Cass Anderson / BroBible
Audio By Carbonatix
Welcome back, everyone! This is an extension of last week’s article about my weight loss/muscle gain journey this year with the MacroFactor App. I’ve lost just shy of 35-pounds of body fat since January 30th and I’m coming up on my goal of losing 40 pounds even after Memorial Day Weekend where my diet went off the rails. But thanks to the MacroFactor App I didn’t give up/lose faith and I’m already back to the weight I was before the holiday after just over 2 days.
If you haven’t read my MacroFactor article from last week yet, you can find it there. In that article, I introduce how I came to learn about the MF App through a friend and how it’s transformed my daily life. Body fat has flown off, I’m the healthiest I’ve been since college, and the strongest I’ve ever been in my life after a sustained resistance/strength training effort this year.
To quickly recap last week’s article: I reached a point in life where I was in desperate need of a change. I was the heaviest I’d ever been, getting injured because I weighed too much for my frame, and despite working out regularly I wasn’t losing any weight at all. Then my friend Prasad introduced me to the MacroFactor app which is the only effective method of losing (or gaining) weight I have ever come across in my life. It has worked so well I have 3 people on the BroBible staff using it, my best friend, my dad, my father-in-law, a handful of friends, and the list goes on and on.
Download the MacroFactor App For iPhone or Android – use code ‘brobible’
Essentially, the MacroFactor app is a nutrition/diet/health app that can be distilled down to ‘Weight Loss For Dummies.’ It’s ad-free (monthly/6-month/annual subscription, and get 1 free week with promo code ‘brobible’) which I love because there are free options on the market driven by ads but those apps are vastly inferior… You know the one(s) I’m talking about.
When you sign up, you put in the promo code ‘brobible’ and get a free extra week on your trial. The app asks for your weight, age, rate at which you want to lose weight each week, and from there you start feeding it daily data: each morning when you wake up and empty your bladder, you weigh yourself. Then throughout the day, you track what you eat. Once a week, the app tells you how many grams of Protein, Fat, and Carbohydrates you should be eating each day along with a calorie ceiling to hit/stay below.
MacoFactor
At the risk of recapping *everything* wrote about last week, the tracking is insanely easy with MacroFactor. The app’s built-in AI feature allows you to snap a photo of your plate and it calculates all of the macros on the plate. If you are eating something with a bar code, I personally eat a ton of Deep Indian Kitchen frozen meals for lunch, then you can scan the barcode and it has all of the macros ready to go.
Very quickly you will see where the holes in your diet are. Which foods you are eating a ton of that aren’t doing you any good….
How do you actually lose fat and gain muscle with MacroFactor? It’s so, so easy
The science of weight loss is more straight-forward than we are led to believe. And the genius of the MacroFactor app is it simplifies tracking your ‘Calories in – Calories out = Change in stored energy’ as well as your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) which you need to know in order to lose weight.
Let me throw out some round numbers here that are easy to understand: 1 pound of fat is roughly equal to 3,500 calories in the sense that, in order to lose 1-pound of fat you need to be in a 3,500-calorie deficit. Over the course of 7 days, that’s an average calorie deficit of 500 calories each day.
It’s relatively easy when you choose 1-pound as a nice round number but what about 1.3 or 1.6? In order to accomplish your weekly weight loss goal, you will need to know (1) your daily caloric intake and (2) your total daily energy expenditure.
Here is the graph of my daily caloric intake and expenditure has looked like since January 30th, when I first started using the MacroFactor App:
Cass Anderson / BroBible
This is my weight loss chart running simultaneous to the energy balance data above. All of this is found in the MacroFactor App… As long as the line is going down, things are good. There will be blips along the way, aka ‘stalls’ where it doesn’t seem like you are losing any weight but ultimately the graph is what you follow and not the day-to-day data. Hence why I wasn’t worried when Tuesday morning I weight 7 pounds more than I did on Sunday morning last weekend.
Cass Anderson / Brobible
If you follow the app’s daily caloric recommendations, you will lose body fat. It is as simple as that. But, you can use the journey as a chance to pack on muscle and really reshape your body (aka ‘body recomposition’).
