March 24, 2025 • 30 mins
Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS.
--
Meticulously tracking your food but still not seeing results? You're not alone—and it's probably not your fault.
Most calorie tracking and food logging apps are fundamentally flawed, using static formulas that never adjust to your body's changing metabolism.
When you sign up for MyFitnessPal, Lose It, or Chronometer, they calculate your calorie needs once and never revisit them, despite the fact that your metabolism constantly adapts to what you eat, how much you weigh, your activity levels, sleep quality, and stress.
This episode exposes why traditional tracking apps fail to deliver sustainable results and introduces the missing element: the feedback loop between what you eat and how your body responds. They are "dumb" apps, not "smart" apps.
Your metabolism isn't a fixed furnace burning the same amount of fuel day after day—it's a dynamic system that becomes more efficient during calorie restriction and changes as you lose or gain weight.
So use the right tool for the job if you want to lose fat and gain muscle!
Main Takeaways:
- Traditional apps like MyFitnessPal, LoseIt, and Cronometer rely on static formulas that don't adapt to your body's changing metabolism
- Your metabolism constantly shifts due to weight changes, activity levels, stress, sleep, and metabolic adaptation
- Food tracking itself is valuable for awareness, but without a feedback loop that dynamically adjusts your targets, you'll eventually hit plateaus
- Dynamic TDEE calculation analyzes the relationship between your actual calorie intake and weight changes to provide personalized recommendations
- A "smart" tracking system becomes more accurate over time as it learns about your unique metabolism
Episode Resources:
- Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS.
- Watch my MacroFactor setup tutorial
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why most calorie tracking apps are failing you
3:05 - The problem with static TDEE calculations
6:18 - How your metabolism actually adapts over time
11:07 - Specific limitations of popular tracking apps
14:46 - Why you need dynamic "smart" TDEE calculation
21:14 - Implementing an effective tracking strategy
25:19 - How proper tracking changes your behavior
27:29 - Recap and recommendations
🎓 Build muscle, lose fat, and train smarter in Physique University (tap here for exclusive early access + a FREE custom nutrition plan for just $27/month)
👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support
👋 Let's connect! Ask a question, get my FREE newsletter, or find me on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS
🏋️♀️ Download Boostcamp for free for evidence-based workout programs
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
If you've been tracking your food religiously
but your weight isn't budging,it's probably not your fault.
Most calorie tracking apps usethe same static formula,
regardless of what's happeningwith your metabolism.
They set a number once, or youhave to set the number and never
adjust it based on how yourunique body responds.
So today I'm exposing thecritical flaw in nearly every
(00:22):
popular food tracking app andshowing you what actually works
if you want sustainable fat lossor muscle gain, because, while
tracking itself is valuable as afirst step for awareness, most
apps fail to close the loop, andonce you understand this, you
won't want to waste time withthose apps ever again.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(01:00):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday is one of my favorite
topics.
We are looking at an oftenoverlooked aspect of successful
body composition change how mostfood tracking apps are
sabotaging your progress byusing static formulas that
(01:20):
ignore your body's real-timemetabolism.
This is a really importanttopic because if you are stuck,
if you are frustrated and you'retracking your food, there could
be a very good reason why.
Here's the scenario you arelogging everything you eat,
you're weighing your food.
You're using my fitness powerlose it or chronometer you never
go over your calorie goal butthe scale's not budging.
Or you're trying to gain muscle, but you can't seem to either
(01:43):
get past a hard gaining plateauor you end up eating too much
and you gain excess fat, andthis is frustrating.
It's demotivating, it makes youfeel like your body's broken.
But today you're going to learnwhy this isn't your fault.
I will explain why most and Imean most, as in every single
one except one food logging appsare based on static, unhelpful
(02:04):
formulas how your metabolismactually adapts to what you eat
and why a dynamic approach thatuses your real data in the right
way is the only reliable methodto maintain consistent progress
.
Food tracking itself isincredibly valuable for
awareness.
It is step one for most people,but without a system that
creates the feedback loopbetween your intake and your
(02:26):
results, you are flying blindwith the wrong targets.
So if you're trying to losethose last five or 10 stubborn
pounds, try to lose a lot morethan that in terms of fat loss.
You're trying to build musclebut not gain too much fat, or
you're just trying to optimizeyour nutrition and figure out
what the heck do I eat for mycalories and macros
understanding why your app'scalorie recommendations may be
(02:46):
way off are going to change howyou think about this, and you're
going to have the secretdecoder ring by the time this
episode is done, and I encourageyou to listen through the
entire episode, because I'mactually going to talk about
specific apps that you'reprobably familiar with and I'm
going to share the solution thatwill actually figure this out
for you.
All right, so I want to startwith a fundamental issue that
(03:08):
affects virtually everymainstream food tracking app on
the market right now.
Until times change in thefuture, this is the case right
now, and the problem is simple.
Most apps use a static,one-time calculation of your
total daily energy expenditure,or TDEE.
In fact, some apps don't evencalculate that for you.
For those unfamiliar, tdeerepresents the total calories
(03:31):
you burn in a day.
It is your metabolism, and itincludes all the components of
your metabolism your basalmetabolic rate, which is the
energy needed to keep you alive,calories burned by digesting
food, your daily activity, bothformal and informal, and
everything you do.
And when you first sign up foran app like MyFitnessPal, lose
it Chronometer and yes, I amnaming names so that you know
(03:53):
why these apps cannot cut it forwhat you're trying to achieve.
When you sign up, they ask yousome questions your age, your
height, your weight, your sex,your activity level, your weight
loss goal things like thatwhich most apps are going to ask
.
Some don't even ask that andthen they plug the values into a
formula it's typically theMifflin-St Jor equation or
something similar and then itspits out a calorie target and
(04:15):
then this becomes your dailygoal.
The app then expects you toconsistently lose weight if you
stick to the goal.
But the fatal flaw is thatthese estimates, these
calculations, are the exact kindyou can get when you plug your
information into an onlinecalculator.
I even have one on my website,and they're based on the average
of the population and wildlyinaccurate self-assessments of
activity level.
And yeah, they're the best wecan do as far as an average, but
(04:38):
they could be way off from yourreal metabolism up to 400
calories in either direction,and that's assuming you even
give it the most accurateinformation for you.
For example, the activity levelis highly subjective.
What does that mean?
And even worse, the targetsjust remain fixed unless you
manually update the information,so the apps don't automatically
(05:01):
adjust based on what's actuallyhappening with your body and
what your eating patterns are.
So think about this have youever been diligently tracking
your calories and trying to stayunder certain targets?
Let's say you're trying to loseweight, lose fat, and it just
doesn't happen.
You just stay there, stay there, stay.
Maybe you start gaining weightand it just seems like a mystery
(05:22):
and you think, okay, it's me,it's my metabolism, and the app
keeps telling you you should belosing weight and you're hitting
the targets and maybe maybe youmissed the target by five
calories or two grams of protein.
And then it gives you a big rednumber and it shames you for it
.
Right.
And then your reality tells adifferent story from what the
app says it should be and thiscreates a disconnect that is
really harmful.
It is really harmful for lotsof things for body image, for
(05:48):
your psychological state.
Through this process, you get tothe point where you think
tracking is a terrible tool, orit's obsessive or it's not
helpful.
To be clear, tracking your foodis still a valuable practice.
Even if you just track stuff ona piece of paper old school,
and saw how much and what youeat, it's going to create
awareness of the amounts, howmuch protein problem areas.
(06:11):
Are you getting enough fiber?
