Your calorie target is built from two numbers: your expenditure, which is how many calories you burn, and your goal rate, which sets how far below or above your expenditure to eat. With Plus, MacrosFirst measures your expenditure from your food logs and weigh-ins, and your weekly check-in turns it into new targets. So when your target looks wrong, the cause is almost always one of three things: the data going in, the goal you chose, or the timing of updates.
Find the section below that matches what you're seeing. New to how targets work? Start with How MacrosFirst Sets Your Targets.
Your goal rate of weight loss is aggressive. Your rate of weight loss decides how far below your expenditure your target sits. At 180 lb, losing 0.5% of your body weight a week puts your target about 450 calories below your expenditure, and 1% a week puts it about 900 below. If your target feels hard to stick to, choose a slower rate with Edit Goal on the Plan tab. See Setting Your Weight Goal.
Some days weren't fully logged. A partially logged day looks like a very low-calorie day. If your weight didn't drop to match, MacrosFirst concludes you burn less than you really do, and your targets drift down. Open the day in your Journal, tap ..., then Edit Day Details, and mark it Incomplete so it's left out. See What Data MacrosFirst Needs to Update Your Targets.
Early in your plan, your targets come from a starting estimate based on population averages, and two people with the same stats can burn hundreds of calories apart. If you burn less than the estimate, your weight won't move as quickly as planned, and over your next few check-ins MacrosFirst brings your target down to match what you really burn. Keep logging consistently and give it a few weeks.
If you already know your maintenance calories well, for example from months of careful tracking, you can set your own starting estimate in Expenditure Settings.
This one surprises people, but it usually means things are going well. Your target is there to keep you losing at the rate you chose, not to keep you eating as little as possible. If you lose faster than planned, MacrosFirst learns that you burn more than it thought, and raises your target to bring you back to your rate.
Say you weigh 180 lb and chose to lose 0.5% a week, about 0.9 lb. MacrosFirst estimated you burn 2,500 calories a day, so your target started at about 2,050. But your trend weight has been dropping 1.2 lb a week, which means you're really burning closer to 2,650. Over your next few check-ins, your target rises toward 2,200, so you keep losing about 0.5% a week instead of faster. If you'd like to lose faster, change your rate with Edit Goal.
If you've been hitting your targets and your weight isn't dropping as fast as planned, MacrosFirst learns that you burn less than it estimated, and brings your target down to match. That's the system doing its job: it replaces the starting estimate with what your own data shows.
Your target also comes down gradually as you lose weight, because a smaller body needs less energy to maintain and move. Your percentage-based rate keeps that change small and steady. See Energy Balance: Why Progress Can Slow and How MacrosFirst Adapts.
Before you accept a lower target, check the past couple of weeks for partially logged days. They're the most common reason expenditure drops when it shouldn't.
Your check-in is waiting. With Autopilot or Copilot, your expenditure updates as you log, but your targets only change when you complete your weekly check-in. Look for the red dot on the Plan tab. If you tapped Skip, keep current plan last time, your targets stay the same until your next check-in.
Your expenditure is holding. To update your expenditure, MacrosFirst needs food logged on at least 3 of the past 7 days and at least 2 weigh-ins in the past 14 days. Without that, your expenditure holds where it is, and your check-in has little new to work with. Your expenditure chart labels those days Exp. holding.
You're at the minimum. MacrosFirst won't set your target below 1,200 calories (women) or 1,500 calories (men), or 85% of your estimated resting energy, whichever is higher. If your target stays at the same number week after week, it's likely at that minimum. You'll keep making progress, just a bit slower than the rate you chose.
You're on a Manual plan or the free plan. Manual plans only change when you edit them. On the free plan, MacrosFirst offers new targets every 10 lb (5 kg) of weight change toward your goal, and the Next plan update card on the Plan tab shows how far you have to go. See Plan Updates on the Free Plan.
Your weight jumped, but your target didn't follow. Your scale weight swings from day to day with water, salt, and carbs, so MacrosFirst follows your trend weight instead. One high or low weigh-in barely moves it. See Scale Weight vs. Trend Weight.
You're back from a break. The first few weeks of new data can move your expenditure more than usual, and it settles as you keep logging. If you'd rather start fresh, set a new expenditure Start date in Expenditure Settings.
Some days were only partially logged. A few unmarked partial days can pull your expenditure down quickly. Review the past couple of weeks and mark any incomplete days.
Your activity significantly changed. If you started or stopped training, or changed jobs, your expenditure really did change, and your targets are catching up. With Plus, MacrosFirst picks this up from your data on its own. On the free plan, update your activity levels in Expenditure Settings so your next plan update reflects it.
Most of your Copilot days are locked. With Copilot, the whole change from a check-in is shared by your unlocked days. If your weekly budget drops by 1,050 calories and only two days are unlocked, each of them comes down by 525. Unlock more days to spread changes out. See Copilot Plan Settings.
That's a configuration you opted into when creating your nutrition plan. You can also change it by editing your nutrition plan at any time.
With Autopilot, if you chose higher-calorie days in your Calorie distribution setting, those days get more and your other days get a little less, so your weekly total stays the same. With Copilot you can also set unique targets for each day of the week. A Manual plan gives you full control over each day’s target, and in your Journal you can override a day’s target by selecting a target from a different day from your manual plan.
That's expected. Most apps estimate your expenditure with a formula based on your height, weight, age, and activity, the same kind of starting estimate MacrosFirst begins with. Wearables estimate calories burned from heart rate and movement, and they're not very good at it: in a Stanford study of seven popular trackers, even the most accurate was off by an average of 27%. MacrosFirst goes further and measures what you burn from what actually happened: what you ate and how your weight trend responded. See Energy Expenditure: How MacrosFirst Measures What You Burn.
Tap More > Contact Us to message our team. It helps to tell us your plan type, your goal and rate, and what you expected your target to be.
Most surprises come down to your data, your goal, or the timing of updates. These articles explain each one:
"How much do I need to log for my targets to update?" What Data MacrosFirst Needs
"How does my rate set my target?" Setting Your Weight Goal
"When do my targets change?" Weekly Check-In
"Why is my expenditure holding?" Reading Your Expenditure Chart
Why doesn't one weigh-in change my target? Your scale weight can swing by several pounds from one day to the next, and knowing why makes your progress much easier to read: Scale Weight vs. Trend Weight.
