MacroFactoris a weight-tracking and food-tracking app that does what I previously did with three different free apps.
The second is psychological: MacroFactor presents its numbers in a way that is factual and judgment-neutral.
You ate this many calories.
You burned this many calories.
No talk of being off track, no incessant notifications about whether or not youre meeting your goals.
The information is just there.
it’s possible for you to use it however you like.
Its commonly called TDEE, for total daily energy expenditure.
(For a primer, checkour weight-loss-minus-the-bullshit post here.
Gaining weight works the same way except youll be adding calories instead of subtracting them.)
Ultimately, the way you find your TDEE is by paying attention to how your weight changes over time.
And as a rebel, I say: fuck that.
But Im also just a human being eating food because thats a thing we humans do.
The free answer to this problem is touse Cronometer instead of something like MyFitnessPal.
I can just log my food and the numbers are what they are.
Works just as well.
I use MacroFactor, of course.
The app shows you each day of the week as a column of rectangles.
If you go under, your rectangle is shorter than its shadow.
Theres no omg you went over siren, and no third degree about how closely you followed the instructions.
If youre heavier this week than last week, on average, then youre probably gaining.
Yep, it does exactly this when calculating your TDEE.
Sometimes the trend line can seem slow to react to real changes; thats the tradeoff you make.
Overall, Im happy with how it handles the trend.
Put this all together
So heres how it looks from day to day.
Luckily, MacroFactor launched right when it was time to lose some of the weight I had gained.
Ijusthit my goal this morning, and Ill probably do a maintenance phase next.
Its been fascinating to watch my estimated calorie expenditure change over these past two months or so.
I wont be surprised if my TDEE bumps up a little when Im back in maintenance mode.
If youve been reading carefully, you already know the answer.