All of that stuff and thatgives you data to work with for
sure.
It is extremely important.
The issue is not with thetracking itself.
It's how most apps fail tocreate the feedback loop between
what you track and whatactually happens with your body.
And again, I made this episodeand I'm hoping to be able to
share this with anybody in thefuture who wonders about the
(06:35):
apps or anybody who says, well,I use chronometer, so I'm good,
it should work.
Right?
No, it's not gonna work.
And to understand why?
To understand why these staticcalculations fail, we have to
appreciate how adaptive andresponsive our metabolism truly
is.
Your metabolism is not thisfixed furnace burning the same
(06:55):
amount of fuel day after day.
Right, it's a dynamic systemand it's adjusting to many, many
, many things.
It adjusts your calorie intakefirst and foremost.
That is probably the biggestfactor.
People don't realize this.
The amount you're eating andwhether you are losing or
gaining weight are the top two.
So number one the amount you'reeating.
When you reduce calories, yourbody becomes more efficient.
(07:15):
It's going to burn fewercalories to perform the same
function.
This is an adaptation thatoccurs because you are starving
of resources.
And the opposite happens whenyou eat a lot more, your body
actually ramps up.
That's the big one.
The second factor is weightloss.
As you lose weight you haveless mass to maintain, so your
calorie needs naturally decrease.
So you've kind of got thisdouble whammy Adaptation
combined with being lighter onthe scale, because, just simple
(07:38):
math, 180-pound person's gonnaburn more calories at rest than
160 pound person with otherwiseidentical stats, not even
counting muscle mass here we'rejust talking short term.
Number three is your activitylevel.
You know your activity variesevery day, just unconsciously,
in terms of your steps.
Some days you might walk 12,000steps, other days barely 3000.
Some days you might do cardio,some days you lift.
(08:00):
They go all over the place.
Sometimes you're doing too muchcardio and that causes a
negative adaptation or you burnfewer calories.
It's highly subjective to that.
The number fourth factor andthese are really two factors,
but I like to combine them asstress and sleep Sleep
deprivation, poor sleep,restless sleep and or high
stress, chronic stress canabsolutely alter your hormone
(08:23):
balance and your metabolism andthey change how efficiently your
body uses energy.
And so when you don't get enoughsleep, you burn fewer calories.
When your cortisol is all overthe place.
Because of your stress, youburn fewer calories.
And then the last factor hereis for women their hormonal
changes throughout the monthbecause of the menstrual cycle
can also affect your metabolicrate by as much as five to 10%.
It's not nothing.
(08:44):
And even if you don't accountfor that, you still have all
these other factors that causeyour metabolism to fluctuate.
So these create a constantlyshifting energy expenditure that
a static formula can't capture.
Even if it's accurate for youon one day, it can be off by 600
calories two months from now.
That's how bad it is.
And the problem is thetraditional apps do exactly that
(09:07):
.
They provide a fixed targetbased on this fixed assumption
and they expect that yourcomplex biological system is
going to conform to theirmathematical model in some
magical way.
Or they make it even worse byhaving you input your activity
or connect to your wearable, andthey count back the calories
from activity, which makes iteven worse.
(09:28):
I'll just give you a real worldexample that I see all the time
with clients.
I see it with myself in a fatloss phase.
When someone starts a fat lossphase, they might have a TDEE of
2,500 calories that's yourmaintenance calories but after
you lose, say, 10 pounds over acouple months, the TDEE could
have dropped to 2,200 calories.
Could have dropped by 300 or400 or 500 calories.
I've seen big drops because ofthe reduced body mass and the
(09:51):
metabolic adaptation.
And so if your deficit was 500calories because you wanted to
lose a pound a week, well, nowyou're actually in a lower
deficit.
You're only in a 200 caloriedeficit because you didn't
change your calories, but yourbody's burning fewer calories
and so your weight loss is goingto slow.
By what?
60%?
And these apps never tell youthis is happening.
You just don't know.
(10:13):
It keeps recommending the sametarget or maybe says, hey, what
do you want your targets to be,despite clear evidence that your
body's adapted right, which theevidence is that you stop
losing weight.
But then it's frustratingbecause you're saying, well, the
app says I should be so, nowsomething's wrong.
And so you get frustrated, evenif you're perfectly adhering,
and the same issue occurs in theopposite direction.
(10:35):
I'm not going to pay too muchattention to that here today.
I want to focus more on fatloss.
But same thing If your apptells you you've got to eat
3,000 calories for a leanbulking phase, but your TDEE is
less, you're going to gain a lotfaster or, on the flip side, if
it's more, you're going to hardgain and so it's even more
(10:56):
precise in muscle gain in termsof the data that you need about
yourself, because it's a littlebit more sensitive up there.
So, without this feedback loopthat connects your intake to
your results, you are justnavigating with a broken compass
.
That is it.
So let's look at the actual mostpopular tracking apps that are
on the market today and howtheir flawed methodology impacts
your results, because I have tobe honest, I don't like them.
(11:16):
I think they are harmful.
Not only do I think they're nothelpful, I think they are
harmful If your goal is to usethe data to then accurately
change your behaviors to get thegoal you want.
If your goal is strictly to logyour food for awareness and
that's it fine, they're adequate.
But for any more than thatwhich, if you're listening to
the show, your goal is toimprove your body composition
(11:38):
these apps will not do them,period.
And I want to be crystal clearI don't care about the cost, I
don't care about the features,none of that.
They just don't do it.
Let's start with the big oneMyFitnessPal.
Myfitnesspal it has a huge fooddatabase.
Of course, a lot of it'sinaccurate because they're user
entered, but let's put thataside.
The calorie calculations areproblematic because the app asks
(11:58):
you for your information whenyou set up and it never revisits
it.
It just doesn't consider howyour metabolism changes, like we
talked about, and then itseparates exercise calories from
your baseline metabolism, whichis even worse, in my opinion.
When you log a workout, it addsthose calories to your daily
(12:20):
budget, which encourages you toeat them back.
This is dangerous.
This is unhelpful and harmful,physically and psychologically,
right?
Number one, because exercisecalorie estimates are just
completely wrong.
They're inaccurate.
They're often off by 30 to 50%.
Number two it doesn't accountfor how your body compensates
for exercise, which is gonnahappen and also the hunger that
ramps up.
And then it treats exercise ascompletely separate from your
(12:40):
energy expenditure, rather thanjust one of many components of
it.
Remember, your metabolism iscomplex.
It's comprised of lots ofthings.
Activity is just one tiny thingand, by the way, exercise
comprises maybe 5% of yourmetabolism.
So that's MyFitnessPal.
Then we get to Lose it, which issimilar to MyFitnessPal.
It uses a static TDEEcalculation based on your
(13:01):
user-reported activity level.
It tells you go ahead andselect a weight loss rate and
then it gives you a fixed targetto supposedly achieve the rate,
but it doesn't adjust it.
If you're eating exactly whatit recommends but you're losing
weight slower than expected, theapp doesn't say oh, this might
not be a big enough deficit for,or it might not be low enough
calories for you.
It just doesn't recognize that.
That's a discrepancy.
(13:21):
It's dumb Effectively, in mytitle the word dumb here means
lacks intelligence, lacks smartsto do anything helpful.
And then you're left wonderingwhy you're not hitting your
targets, despite even perfectcompliance.
And then we have chronometer.
Everybody loves chronometerbecause it has this awesome
micronutrient tracking.
Fine, it still relies on staticformulas like Mifflin, st Jor.
(13:43):
You manually set your activitylevel.
