Cass Anderson / BroBible
Audio By Carbonatix
This is part 1 in a series of articles I have planned to share with you all about my fat loss and muscle gain journey so far this year. At some point, I’ll share my before/after photos with you all because the results have been drastic but I’m still a little self-conscious about putting all that on the Internet. Since January 30th, I’ve lost 34 pounds while gaining muscle along the way and I have visible abs for probably the first time since college, all thanks to the MacroFactor App.
My hope is that at least one of you readers is in need of a change, like I was, and I can show you how easy it is to shed weight the way I did it. The downside is everyone will think you took a weight loss shot and didn’t put in the hard work but hey, you can’t win ’em all, right?
How I’ve Lost 30+ Pounds Since January, Gained Muscle, And Made It Back To My ‘College Weight’ With The MacroFactor App
For most of my life my weight has yo-yo’d. I’ve had 3 major weight loss cycles in my life. Once when I was 14. Again when I was 35. And this most recent journey actually goes back to around Thanksgiving 2023 when I weighed the most I’d ever been in my life and I was suffering from knee pain, due to a variety of factors but most of which can be distilled down to me being too heavy for my frame.
My doctor ordered me 8 sessions of physical therapy and it was at that point, despite doing cardio on a stationary bike 2-4x a week, I realized how out of shape my leg muscles were. PT went well and by the new year I was done and they gave me a set of leg exercises to keep doing at home to stave off knee pain and I took it seriously. I started going to the gym again.
At first it was just 2x a week for ‘leg day’ but after 1 or 2 weeks I realized it was silly of me to be there without also lifting upper body. So I started lifting weights 4 days a week and feeling stronger but my weight really wasn’t changing much at all… Between January 2024 and January 2025, I lost at most 10 pounds. I was a bit stronger, sure. But I was still 35 pounds overweight for my height.
Then on Thursday, January 30th, a friend of mine texted me early in the morning and tells me about MacroFactor, an app he’d just discovered for weight loss. He’s considerably skinnier than I and was seeking to get to sub-10% body fat.
MacoFactor
My interest was piqued and I checked out the app. It’s a paid app (monthly/6-month/annual subscription) which immediately turned me off. Until MacroFactor I’ve quite literally never paid for another app other than the DarkSky weather app which Apple famously acquired and killed and I’ve been salty about ever since.
With MacroFactor, you can use the code ‘MFER’ when you sign up and get 2 free weeks as a trial to see if it works for you. I did that. Two days in I went ahead and paid for the full year up front. It’s $5.99/mo if you pay for the full year up front. Now, here is where I should tell you to use the promo code ‘brobible’ when signing up but I’ll get to that later and that’s entirely your choice. I’m not here to sell you on an affiliate opportunity, I’m writing this because I believe in this app more than any startup I’ve ever come across.
After using the app for 100+ days I proactively reached out to MacroFactor about their affiliate program to see about ways I could help grow the community. Why did I do that when I co-own and operate BroBible? Well, because MacroFactor has worked so well for me I’ve converted numerous people in my life, including many here at BroBible.
I’ve got our CEO J-Camm using MacroFactor as well as senior editor Grayson Weir. I’ve hooked my lifelong best friend who was the best man at my wedding on the app. He’s already seen considerable weight loss. I also got my dad on the app as well as my brother-in-law.
Download the MacroFactor App For iPhone or Android – use code bROBIBLE
The thing is, the results speak for themselves. People who saw me over the holidays and see me now immediately want to know what’s changed in my life. They ask if I’ve been taking one of the weight loss shots. How I did it. And it can be distilled down to this: using MacroFactor’s AI analysis to create a sustainable weight loss program for me, while using the app to track meals.
Using The MacroFactor App To Lose Fat
Cass Anderson / Brobible
Like most people who are chronically online, when I first hear about some new app or product the first thing I do is Google ‘product/app name + reddit’ so I can see crowd sourced reviews. Mind you, this is all still on the morning of January 30th. That is my weight loss chart so far this year, btw. It says January 27h because that was the start of the week, even though I began on the 30th.
What I found when searching ‘MacroFactor + Reddit’ was a thriving community, many of whom were engaged in a 100-day challenge that began on January 1st and I’d missed the start date of. But it was an active community of people sharing results, recipes, seeking advice on fatigue, and the MacroFactor admins/developers themselves are insanely active in the subreddit which I found refreshing. They post MF’s lengthy blog posts about health topics, articles that take 30 minutes to read, but which blow your mind in the process. It was all such a massive breath of fresh air.
Here’s how it all works, from Day 1 through the first few weeks…
Step 1) go to MacroFactor.com or the AppStore and download the app.
