MacroFactor vs. LoseIt: Which Is Better? (Pros & Cons)

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Our team at Feastgood.com has tested over 20 diet-tracking apps, two of those being MacroFactor and Lose It. I’ve compared them across nine key categories and highlighted their pros and cons to help you decide between the two.

Key Takeaways

• MacroFactor was the clear winner, with a win in 8 out of 9 categories reviewed (more on this later – each category is in the article).

• MacroFactor is best for people who want the experience of working with a nutrition coach, with tailored macronutrient targets that are dynamically adjusted each week.  This is important for people with advanced performance and/or body composition goals and the time, energy, and skill to put into hitting new targets each week.

• Lose It is best for people who want a basic calorie-counting app to help them achieve their weight loss goals.  It’s a good choice for people who feel overwhelmed with tracking macros and aren’t concerned with optimizing athletic performance and/or body composition.

What Is MacroFactor?

Overall rating: 4.8/5

MacroFactor is a nutrition tracking app for tracking macronutrients and micronutrients (along with other health markers, as well as logging exercise).  

It has such advanced capabilities that it is described as “having a coach in your pocket.”  Those capabilities include providing updated macro targets each week to keep you on track with your stated goal.

MacroFactor starts out similar to many other nutrition tracking apps by collecting information about you in a questionnaire, and then it calculates a starting calorie and macronutrient goal to help you reach your goal in your stated timeframe.

The real “magic” happens after your first week of tracking when the app reviews your intake to your recorded progress, and dynamically adjusts your targets as needed to keep you on track with your goal, just the way a real-life coach would.  

Of course, it isn’t “magic” at all – the app uses scientific algorithms developed by founder Greg Nuckols to come up with the macro targets to meet your goals.

While there is no free version of the app, when you compare the cost with other popular calorie and macro tracking apps, like MyFitnessPal, it’s almost half the price.  

You can get a one-week free when you download the app, or you can get two weeks free if you use the code FEASTGOOD, which will give you the ability to see how the weekly check-ins work. 

Pros

• The calorie and macronutrient targets are customizable
• The calorie and macronutrient distribution can be customized for different days (e.g. rest days versus training days)
• The food database is very large and provides detailed nutrition information
• There are three program options: coached, collaborative, and manual
• There are four food logging options, including AI description

Cons

• There is no free version of the app
• There is no desktop version of the app

What Is LoseIt?

Overall rating: 4.0/5

LoseIt is a calorie-counting app focused on weight loss.  

That means the calorie targets provided by the app are for weight loss and not other goals like maintenance or weight gain.  

Macronutrient tracking is not offered in the free version of the app; the paid version provides the option to track macronutrients and a small number of micronutrients.

LoseIt has been used by several different members of our team here at FeastGood, and we all found that its recommended calorie targets are too low for active and/or muscular people.  It also does not recommend a high-enough protein intake to support lean muscle mass.

We also noticed that the macronutrient suggestions in the premium version of the app may not line up with the recommended calories, and are not accurate.

You can adjust the targets in the app if you already know appropriate calorie and/or macronutrient targets for your goals, but that requires knowledge of nutrition tracking before using the app, and for many people, they won’t have the knowledge. 

  However, if you are working with a Registered Dietician or nutrition coach, you can put their recommendations in the app.

As such, LoseIt is a good app to use when you are working with a coach or other healthcare professional because it can send them daily or weekly nutrition reports.  

These reports include food logs and records of calories burned if you log your exercise in the app.  It’s worth noting that these reports are only available in the paid version of the app.

The app also has a user-friendly interface, and it’s got a built-in social network right in the app for support, advice, and encouragement.  This is a nice touch compared to having to go to an external Facebook group or other type of online community or forum.

Pros

• The calorie and macronutrient targets are customizable
• The app can send reports to healthcare professionals you are working with
• The support community is built-in

Cons

• The calorie targets are too low for sustainable weight loss for active people
• The macronutrient recommendations are inaccurate
• The membership options are limited

MacroFactor vs. LoseIt: Head To Head Comparison

1. Food Database

MacroFactor

MacroFactor has a large food database with detailed entries including amino acid distribution, fibrous carbohydrates, and micronutrients.  This is great for people who really want to optimize even the smallest details of their nutrition to optimize performance and/or aesthetics.  Most of the entries in the database are verified.

LoseIt

LoseIt also has a large food database, but its entries are not as detailed as in MacroFactor and LoseIt’s database includes both verified and unverified foods.  Also, the “verified” foods in LoseIt are only verified by the Lose It team.  This means that they might not match independent nutrition databases like the Nutrition Coordinating Center Database (NCCDB) and so the foods could have inaccurate nutritional information, leading to inaccurate tracking.  This would make it harder to reach your goals.