The app does not adjust yourcalorie targets based on real
time weight changes or intakereal-time weight changes or
intake and so even when youupdate your weight, it just
recalculates using the sameformula rather than analyzing
the relationship between intakeand changes in weight.
We have a couple other apps outthere that people like to
mention.
One is FatSecret, the other isHealthifyMe, and same
(14:07):
limitations one-timecalculations, they don't adapt,
they require manual updates,they don't incorporate feedback
loops from real world data, andso the pattern across these is
clear.
I mean, that's the extent ofthe details I want to get into,
because this is not a featurecomparison episode.
This is calling out the onething missing from every single
app on the market, except onewe're going to get to in a
(14:27):
second.
They rely on a theoreticalcalorie need rather than your
body, so they're good forawareness of what you're eating,
but they don't close the loop,so it's good for a few weeks and
after that, useless, in myopinion, again, other than just
awareness of what you're eating,and that is the key difference
between failure and success.
So we've established that youdon't just need a static
(14:49):
calculation.
What do you need instead?
Well, you need a dynamiccalculation, an approach that
refines your energy expenderestimate based on what's
happening with your body.
So think of that as thedifference between dumb and
smart technology.
A dumb thermostat stays at thetemperature you set it right,
and that's how thermostats werefor decades.
A smart thermostat will learnyour preference, they'll adapt
(15:11):
to changing conditions.
They might even have a schedule, and they'll adjust to the
current temperature, time of dayand so on to maintain optimal
comfort.
Traditional tracking apps arelike dumb thermostats they set a
target and they never adapt.
What we need is a smarttracking app that closes the
feedback loop between the intakeand the results, between the
(15:34):
intake and the results.
So what would that look like?
Well, first, it would analyzethe relationship between what
you eat that's, your calorieintake and how your weight
changes.
Think about it your body islike a closed loop energy system
.
You take an energy in the formof food, you expend it in the
form of lots of things movement,digestion, training and, as a
result of what you do and justhow you are, your body burns a
(15:56):
certain amount of calories, andthat causes your weight to
either go up or down, based onhow much energy you need to
store, based on the netdifference of energy.
That's it.
That's the first thing.
The second thing it should dois create an algorithm based on
your response.
So not only should it take thedata and estimate your
expenditure, it should also lookat it over time and take your
history to even better estimateyour expenditure.
(16:18):
The third thing it should do isthen give you targets based on
that data.
Sounds simple, right?
Here's your calories and macros.
The calories are what you needto be in the deficit.
You want to lose the fat thatyou want at the rate you want.
That's what's missing from theother apps.
And then it should also becomemore accurate the longer you use
it, as it collects data Like,for example, as you're gaining
(16:38):
muscle, as you're gaining weightto build muscle, it can tell
the ratio of muscle to fat basedon how fast you're gaining, and
then it can adjust for that.
So what app does this?
If you follow this show for anylength of time, you know what
app it is.
It's called Macrofactor, all inword, created by the guys at
Stronger by Science.
I'm a firm believer in this appbecause the only tool it's kind
(16:59):
of like a barbell it is thebest tool and the only tool for
the job out there to do this aseffectively as possible.
The only alternative would beto do it on your own in a
spreadsheet, which, if you wantto, if you nerd out on it, if
you can come up with a decentalgorithm, go for it.
I would rather take years andyears of the smartest guys in
evidence-based training,nutrition and science, who have
(17:21):
analyzed both the physiologicalside as well as the statistical
and algorithmic side, and put itinto an app.
So, macro factor, all one word.
And here's how it works.
It doesn't just ask you to pickan activity level and enter
your data.
You do that initially.
It gives you initial estimate,like every other app, but then
the magic starts, because itlooks at what happens when you
(17:42):
eat a certain amount of foodover time to your weight.
How does your weight respond toyour food?
And so it is kind of likehaving an old style macro coach
right, the old old nutritioncoaches that calculated macros
for you and I've talked aboutthis before in negative terms,
in that we don't need themanymore.
You've got apps and you've gotAI and everything else that can
(18:03):
do that for you.
That's easy.
What you need a coach for isthe human part, the
psychological part, thesupporting accountability.
We're not going to get intothat.
I talked about that recently ina bonus episode.
But macro factor is like an oldschool macro coach who's just
looking at how your weightchanges and saying, okay, you're
, you're starting to plateau.
That means your deficit issmaller than we thought and
therefore you're not burning asmany calories, so we're going to
(18:25):
give you lower calories.
That's it.
It adjusts up and down as yourexpenditure changes.
So a concrete example of howthis works in practice let's say
, you begin tracking at what youbelieve is a 500 calorie a day
deficit to lose a pound a weekand after two weeks the app set
notices that you've only lost ahalf a pound.
Now again, this is over timebased on averages.
(18:46):
It's not going to do this veryquickly, day to day and over
respond.
It's going to look at yourtrends over two, three, four
weeks but it's saying okay,you're really only losing half a
pound over the past few weeks,should be losing a pound, and a
traditional app likeMyFitnessPal would have no clue,
just keep giving you the samedeficit until you change it.
But Macrofactor will recognizethat your TDEE is actually lower
(19:09):
than it thought and now it willadjust your intake to reach
your fat loss desired rate ofloss.
And then it's going to updatethe calories and macros when you
quote, unquote, check in withthe app.
So you check in weekly, usuallyon a Monday.
That's the default and theformula now no longer matters.
The estimate, the initialestimate, no longer matters.
What matters is you, your body,and the beauty of this approach
(19:31):
is it works regardless ofwhether your metabolism is
faster or slower, whether you'veeaten more or less, whether
you're hitting the targets ornot, it's going to work.
And if you are someone whonaturally burns way more
calories, it's going to detectthis, and vice versa If your
metabolism is slower, it's goingto adjust downward accordingly.
And so if you've been stucktrying to lose weight for years
and years, or maybe you'reperi-post-menopause, maybe
(19:52):
you're an older dude who's justbeen stuck trying all the diets,
this could be what you'remissing Just an understanding of
your metabolism, an approachthat adapts as you are trying to
change your body, because thosethings are cyclical.
As you change, your metabolismchanges, but then you need to
change again in terms of youreating habits, and so the app
detects these changes and thenadjust your targets.
(20:13):
It seems simple, but I'msurprised that no other app does
this, and it works in fat loss,maintenance or muscle gain.
In fact, macrofactor has somepretty sophisticated algorithms
for muscle gain.
If you're trying to gain weight, it's going to give you a
target, but then, if you gofaster or slower than it expects
, it doesn't just adjust thetarget blindly.
It actually estimates a ratioof muscle and fat to determine
(20:35):
how fast you need to go to gainat the rate you want to gain.
It's pretty cool.
So that's really all I have tosay about dynamic calculation.
I mean, it's again.
It sounds simple Take what youeat and how your weight changes
and calculate the number.
If you try to do this yourself,it's actually pretty
sophisticated, because what ifyou're going from a bulk to a
cut?
What if you're sick or injuredand your metabolism changes
(20:57):
drastically?
What if you have a period, yourperiod and your cycle changes?
There's a lot of reasons ourexpenditure can change.
The app is not going toovercorrect.
If you try to do this on yourown, you're going to find out
that there's all these littlescenarios that are kind of
difficult to deal with andyou're going to have to update
your algorithm, and so it getsmore and more sophisticated.
So if you want an effectivetracking strategy and this is
not just tracking, this istracking and the right targets,
(21:20):
first you've got to select theright tool for the job.