Step 2) Use the code ‘MFER’ for a free extended 14-day trial. If you choose to just go ahead and sign up for the first month, 6 months, or year then that will automatically be tacked on and you won’t pay until 2 weeks in. Consider using the affiliate code ‘brobible‘ if you found any of this information helpful. We will get a small kickback if you stay past the 2-weeks. Again, that’s entirely your choice and I don’t want to push that on you. But if you think it’s helpful, spread the love.
Step 3) You input basic information about yourself… Your current height, weight, the rate at which you want to lose weight (1-2lbs/week is generally the max recommended limit). If you wear an AppleWatch or FitBit you can connect it.
Step 4) Start logging meals and weighing yourself regularly. It is suggested you weigh yourself each morning after waking up and urinating so you take the same measurement each day but if you weigh yourself even once a month the app will still have data to work with… Inputting meals/weight is incredibly easy. You can log recipes, favorites, save items…It really is weight loss for dummies and I can say that as a dummy. But here’s where it all gets pretty damn cool.
Download the MacroFactor App For iPhone or Android – Use code bROBIBLE
Here is a look at my ‘Energy Balance’ after a few months… My daily caloric deficit + how far below my daily calorie targets I’m finishing, on average:
Cass Anderson / BroBible
MacroFactor will provide you with daily goals to hit, how many grams of protein, fat, and carbohydrates you should be eating each day, and a ceiling for calories. Follow those instructions and the weight flies off. How do I know? Because I’ve lost nearly 35 pounds since January 30th doing this. Because half of the people in my life are doing the same right now after I turned them onto the app.
MF’s Scanner And AI Functionality
When I first started using the MacroFactor App, I found myself constantly using the app’s barcode scanner. If you eat/drink anything with a barcode, and I eat a lot of Deep Indian Kitchen frozen meals for lunch, you can scan the barcode and it automatically pulls the information and inputs it into the app.
But in the months since I’ve been using MacroFactor they rolled out new ‘AI’ functionality and it’s the first time of the AI revolution I didn’t think to myself ‘AI sucks so much.’ With MF’s AI scanner, you take a picture of your plate (at a restaurant, wherever) and it uses AI to analyze the items on your plate and give you highly accurate estimations of the macros.
I was skeptical at first until I was coming back from The Masters last month and eating BBQ turkey in the Charlotte airport. I snapped a photo of my plate with the app and it nailed it. At first I thought it was wrong, it said I had 4 slices and I only saw 3. Well, the app was right and my eyes just stink. It accurately identified everything on my plate and in the correct quantities. I was floored.
Each week, MacroFactor’s ‘Strategy’ for you updates. Typically, as you lose weight your daily caloric expenditure goes down. You’re skinnier. You are eating less and your body requires less to burn fat. So the app strips me of about 8 calories each week. My rate is set at losing 1 pound/week but I try and beat that each week, which I’m successful at most of the time.
MacroFactor and the Science of Weight Loss
MacroFactor
On its face, weight loss is easy. You need to be in a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat. With 7 days in the week, that’s a daily caloric deficit of 500 calories. Easy, right?
Well, how do you ensure you are losing fat and not muscle? You need to be tracking your daily protein/fat/carbs to ensure you are getting enough carbs, fat, and protein so your body burns fat instead of muscle. Earlier this month, MacroFactor published an incredible article titled ‘Tips for Exercising When in a Calorie Deficit‘ which goes into extreme detail on why your macros need to be balanced.
In Volume 2 of this series, I will go into depth about my own personal dietary changes + workout regimen. As a quick overview, I’ll say that I kept up with weight lifting and cardio as before, but actually tracking what was going into my body was the ultimate game changer for me.
I’ll publish Volume 2 some time next week but for now, I encourage anyone out there who is looking to lose weight to join me on MacroFactor… I still have beers when I want them… I’m using my Traeger and Ninja Creami more than ever… It’s not about cutting out everything in life that makes you happy, what this app does is give you the framework to lose weight sustainably over the course of months.
Since January 30th, I’m down to 162 pounds from 195+. I have lost 3 inches to my waist line. Everywhere I go people are giving me unprompted compliments on how great I look these days. I’m stronger than I’ve been in 20 years after a sustained effort in the gym with resistance training. And my ego, unfortunately, is an at all-time high.
You will thank yourself for embarking on this journey as you’ll feel healthier, add longevity to your life, and look better in the mirror. And like I said before, if you feel like this added value to your life then consider using the promo code ‘brobible‘ when signing up.
And let me be clear, I’m not trying to ‘monetize’ my weight loss and body recomposition journey here. I legit believe in this app so much that I’ve just written 2,000 words about how much I believe in it and how much it has changed my life. The reasons we gain weight overtime are infinite. For me it was a combination of the loss of a parent, birth of my son, and the pandemic disrupting my fitness and health routine. It’s taken me 5 years to get back to a really healthy spot and I know that a lot of people out there could use some help too. So that’s why I’ve written this today.