.redd.it/qdi5575w7q0h1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=706269c35ee23f956496f38f932e74e519e95787

https://preview.redd.it/wz2i375w7q0h1.png?width=1179&format=png&auto=webp&s=bd2b96dbf5dc049da82f8c843cc88826c3662256

I am currently dieting down, i started my cut January 15 @ 218lbs and hit a low of 180lbs May 1st. Since then my weight has been sitting around 184-185 every morning and i’ve been extremely bloated losing a lot of definition and looking puffy. What could randomly cause this? I started taking Electrolytes & L-Glutamine in the morning hoping for it to help - i’ve also upped my steps an additional 10k on top of my 1000 calorie deficit & reworked my training to be less fatiguing.
Any help or insight is greatly appreciated!

Is there anyway to turn off partial reps for body parts? For example barbell rows counts as partial sets for biceps. Is there a way to only count primary reps for a body part? Thanks for any input

Over the past 9 months, I cut down from 86.1kg to 79.6kg (mostly small, 200-300kcal/day deficit cuts + maintenance breaks in between). 

https://preview.redd.it/7ng6biglgjzg1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b195b74f1421f739251f9d8e01434f30f6bab30

Due to the rather small deficit, I often couldn’t really see a clear change on a week-to-week basis, and I didn’t really have a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t. I have a specific social event I’m going to in the summer, and I want to be super lean by then.

Over the past few days, I decided to see if I could analyze my MacroFactor data, in combination with my weekly progress photos, with AI, to help me get to my goal physique. I heard someone rave about this AI tool called “Claude Code” on a podcast, and decided to give it a shot.

NOTE: I don’t have any real coding experience, and I was afraid that I would need to do a lot of coding, but I actually didn’t need to, which was kind of relieving. I also had pretty mediocre results with using AI tools like ChatGPT in the past, so I was reluctant to try at first.

What I discovered instead is that Claude Code is an insanely valuable tool for analyzing all the data I have, and quickly became addicted with it.

Here are some cool things I discovered, that you guys might find helpful.

Progress Photos Dashboard

First, I asked Claude Code to build a simple dashboard with my MacroFactor data and progress photos. I love the MacroFactor app, but damn is it hard to see any difference in the side-by-side photos as they are so small.

So instead, I built a display with a line that I can drag from left to right, to literally compare any of my photos one to another, and see the changes in more detail.

Here’s what this looks like with my current physique, compared to my goal physique (luckily, I took a progress photo back in 2024, when I was at my leanest):

https://preview.redd.it/ow4xpsvqgjzg1.png?width=1022&format=png&auto=webp&s=e270dc5636b29f008d509c77ad24830c66fa7d23

I’ve found this super useful as I can actually see the difference between my current physique and my goal physique, and I can actually see how much progress I’ve made in a given time period, like the last month (this feature took me like 5 minutes to build).

Body Fat Percentage Analysis

While I’ve done DEXA scans in the past, I sadly don’t have any results from the past few years, and I was curious to see if I could use AI to analyze my photos, since I do have 40 photos from this time period.

I had low expectations, and wasn’t expecting DEXA-like accuracy, but honestly, the results positively surprised me. 

First, I asked it to analyze my photos, and create a simple table. I also asked it to calculate my lean body mass based on the BF% estimation and my trend weight on that day.

https://preview.redd.it/7p24peglgjzg1.png?width=1084&format=png&auto=webp&s=165cfe74db158eed41a7a2027369f8c7b466e350

So the first “before” photo is supposed to be around 17% body fat, my current photo is supposed to be around 13% body fat, and my goal physique is supposed to be around 9% body fat.

While I am aware that these aren’t completely accurate, and the actual numbers might be a few % off, it IS helpful to see that the numbers do seem fairly consistent over-time, and, for example, I can clearly see the BF% increase in January after a festive holiday season. 

Then, for fun, I also asked it to analyze and comment on my physique in different photos, which made it easier to identify the changes when comparing photos.

https://preview.redd.it/opksxfglgjzg1.png?width=1514&format=png&auto=webp&s=af336939bd561ffbfb05d74c0c6f44447f0163ea

Then, I asked it to analyze how my nutrition and training (I pulled Whoop data and Macrofactor Workouts data for that) might have influenced my progress. It broke down my cut into specific phases based on my intake and activity levels, and that helped me quantify just how much of a difference a high volume of training made on my body composition.

https://preview.redd.it/1o8tqgglgjzg1.png?width=1484&format=png&auto=webp&s=15e07fe7ec596eefa41c20acba91218698005586

This specific insight makes sense - I just became a dad in early August, and I worked out considerably less for a few weeks, then ramped up my gym sessions, which helped me build up some muscle mass.