If you want to get super strong, you're probably going to
select a barbell or at leastsome effective machines.
So in this case, you want anapp that uses a dynamic
calculation period.
Right now on the market,macrofactor is the only app that
does this, and its algorithm isamazing, and they talk about it
openly and transparently andthey're constantly improving it.
(21:40):
So it's going to improve everyweek.
It's going to adjust yourmetabolism and give you the
right targets.
Number two you've got to beconsistent with your logging.
So this isn't all just the appdoing the job right.
You don't just start using theapp and, oh, I lose weight.
No, of course you have to haveaccurate data.
You want to log what you eatevery day, whether you go over
your target or not.
So I have clients who, early on, they'll say, oh, I didn't
(22:02):
track for a week because I gotsick.
And my response is well,assuming the tracking itself
isn't stressful and it onlytakes like two minutes a day to
track when you get used to itespecially macro factor Cause
it's so fast Keep tracking Evenwhen you're sick again, if it
doesn't make it worse.
But again, for most people it'san easy, quick thing.
And what's nice about trackingno matter what happens whether
(22:24):
you're over or under yourtargets, not eating doesn't
matter is it will have precisionand accuracy to show you what
happens to your body in thosetimes.
I actually want you to track inthe times that are off plan.
So quote, unquote, so we cansee what happens to your
expenditure in those times.
You could adjust accordinglyand you get honest data to
create that feedback loop sothat you have confidence on how
(22:46):
much to eat, what to eat andwhen.
You also have to weigh yourselfconsistently.
So I've talked before about howweighing every day is
associated with success andmaintaining your results.
It is not associated withobsessiveness, because when you
weigh every day, you can see thenatural fluctuations caused by
things that have nothing to dowith fat.
Weigh every day, you can seethe natural fluctuations caused
by things that have nothing todo with fat, and then you have
(23:07):
to take a trend of that overtime.
So, like macro factor uses a 20day exponential moving average,
you don't have to understandwhat that means, but if you
think of the 20 days, that'sabout three weeks.
That means fat gain, fat loss,is really only estimated with
any precision after about threeweeks of data.
The next thing is you have tounderstand that there are lots
(23:29):
of things other than fat thatwill cause your weight to change
.
So, again tying into thecomment I just made about daily
weight tracking, we have waterretention, sodium intake,
carbohydrate levels, hormonalcycles, inflammation from
training.
Again, what matters is thetrend over weeks.
The next thing is you don't wantto manually override the
calculations.
So this is another problem Isee is that some people will say
(23:51):
, well, it says the expenditureis lower than I like, or I don't
think my expenditure is thatlow and you're like tempted to
manually change it.
Well, once you've been usingthe app for I'll say, three or
four weeks maybe as little astwo, but usually three or four
weeks of daily food trackingwhere you log everything you
can't do partial days or it'llthink you ate less and daily
weighing it's going to have apretty darn accurate assessment
(24:13):
of your expenditure and if it'slower than you like, that's a
reality you have to face.
But that's a great thingbecause it's empowering data and
it could explain why you'vebeen stuck trying to lose weight
or fat all these years, andthen you could decide what to do
about it.
You also have to give thesethings time.
I've mentioned this a couple oftimes.
Dynamic calculation is going tobecome more accurate the longer
(24:33):
you use it.
So the first few weeks youalmost can't trust anything
because you don't have enoughprecision, but by, say, four to
six weeks, the algorithm ishighly personalized and then, of
course, course, you would usethis as a learning tool.
That is really my last commenton this is it's not just hitting
targets which, by the way,macro factor doesn't judge you
on whether you're over or under,it doesn't color code things,
(24:54):
it's completely adherenceneutral.
It's very nice, it's very goodfor the psychological aspect,
but beyond just hitting targets,you can pay attention to how
different foods affect yourhunger, your energy, your
performance and, yes, yourexpenditure, and tie it all
together right.
The goal isn't just to complyto numbers.
The goal is really tounderstand your body's unique
(25:15):
response to what you do, whatyou eat, and then adjust
accordingly.
And that's why, as a coach, Ireally love that my clients use
it, because we get far moreprecise and insightful data than
a traditional macro meal plancoach would ever have.
And then I can go to that nextlevel of being a detective and
helping you understand why thedata is doing what it's doing.
(25:36):
And that eliminates guesswork.
It eliminates the frustrationfrom using MyFitnessPal,
tracking your food and notknowing why you're not getting
the result.
Instead of wondering and beingconstantly frustrated, you're
going to have a system thatreflects your body's reality and
creates a continuous feedbackloop, and that's how we make
progress in life, in fitness, innutrition, everything the cool
(25:57):
thing about tracking in generalso just to throw a bone to any
of these apps where you'vedecided to track your food and
you weren't before is it willstart to change your behavior,
sometimes in ways you don'tnotice.
Research shows that people whotrack their food just track tend
to move more throughout the day.
They tend to make slightlybetter food choices, even when
they're not consciously tryingto.
It's why I love having myclients track from day one, so
(26:20):
that they start to change theirown behavior.
Listen, I have clients reachout to me in the first few weeks
and they're like I just noticedthis, so I changed this.
I just noticed I didn't have noprotein, so I did this.
I'm not even telling them to dothis stuff Right, and that's
great, because a lot of this ison you, and I don't mean that in
a bad way.
I mean you've got the power.
It's you've.
(26:46):
You take the action.
But it really helps to havesomeone looking over your
shoulder to understand why thedata is doing what it's doing,
so you can take the rightactions.
And then you take this to thenext level not just track your
food, but track your expenditureso that you can measure your
actual response to food whileyou're tracking.
It's really a profound shift inthinking.
It's from trying to conform towhat you think is how many
calories you're burning, basedon a formula, to actually
observing and working with whatyour metabolism is doing.
(27:07):
And if you went back 10 yearsbefore Macrofactor existed, the
way someone would tell you to dothis is to manually track your
food and manually track yourweight and kind of guess and
eyeball how your weight ischanging to your food.
But it's very rough, it's veryimprecise, and so that's why I
recommend Macrofactor, whichthen gives you not a dumb
tracking app but a smart systemthat closes the loop.
(27:29):
So anyway, we've covered a lotof ground today and just to
bring it all together, thetraditional apps my fitness pal
lose it chronometer.
They have static metabolismformulas that remain fixed
regardless of how your bodyresponds.
So don't tell me when I suggestusing macro factor.
Oh no, I don't need to do that,I already use chronometer, it's
(27:49):
free, Like, okay, well, you're,you're tracking food and that's
it.
You're not going to get theresult you want without knowing
what's actually happening inyour body Period.
They ignore metabolicadaptation, they fail to account
for how your weight changes.
They fail to account for energychanges and exercise changes
and all of that.
They're dumb in a world whereyou need smart.
So even if you've beenfollowing your app's
recommendations but you're notseeing the results, it's not
(28:10):
because you are doing somethingwrong.
It's because you have the wrongtargets.
So if you want to experience adifference and this is what the
only little sales pitch I'mgoing to make here is to go
ahead and try macro factor forfree for two weeks.
Link is in the show notes.
Use my code wits and weightsall one word.
I personally have used the appsince the day it came out.
All my clients, everyone inPhysique University, use the app
(28:34):
.
It is highly empowering.
It's going to change your life.
It is a paid app and yet whatyou get for it is worth
multiples upon multiples of thecost.
I think it's still $71.99 for ayear.
Now, that's in US dollars.
But try it for free using thecode witsandweights all one word
.
Link is in the show notes.