And consistency is key!!!! MacroFactor just recently announced the winners of their 100-Day MacroFactor Transformation Challenge to start the year. Over 20,000 people competed in the 100-Day Challenge and there were prizes. The grand prize winner actually took home $50,000. They just threw up an Instagram post on winner Kendall Graham’s 100-day results:
I led with ‘consistency is key’ above when mentioning the 100-Day Challenge because what the MF app did for me is really teach me that every day doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m going to have days where I over/under eat. Days where I can’t workout. Sickness happens. But as long as you stick to the goals week after week, and accurately log your weight + what you eat, you will lose fat quickly. I am proof of this as I’ve lost 34 pounds of body fat since January 30th.
Do you still need to exercise on MacroFactor?
One aspect of the MacroFactor App that I love is it doesn’t need to sync with your Apple Watch or other fitness tracker. Using just calories in and your daily weight on the scale, the app’s algorithm can accurately determine your rate of weight loss and adjust accordingly.
Download the MacroFactor App For iPhone or Android – use code ‘brobible’
But, you want to look good, fit, jacked, and not just skinny, right? In order to pack on muscle, you will need to engage in some regular form of resistance training (aka ‘weight lifting’).
For me, I simplify things and break my workouts into 2 days of upper body and 2 days of lower body weight a rest day in between. I also do cardio (stationary bike/spin) 2 nights a week and on the weekend mornings… Mind you, I was doing all of this before I started losing weight. So when I was eating like I was while working out 6 days a week and not losing weight I was pretty disheartened.
However, I don’t look at the cardio/workouts as part of my weight loss process. To me, it serves two purposes: firstly, I’m building more muscle than I’ve had at any time since college. An old lady stopped me this morning to tell me how good I look… Do you know how good that felt?! I also use the cardio in particular as a way to supplement being able to eat more on ‘cheat days’ because frankly, I’m in this for the long haul and if I’m going to lose weight over the span of months I need to still be able to enjoy food/beer.
So for me, 500-calories burned in a spin class is 3-4 beers I can drink on Saturday… I know this isn’t the healthiest approach but honestly, I need to keep some normalcy to my lifestyle along the way.
Protein Is Key, But You Cannot Forget Fat And Carbohydrates
One pitfall of dieting that people often fall into is cutting out carbs/fat while focusing entirely on protein. MacroFactor has an incredible article all about how much protein you should be eating to attain your goals. Similarly, there are articles on how much fat and carbs you should be eating.
Finding the proper balance is key. If you cut out carbs/fat then your body will burn muscle. You don’t want this. You want to look strong-skinny/fit not like someone without any musculature at all.
But you won’t actually have to do any of the math on your Protein/Carbs/Fat daily intake because the MacroFactor App does it for you. Once a week, the app adjusts your goals. As you lose weight, you will require less and it adjusts accordingly…Think about the expenditure like a backpack full of weights (weights = fat) and as you lose that fat, you burn less energy carrying around the backpack as it gets lighter. So the app constantly adjusts to ensure you are hitting your macros.
What Kinds Of Protein And Other Foods Should You Be Eating? MacroFactor To The Rescue
iStockphoto / Jun
You probably know the best protein sources already: boneless/skinless chicken breast, whole milk, salmon, ground turkey, egg whites, beef (and beef jerky), soy/whey protein isolate, tofu, chickpeas, and eggs. BroBible writer Tom Conroy recently saw incredible results from Huel Black Protein Powder. You can read his full review there.
Where I’ve found that I have been able to make the most gains with low-calorie/high-protein foods is chicken. I came into my weight loss journey as a chicken breast hater. I’ve never liked it. But, thanks to my Traeger I’ve been able to come to enjoy it. I start off Monday morning by marinating boneless/skinless chicken breasts in a rub or marinade of some sort and then throw it on the pellet smoker for an hour at 220F and then finish it at 350. Vacuum sealed, it lasts all week and I’m able to reach my daily protein goals.
A morning protein shake is key. I mix mine with concentrated Cometeer coffee, frozen mixed berries, creatine + HMBP from Transparent Labs, and 2 TBSPs of PB2. With that, I start my day with 37 grams of protein, 23 grams of carbohydrates, and 2 grams of fat (251 calories).
Here is what my day looked like on Tuesday, where I was tightening my belt a little after splurging on Sunday and Monday:
Cass Anderson / BroBible
The only reason I’m sharing any of that is to illustrate how as soon as you start using the MacroFactor app you will become keenly aware of what’s going into your body, and that’s where the true weight loss process begins. Next week I’ll write about fiber, water weight, and the importance of a ‘buddy system’ when losing weight but I don’t want to put you all to sleep so for now, check out the MacroFactor App and if you found any of this useful, use the promo code ‘brobible’ when signing up for a free week.