How Much Protein Do I *Actually* Need?

It also discovered something really interesting that I’m sure I would have missed otherwise:

https://preview.redd.it/7v09higlgjzg1.png?width=1352&format=png&auto=webp&s=e2073444d25ab5a198db3ce3959f2493cf55c780

In plain English - if I have 1.8-2.1g/kg of BW of protein per day (144-168g), I’ll lose considerably less muscle mass than if I let my protein levels drop below 140g/day.

https://preview.redd.it/toi4woflgjzg1.png?width=1312&format=png&auto=webp&s=5673e461c201b1b1818cb8b115a0bac0a7de67ce

I’ve been wondering how much protein I should really be eating for a long time, read countless study summaries, reddit threads, listened to podcasts… But it was refreshing to see how much protein my body actually seems to need, given my unique lifestyle, rather than just using benchmarks.

I’m sure if you had more data (longer period of time, more progress photos), you could find even more detailed insights for cutting, maintenance, and bulking phases.

The Creatine Washout

Another interesting thing was the impact of creatine on my body composition. I stopped taking it in January because I wanted to see if I would retain less water (and get a bit lighter, as it helps me feel better while climbing), and now I could analyze what happened.

https://preview.redd.it/vkfp9oflgjzg1.png?width=1352&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e390188c2c3d5819d80769d7f8810354b05cd69

https://preview.redd.it/bu8owoflgjzg1.png?width=1346&format=png&auto=webp&s=96dccd92d0084eafac37f2eb340cdb3737b3f8b0

When I start taking creatine again, I’ll be sure to run another analysis to see just how much of a difference/impact it makes.

Sidenote: the second photo here also covers a ski holiday (less workout volume), followed by a sickness, combined with lower protein intake, which in the end, made me look worse than I did back in December.

Projections / Reaching my Goal Physique

https://preview.redd.it/wwqive2xhjzg1.png?width=1064&format=png&auto=webp&s=af53ada4d0edfee07fae12c94348132dd50591a3

I wanted to see how long it would actually take me to reach my goal physique, with the data that I have so far, and if I could reach it by July with my current plan (3-1 cut vs maintenance cycles), so I asked Claude Code to analyze that.

https://preview.redd.it/46ymfrflgjzg1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=63b894aa55a5cb682d51e4ed9702380b02e538c1

And I also asked it what this will look like physically:

https://preview.redd.it/7ta6ggglgjzg1.png?width=1346&format=png&auto=webp&s=74bed691cd65cb195f894e9f38729f981b005ba5

Now, of course, I’m taking this with a grain of salt - knowing that my fat loss might slow down over time, that my TDEE might drop, etc. - but at least I have a general idea of what might be possible.

Then, for some extra motivation, and to see whether I’m on the right track, I also built projection graphs that append to my existing weight trend graphs (from MacroFactor) and my BF% estimates based on my progress photos.

https://preview.redd.it/b5jtngglgjzg1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5682cd570ccd60d07d1b5e0f8f92617b4b473fc

Alright, that was a lot of data-nerding.

Now, as I mentioned before, I know that this data might not be 100% accurate, especially given the possible inaccuracies in BF% estimations, but on the flip side, I find it quite promising how much AI can do to help us make sense of the data we’re already collecting.

My dream is that MacroFactor updates the progress photos section at some point (that would be so helpful!), and that perhaps, there’s an AI coach component that you can use to analyze your own data across MF and MFWO - but until then, there’s actually a lot we can do on our own.

Curious - has anyone else tried anything similar with their data? What did you find?

I was wondering how you all deal with switching gyms and then discovering that many of the machines and cables have different amount of wheels making the weights different.

How does the automatic rep and weight calculation deal with that? It also bothers me a bit that the records and graphs will not take this into consideration.

It’s easy if the machine you use is actually just a different exercise, but sometimes it’s the same exercise machine but working quite different in different gyms in terms of weight.

I noticed for example needing almost double weight on pec dec fly or half weight on low cable row.