I also have a step-by-stepYouTube video that shows you how
to set it up properly to findyour true maintenance calories
(28:54):
the first time.
So I'm going to include linksto both in the show notes.
Grab the app, try it out.
You've got two weeks to try itout.
If you don't like it, no risk,don't use it and watch my video
on setting it up and you'regoing to be good, you're going
to be awesome.
Then you're going to bereaching out saying, okay, cool,
now I see what you were talkingabout.
Now I understand my true targets.
Now I need to put this into thenext level, combining it with
(29:17):
my training, with my meal timing, making sure it works for me,
with my biofeedback and myenergy, and really get the fat
loss that I'm going for.
But step one is to starttracking your food and weight
using Macrofactor.
Use my code, wits and Weights,Get the link in the show notes
and watch the video.
All right, until next time,keep using your wits, lifting
those weights and remembersuccessful body composition
(29:39):
change, fat loss, muscle gain,whatever it is, comes from
understanding how your uniquemetabolism is changing, not
trying to conform to a generic,static, unchanging formula.
This is Philip Pape and you'vebeen listening to Wits and
Weights.
I'll talk to you next time.
If you've been tracking your food religiously
but your weight isn't budging,it's probably not your fault.
Most calorie tracking apps usethe same static formula,
regardless of what's happeningwith your metabolism.
They set a number once, or youhave to set the number and never
adjust it based on how yourunique body responds.
So today I'm exposing thecritical flaw in nearly every
(00:22):
popular food tracking app andshowing you what actually works
if you want sustainable fat lossor muscle gain, because, while
tracking itself is valuable as afirst step for awareness, most
apps fail to close the loop, andonce you understand this, you
won't want to waste time withthose apps ever again.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(01:00):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday is one of my favorite
topics.
We are looking at an oftenoverlooked aspect of successful
body composition change how mostfood tracking apps are
sabotaging your progress byusing static formulas that
(01:20):
ignore your body's real-timemetabolism.
This is a really importanttopic because if you are stuck,
if you are frustrated and you'retracking your food, there could
be a very good reason why.
Here's the scenario you arelogging everything you eat,
you're weighing your food.
You're using my fitness powerlose it or chronometer you never
go over your calorie goal butthe scale's not budging.
Or you're trying to gain muscle, but you can't seem to either
(01:43):
get past a hard gaining plateauor you end up eating too much
and you gain excess fat, andthis is frustrating.
It's demotivating, it makes youfeel like your body's broken.
But today you're going to learnwhy this isn't your fault.
I will explain why most and Imean most, as in every single
one except one food logging appsare based on static, unhelpful
(02:04):
formulas how your metabolismactually adapts to what you eat
and why a dynamic approach thatuses your real data in the right
way is the only reliable methodto maintain consistent progress
.
Food tracking itself isincredibly valuable for
awareness.
It is step one for most people,but without a system that
creates the feedback loopbetween your intake and your
(02:26):
results, you are flying blindwith the wrong targets.
So if you're trying to losethose last five or 10 stubborn
pounds, try to lose a lot morethan that in terms of fat loss.
You're trying to build musclebut not gain too much fat, or
you're just trying to optimizeyour nutrition and figure out
what the heck do I eat for mycalories and macros
understanding why your app'scalorie recommendations may be
(02:46):
way off are going to change howyou think about this, and you're
going to have the secretdecoder ring by the time this
episode is done, and I encourageyou to listen through the
entire episode, because I'mactually going to talk about
specific apps that you'reprobably familiar with and I'm
going to share the solution thatwill actually figure this out
for you.
All right, so I want to startwith a fundamental issue that
(03:08):
affects virtually everymainstream food tracking app on
the market right now.
Until times change in thefuture, this is the case right
now, and the problem is simple.
Most apps use a static,one-time calculation of your
total daily energy expenditure,or TDEE.
In fact, some apps don't evencalculate that for you.
For those unfamiliar, tdeerepresents the total calories
(03:31):
you burn in a day.
It is your metabolism, and itincludes all the components of
your metabolism your basalmetabolic rate, which is the
energy needed to keep you alive,calories burned by digesting
food, your daily activity, bothformal and informal, and
everything you do.
And when you first sign up foran app like MyFitnessPal, lose
it Chronometer and yes, I amnaming names so that you know
(03:53):
why these apps cannot cut it forwhat you're trying to achieve.
When you sign up, they ask yousome questions your age, your
height, your weight, your sex,your activity level, your weight
loss goal things like thatwhich most apps are going to ask
.
Some don't even ask that andthen they plug the values into a
formula it's typically theMifflin-St Jor equation or
something similar and then itspits out a calorie target and
(04:15):
then this becomes your dailygoal.
The app then expects you toconsistently lose weight if you
stick to the goal.
But the fatal flaw is thatthese estimates, these
calculations, are the exact kindyou can get when you plug your
information into an onlinecalculator.
I even have one on my website,and they're based on the average
of the population and wildlyinaccurate self-assessments of
activity level.
And yeah, they're the best wecan do as far as an average, but
(04:38):
they could be way off from yourreal metabolism up to 400
calories in either direction,and that's assuming you even
give it the most accurateinformation for you.
For example, the activity levelis highly subjective.
What does that mean?
And even worse, the targetsjust remain fixed unless you
manually update the information,so the apps don't automatically
(05:01):
adjust based on what's actuallyhappening with your body and
what your eating patterns are.
So think about this have youever been diligently tracking
your calories and trying to stayunder certain targets?
Let's say you're trying to loseweight, lose fat, and it just
doesn't happen.
You just stay there, stay there, stay.
Maybe you start gaining weightand it just seems like a mystery
(05:22):
and you think, okay, it's me,it's my metabolism, and the app
keeps telling you you should belosing weight and you're hitting
the targets and maybe maybe youmissed the target by five
calories or two grams of protein.
And then it gives you a big rednumber and it shames you for it
.
Right.
And then your reality tells adifferent story from what the
app says it should be and thiscreates a disconnect that is
really harmful.
It is really harmful for lotsof things for body image, for
(05:48):
your psychological state.
Through this process, you get tothe point where you think
tracking is a terrible tool, orit's obsessive or it's not
helpful.
To be clear, tracking your foodis still a valuable practice.
Even if you just track stuff ona piece of paper old school,
and saw how much and what youeat, it's going to create
awareness of the amounts, howmuch protein problem areas.
(06:11):
Are you getting enough fiber?
All of that stuff and thatgives you data to work with for
sure.
It is extremely important.
The issue is not with thetracking itself.
It's how most apps fail tocreate the feedback loop between
what you track and whatactually happens with your body.
And again, I made this episodeand I'm hoping to be able to
share this with anybody in thefuture who wonders about the
(06:35):
apps or anybody who says, well,I use chronometer, so I'm good,
it should work.
Right?
No, it's not gonna work.
And to understand why?
To understand why these staticcalculations fail, we have to
appreciate how adaptive andresponsive our metabolism truly
is.
Your metabolism is not thisfixed furnace burning the same
(06:55):
amount of fuel day after day.
Right, it's a dynamic systemand it's adjusting to many, many
, many things.
It adjusts your calorie intakefirst and foremost.
That is probably the biggestfactor.
People don't realize this.
The amount you're eating andwhether you are losing or
gaining weight are the top two.
So number one the amount you'reeating.
When you reduce calories, yourbody becomes more efficient.
(07:15):
It's going to burn fewercalories to perform the same
function.
This is an adaptation thatoccurs because you are starving
of resources.
And the opposite happens whenyou eat a lot more, your body
actually ramps up.
That's the big one.
The second factor is weightloss.
As you lose weight you haveless mass to maintain, so your
calorie needs naturally decrease.
So you've kind of got thisdouble whammy Adaptation
combined with being lighter onthe scale, because, just simple
(07:38):
math, 180-pound person's gonnaburn more calories at rest than
160 pound person with otherwiseidentical stats, not even
counting muscle mass here we'rejust talking short term.
Number three is your activitylevel.
You know your activity variesevery day, just unconsciously,
in terms of your steps.
Some days you might walk 12,000steps, other days barely 3000.
Some days you might do cardio,some days you lift.
(08:00):
They go all over the place.
Sometimes you're doing too muchcardio and that causes a
negative adaptation or you burnfewer calories.
It's highly subjective to that.
The number fourth factor andthese are really two factors,
but I like to combine them asstress and sleep Sleep
deprivation, poor sleep,restless sleep and or high
stress, chronic stress canabsolutely alter your hormone
(08:23):
balance and your metabolism andthey change how efficiently your
body uses energy.
And so when you don't get enoughsleep, you burn fewer calories.
When your cortisol is all overthe place.
Because of your stress, youburn fewer calories.
And then the last factor hereis for women their hormonal
changes throughout the monthbecause of the menstrual cycle
can also affect your metabolicrate by as much as five to 10%.
It's not nothing.
(08:44):
And even if you don't accountfor that, you still have all
these other factors that causeyour metabolism to fluctuate.
So these create a constantlyshifting energy expenditure that
a static formula can't capture.
Even if it's accurate for youon one day, it can be off by 600
calories two months from now.
That's how bad it is.
And the problem is thetraditional apps do exactly that
(09:07):
.
They provide a fixed targetbased on this fixed assumption
and they expect that yourcomplex biological system is
going to conform to theirmathematical model in some
magical way.
Or they make it even worse byhaving you input your activity
or connect to your wearable, andthey count back the calories
from activity, which makes iteven worse.
(09:28):
I'll just give you a real worldexample that I see all the time
with clients.
I see it with myself in a fatloss phase.
When someone starts a fat lossphase, they might have a TDEE of
2,500 calories that's yourmaintenance calories but after
you lose, say, 10 pounds over acouple months, the TDEE could
have dropped to 2,200 calories.
Could have dropped by 300 or400 or 500 calories.
I've seen big drops because ofthe reduced body mass and the
(09:51):
metabolic adaptation.
And so if your deficit was 500calories because you wanted to
lose a pound a week, well, nowyou're actually in a lower
deficit.
You're only in a 200 caloriedeficit because you didn't
change your calories, but yourbody's burning fewer calories
and so your weight loss is goingto slow.
By what?
60%?
And these apps never tell youthis is happening.
You just don't know.
(10:13):
It keeps recommending the sametarget or maybe says, hey, what
do you want your targets to be,despite clear evidence that your
body's adapted right, which theevidence is that you stop
losing weight.
But then it's frustratingbecause you're saying, well, the
app says I should be so, nowsomething's wrong.
And so you get frustrated, evenif you're perfectly adhering,
and the same issue occurs in theopposite direction.
(10:35):
I'm not going to pay too muchattention to that here today.
I want to focus more on fatloss.
But same thing If your apptells you you've got to eat
3,000 calories for a leanbulking phase, but your TDEE is
less, you're going to gain a lotfaster or, on the flip side, if
it's more, you're going to hardgain and so it's even more
(10:56):
precise in muscle gain in termsof the data that you need about
yourself, because it's a littlebit more sensitive up there.
So, without this feedback loopthat connects your intake to
your results, you are justnavigating with a broken compass
.
That is it.
So let's look at the actual mostpopular tracking apps that are
on the market today and howtheir flawed methodology impacts
your results, because I have tobe honest, I don't like them.
(11:16):
I think they are harmful.
Not only do I think they're nothelpful, I think they are
harmful If your goal is to usethe data to then accurately
change your behaviors to get thegoal you want.
If your goal is strictly to logyour food for awareness and
that's it fine, they're adequate.
But for any more than thatwhich, if you're listening to
the show, your goal is toimprove your body composition
(11:38):
these apps will not do them,period.
And I want to be crystal clearI don't care about the cost, I
don't care about the features,none of that.
They just don't do it.
Let's start with the big oneMyFitnessPal.
Myfitnesspal it has a huge fooddatabase.
Of course, a lot of it'sinaccurate because they're user
entered, but let's put thataside.
The calorie calculations areproblematic because the app asks
(11:58):
you for your information whenyou set up and it never revisits
it.
It just doesn't consider howyour metabolism changes, like we
talked about, and then itseparates exercise calories from
your baseline metabolism, whichis even worse, in my opinion.
When you log a workout, it addsthose calories to your daily
(12:20):
budget, which encourages you toeat them back.
This is dangerous.
This is unhelpful and harmful,physically and psychologically,
right?
Number one, because exercisecalorie estimates are just
completely wrong.
They're inaccurate.
They're often off by 30 to 50%.
Number two it doesn't accountfor how your body compensates
for exercise, which is gonnahappen and also the hunger that
ramps up.
And then it treats exercise ascompletely separate from your
(12:40):
energy expenditure, rather thanjust one of many components of
it.
Remember, your metabolism iscomplex.
It's comprised of lots ofthings.
Activity is just one tiny thingand, by the way, exercise
comprises maybe 5% of yourmetabolism.
So that's MyFitnessPal.
Then we get to Lose it, which issimilar to MyFitnessPal.
It uses a static TDEEcalculation based on your
(13:01):
user-reported activity level.
It tells you go ahead andselect a weight loss rate and
then it gives you a fixed targetto supposedly achieve the rate,
but it doesn't adjust it.
If you're eating exactly whatit recommends but you're losing
weight slower than expected, theapp doesn't say oh, this might
not be a big enough deficit for,or it might not be low enough
calories for you.
It just doesn't recognize that.
That's a discrepancy.
(13:21):
It's dumb Effectively, in mytitle the word dumb here means
lacks intelligence, lacks smartsto do anything helpful.
And then you're left wonderingwhy you're not hitting your
targets, despite even perfectcompliance.
And then we have chronometer.
Everybody loves chronometerbecause it has this awesome
micronutrient tracking.
Fine, it still relies on staticformulas like Mifflin, st Jor.
(13:43):
You manually set your activitylevel.
The app does not adjust yourcalorie targets based on real
time weight changes or intakereal-time weight changes or
intake and so even when youupdate your weight, it just
recalculates using the sameformula rather than analyzing
the relationship between intakeand changes in weight.
We have a couple other apps outthere that people like to
mention.
One is FatSecret, the other isHealthifyMe, and same
(14:07):
limitations one-timecalculations, they don't adapt,
they require manual updates,they don't incorporate feedback
loops from real world data, andso the pattern across these is
clear.
I mean, that's the extent ofthe details I want to get into,
because this is not a featurecomparison episode.
This is calling out the onething missing from every single
app on the market, except onewe're going to get to in a
(14:27):
second.
They rely on a theoreticalcalorie need rather than your
body, so they're good forawareness of what you're eating,
but they don't close the loop,so it's good for a few weeks and
after that, useless, in myopinion, again, other than just
awareness of what you're eating,and that is the key difference
between failure and success.
So we've established that youdon't just need a static
(14:49):
calculation.
What do you need instead?
Well, you need a dynamiccalculation, an approach that
refines your energy expenderestimate based on what's
happening with your body.
So think of that as thedifference between dumb and
smart technology.
A dumb thermostat stays at thetemperature you set it right,
and that's how thermostats werefor decades.
A smart thermostat will learnyour preference, they'll adapt
(15:11):
to changing conditions.
They might even have a schedule, and they'll adjust to the
current temperature, time of dayand so on to maintain optimal
comfort.
Traditional tracking apps arelike dumb thermostats they set a
target and they never adapt.
What we need is a smarttracking app that closes the
feedback loop between the intakeand the results, between the
(15:34):
intake and the results.
So what would that look like?
Well, first, it would analyzethe relationship between what
you eat that's, your calorieintake and how your weight
changes.
Think about it your body islike a closed loop energy system
.
You take an energy in the formof food, you expend it in the
form of lots of things movement,digestion, training and, as a
result of what you do and justhow you are, your body burns a
(15:56):
certain amount of calories, andthat causes your weight to
either go up or down, based onhow much energy you need to
store, based on the netdifference of energy.
That's it.
That's the first thing.
The second thing it should dois create an algorithm based on
your response.
So not only should it take thedata and estimate your
expenditure, it should also lookat it over time and take your
history to even better estimateyour expenditure.
(16:18):
The third thing it should do isthen give you targets based on
that data.
Sounds simple, right?
Here's your calories and macros.
The calories are what you needto be in the deficit.
You want to lose the fat thatyou want at the rate you want.
That's what's missing from theother apps.
And then it should also becomemore accurate the longer you use
it, as it collects data Like,for example, as you're gaining
(16:38):
muscle, as you're gaining weightto build muscle, it can tell
the ratio of muscle to fat basedon how fast you're gaining, and
then it can adjust for that.
So what app does this?
If you follow this show for anylength of time, you know what
app it is.
It's called Macrofactor, all inword, created by the guys at
Stronger by Science.
I'm a firm believer in this appbecause the only tool it's kind
(16:59):
of like a barbell it is thebest tool and the only tool for
the job out there to do this aseffectively as possible.
The only alternative would beto do it on your own in a
spreadsheet, which, if you wantto, if you nerd out on it, if
you can come up with a decentalgorithm, go for it.
I would rather take years andyears of the smartest guys in
evidence-based training,nutrition and science, who have
(17:21):
analyzed both the physiologicalside as well as the statistical
and algorithmic side, and put itinto an app.
So, macro factor, all one word.
And here's how it works.
It doesn't just ask you to pickan activity level and enter
your data.
You do that initially.
It gives you initial estimate,like every other app, but then
the magic starts, because itlooks at what happens when you
(17:42):
eat a certain amount of foodover time to your weight.
How does your weight respond toyour food?
And so it is kind of likehaving an old style macro coach
right, the old old nutritioncoaches that calculated macros
for you and I've talked aboutthis before in negative terms,
in that we don't need themanymore.
You've got apps and you've gotAI and everything else that can
(18:03):
do that for you.
That's easy.
What you need a coach for isthe human part, the
psychological part, thesupporting accountability.
We're not going to get intothat.
I talked about that recently ina bonus episode.
But macro factor is like an oldschool macro coach who's just
looking at how your weightchanges and saying, okay, you're
, you're starting to plateau.
That means your deficit issmaller than we thought and
therefore you're not burning asmany calories, so we're going to
(18:25):
give you lower calories.
That's it.
It adjusts up and down as yourexpenditure changes.
So a concrete example of howthis works in practice let's say
, you begin tracking at what youbelieve is a 500 calorie a day
deficit to lose a pound a weekand after two weeks the app set
notices that you've only lost ahalf a pound.
Now again, this is over timebased on averages.
(18:46):
It's not going to do this veryquickly, day to day and over
respond.
It's going to look at yourtrends over two, three, four
weeks but it's saying okay,you're really only losing half a
pound over the past few weeks,should be losing a pound, and a
traditional app likeMyFitnessPal would have no clue,
just keep giving you the samedeficit until you change it.
But Macrofactor will recognizethat your TDEE is actually lower
(19:09):
than it thought and now it willadjust your intake to reach
your fat loss desired rate ofloss.
And then it's going to updatethe calories and macros when you
quote, unquote, check in withthe app.
So you check in weekly, usuallyon a Monday.
That's the default and theformula now no longer matters.
The estimate, the initialestimate, no longer matters.
What matters is you, your body,and the beauty of this approach
(19:31):
is it works regardless ofwhether your metabolism is
faster or slower, whether you'veeaten more or less, whether
you're hitting the targets ornot, it's going to work.
And if you are someone whonaturally burns way more
calories, it's going to detectthis, and vice versa If your
metabolism is slower, it's goingto adjust downward accordingly.
And so if you've been stucktrying to lose weight for years
and years, or maybe you'reperi-post-menopause, maybe
(19:52):
you're an older dude who's justbeen stuck trying all the diets,
this could be what you'remissing Just an understanding of
your metabolism, an approachthat adapts as you are trying to
change your body, because thosethings are cyclical.
As you change, your metabolismchanges, but then you need to
change again in terms of youreating habits, and so the app
detects these changes and thenadjust your targets.
(20:13):
It seems simple, but I'msurprised that no other app does
this, and it works in fat loss,maintenance or muscle gain.
In fact, macrofactor has somepretty sophisticated algorithms
for muscle gain.
If you're trying to gain weight, it's going to give you a
target, but then, if you gofaster or slower than it expects
, it doesn't just adjust thetarget blindly.
It actually estimates a ratioof muscle and fat to determine
(20:35):
how fast you need to go to gainat the rate you want to gain.
It's pretty cool.
So that's really all I have tosay about dynamic calculation.
I mean, it's again.
It sounds simple Take what youeat and how your weight changes
and calculate the number.
If you try to do this yourself,it's actually pretty
sophisticated, because what ifyou're going from a bulk to a
cut?
What if you're sick or injuredand your metabolism changes
(20:57):
drastically?
What if you have a period, yourperiod and your cycle changes?
There's a lot of reasons ourexpenditure can change.
The app is not going toovercorrect.
If you try to do this on yourown, you're going to find out
that there's all these littlescenarios that are kind of
difficult to deal with andyou're going to have to update
your algorithm, and so it getsmore and more sophisticated.
So if you want an effectivetracking strategy and this is
not just tracking, this istracking and the right targets,
(21:20):
first you've got to select theright tool for the job.
If you want to get super strong, you're probably going to
select a barbell or at leastsome effective machines.
So in this case, you want anapp that uses a dynamic
calculation period.
Right now on the market,macrofactor is the only app that
does this, and its algorithm isamazing, and they talk about it
openly and transparently andthey're constantly improving it.
(21:40):
So it's going to improve everyweek.
It's going to adjust yourmetabolism and give you the
right targets.
Number two you've got to beconsistent with your logging.
So this isn't all just the appdoing the job right.
You don't just start using theapp and, oh, I lose weight.
No, of course you have to haveaccurate data.
You want to log what you eatevery day, whether you go over
your target or not.
So I have clients who, early on, they'll say, oh, I didn't
(22:02):
track for a week because I gotsick.
And my response is well,assuming the tracking itself
isn't stressful and it onlytakes like two minutes a day to
track when you get used to itespecially macro factor Cause
it's so fast Keep tracking Evenwhen you're sick again, if it
doesn't make it worse.
But again, for most people it'san easy, quick thing.
And what's nice about trackingno matter what happens whether
(22:24):
you're over or under yourtargets, not eating doesn't
matter is it will have precisionand accuracy to show you what
happens to your body in thosetimes.
I actually want you to track inthe times that are off plan.
So quote, unquote, so we cansee what happens to your
expenditure in those times.
You could adjust accordinglyand you get honest data to
create that feedback loop sothat you have confidence on how
(22:46):
much to eat, what to eat andwhen.
You also have to weigh yourselfconsistently.
So I've talked before about howweighing every day is
associated with success andmaintaining your results.
It is not associated withobsessiveness, because when you
weigh every day, you can see thenatural fluctuations caused by
things that have nothing to dowith fat.
Weigh every day, you can seethe natural fluctuations caused
by things that have nothing todo with fat, and then you have
(23:07):
to take a trend of that overtime.
So, like macro factor uses a 20day exponential moving average,
you don't have to understandwhat that means, but if you
think of the 20 days, that'sabout three weeks.
That means fat gain, fat loss,is really only estimated with
any precision after about threeweeks of data.
The next thing is you have tounderstand that there are lots
(23:29):
of things other than fat thatwill cause your weight to change
.
So, again tying into thecomment I just made about daily
weight tracking, we have waterretention, sodium intake,
carbohydrate levels, hormonalcycles, inflammation from
training.
Again, what matters is thetrend over weeks.
The next thing is you don't wantto manually override the
calculations.
So this is another problem Isee is that some people will say
(23:51):
, well, it says the expenditureis lower than I like, or I don't
think my expenditure is thatlow and you're like tempted to
manually change it.
Well, once you've been usingthe app for I'll say, three or
four weeks maybe as little astwo, but usually three or four
weeks of daily food trackingwhere you log everything you
can't do partial days or it'llthink you ate less and daily
weighing it's going to have apretty darn accurate assessment
(24:13):
of your expenditure and if it'slower than you like, that's a
reality you have to face.
But that's a great thingbecause it's empowering data and
it could explain why you'vebeen stuck trying to lose weight
or fat all these years, andthen you could decide what to do
about it.
You also have to give thesethings time.
I've mentioned this a couple oftimes.
Dynamic calculation is going tobecome more accurate the longer
(24:33):
you use it.
So the first few weeks youalmost can't trust anything
because you don't have enoughprecision, but by, say, four to
six weeks, the algorithm ishighly personalized and then, of
course, course, you would usethis as a learning tool.
That is really my last commenton this is it's not just hitting
targets which, by the way,macro factor doesn't judge you
on whether you're over or under,it doesn't color code things,
(24:54):
it's completely adherenceneutral.
It's very nice, it's very goodfor the psychological aspect,
but beyond just hitting targets,you can pay attention to how
different foods affect yourhunger, your energy, your
performance and, yes, yourexpenditure, and tie it all
together right.
The goal isn't just to complyto numbers.
The goal is really tounderstand your body's unique
(25:15):
response to what you do, whatyou eat, and then adjust
accordingly.
And that's why, as a coach, Ireally love that my clients use
it, because we get far moreprecise and insightful data than
a traditional macro meal plancoach would ever have.
And then I can go to that nextlevel of being a detective and
helping you understand why thedata is doing what it's doing.
(25:36):
And that eliminates guesswork.
It eliminates the frustrationfrom using MyFitnessPal,
tracking your food and notknowing why you're not getting
the result.
Instead of wondering and beingconstantly frustrated, you're
going to have a system thatreflects your body's reality and
creates a continuous feedbackloop, and that's how we make
progress in life, in fitness, innutrition, everything the cool
(25:57):
thing about tracking in generalso just to throw a bone to any
of these apps where you'vedecided to track your food and
you weren't before is it willstart to change your behavior,
sometimes in ways you don'tnotice.
Research shows that people whotrack their food just track tend
to move more throughout the day.
They tend to make slightlybetter food choices, even when
they're not consciously tryingto.
It's why I love having myclients track from day one, so
(26:20):
that they start to change theirown behavior.
Listen, I have clients reachout to me in the first few weeks
and they're like I just noticedthis, so I changed this.
I just noticed I didn't have noprotein, so I did this.
I'm not even telling them to dothis stuff Right, and that's
great, because a lot of this ison you, and I don't mean that in
a bad way.
I mean you've got the power.
It's you've.
(26:46):
You take the action.
But it really helps to havesomeone looking over your
shoulder to understand why thedata is doing what it's doing,
so you can take the rightactions.
And then you take this to thenext level not just track your
food, but track your expenditureso that you can measure your
actual response to food whileyou're tracking.
It's really a profound shift inthinking.
It's from trying to conform towhat you think is how many
calories you're burning, basedon a formula, to actually
observing and working with whatyour metabolism is doing.
(27:07):
And if you went back 10 yearsbefore Macrofactor existed, the
way someone would tell you to dothis is to manually track your
food and manually track yourweight and kind of guess and
eyeball how your weight ischanging to your food.
But it's very rough, it's veryimprecise, and so that's why I
recommend Macrofactor, whichthen gives you not a dumb
tracking app but a smart systemthat closes the loop.
(27:29):
So anyway, we've covered a lotof ground today and just to
bring it all together, thetraditional apps my fitness pal
lose it chronometer.
They have static metabolismformulas that remain fixed
regardless of how your bodyresponds.
So don't tell me when I suggestusing macro factor.
Oh no, I don't need to do that,I already use chronometer, it's
(27:49):
free, Like, okay, well, you're,you're tracking food and that's
it.
You're not going to get theresult you want without knowing
what's actually happening inyour body Period.
They ignore metabolicadaptation, they fail to account
for how your weight changes.
They fail to account for energychanges and exercise changes
and all of that.
They're dumb in a world whereyou need smart.
So even if you've beenfollowing your app's
recommendations but you're notseeing the results, it's not
(28:10):
because you are doing somethingwrong.
It's because you have the wrongtargets.
So if you want to experience adifference and this is what the
only little sales pitch I'mgoing to make here is to go
ahead and try macro factor forfree for two weeks.
Link is in the show notes.
Use my code wits and weightsall one word.
I personally have used the appsince the day it came out.
All my clients, everyone inPhysique University, use the app
(28:34):
.
It is highly empowering.
It's going to change your life.
It is a paid app and yet whatyou get for it is worth
multiples upon multiples of thecost.
I think it's still $71.99 for ayear.
Now, that's in US dollars.
But try it for free using thecode witsandweights all one word
.
Link is in the show notes.
I also have a step-by-stepYouTube video that shows you how
to set it up properly to findyour true maintenance calories
(28:54):
the first time.
So I'm going to include linksto both in the show notes.
Grab the app, try it out.
You've got two weeks to try itout.
If you don't like it, no risk,don't use it and watch my video
on setting it up and you'regoing to be good, you're going
to be awesome.
Then you're going to bereaching out saying, okay, cool,
now I see what you were talkingabout.
Now I understand my true targets.
Now I need to put this into thenext level, combining it with
(29:17):
my training, with my meal timing, making sure it works for me,
with my biofeedback and myenergy, and really get the fat
loss that I'm going for.
But step one is to starttracking your food and weight
using Macrofactor.
Use my code, wits and Weights,Get the link in the show notes
and watch the video.
All right, until next time,keep using your wits, lifting
those weights and remembersuccessful body composition
(29:39):
change, fat loss, muscle gain,whatever it is, comes from
understanding how your uniquemetabolism is changing, not
trying to conform to a generic,static, unchanging formula.
This is Philip Pape and you'vebeen listening to Wits and
Weights.
I'll talk to you next time.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com