2. Tracking Capabilities

MacroFactor

MacroFactor has advanced tracking capabilities, including food data (calories, macronutrients and detailed micronutrient information), exercise, body weight, body fat percentage, body circumference measurements, progress photos, and body measurements.  MacroFactor then calculates and displays body weight trends.

3. Calorie Recommendations

MacroFactor

MacroFactor’s calorie recommendations tend to be fairly accurate, but even if they’re not initially, the app quickly updates (within 1-week of logging meals) to align them with a user’s actual experience.

LoseIt

As mentioned, the calorie targets in LoseIt are generally too low for active and/or muscular people.  You can override the target in LoseIt, but this doesn’t make up for the fact that the recommendation isn’t very high quality to begin with.

4. Level of Customization

MacroFactor

MacroFactor has an extremely high level of customization.  Users can set different calories and macros for different days.  Users can also adjust their desired rate of weight loss (or weight gain), and macro distribution (for example if they prefer high-carb or low-carb day).  Users can also set a “calorie floor” to ensure the calorie deficit is never so big as to be unhealthy/unsustainable.

LoseIt

Like MacroFactor, LoseIt users can also set different calorie targets for different days of the week.  Unfortunately, there is no “calorie floor” feature and LoseIt will sometimes recommend a calorie deficit that is too large for healthy, sustainable weight loss.

For example, LoseIt suggested that my calorie intake should be 1,200 calories.  Compared to my intake of around 2,300 calories to maintain my weight, this is too big of a calorie deficit for healthy, sustainable weight loss.  

This low intake level would make it more likely that I would lose lean muscle mass instead of body fat, and I’d be so hungry that cravings might become unmanageable, setting me up for binges.

5. Education Opportunities

MacroFactor

Users of MacroFactor get extensive, detailed newsletters via email for education on macro-tracking, meal-prep, the science of weight loss, and much more. 

Even just by using the app itself and reading its explanations for macronutrient updates teaches users a lot about weight loss and weight gain, optimal rates of gain and loss, and calorie cycling strategies.

LoseIt

The only “education” in LoseIt is learning about calorie count (and macronutrient breakdown, if you’re using the paid version) in certain foods.  The “insights” are graphs based on your calorie or nutrient trends over time.

There is no newsletter or blog post to provide detailed educational information like MacroFactor’s newsletter.

6. Coaching

MacroFactor

The major selling feature of MacroFactor is its functionality that acts as a built-in coach.  Users can even choose just how much coaching they want to receive:

• Coached: The app dynamically updates calorie and macronutrient targets each week based on the food logs and body weight recordings input by the users.

• Collaborative: The app suggests recommended calorie and macronutrient targets each week (similar to Coached), but the user can make adjustments as desired and does not have to accept the recommendations.

• Manual: The user makes all changes to calorie and macronutrient targets.  This can be an option for experienced users and/or those who are working with their own nutrition coach or other healthcare professional.

LoseIt

LoseIt does not have a coaching feature at all.

7. Recipe Database

MacroFactor

There is no recipe database in MacroFactor.  Users can input their own recipes, including details like descriptions, step-by-step instructions, and cooking times, but there is no way to access recipes from or share recipes with other users.

LoseIt

There is no recipe database in LoseIt.

8. Exercise Calories

For reference, most nutrition tracking apps will estimate how many calories are burned from exercise when it is logged in the app (or synced from a connected device like a FitBit). 

Some apps will automatically add these estimated calories to your daily total calorie target, effectively causing you to “earn” more calories from exercise.  

This isn’t necessarily a great practice because it can perpetuate the unhelpful idea that calories have to be “earned” which can lead to unhealthy over-exercising activity, or using exercise as “punishment” for overeating.  

Also, a good daily target should already take into account an average expenditure for activity.  

I’ll cover what each app does with exercise calories:

MacroFactor

As I said above, a good target already considers your average activity level.  MacroFactor includes stated activity level as part of the intake process for your initial calorie & macronutrient recommendation.

The app then pays attention to your body weight trend, body fat percentage and recorded input to adjust your recommended targets.  It does not explicitly consider exercise.  If you’re losing weight too quickly, the app will naturally add more calories to your target.  If you’re losing weight too slowly, the app will adjust your target downwards.

In this way, exercise (or lack thereof) and its impact on body weight is “naturally” factored into the recommendations, without needing to track it explicitly.

LoseIt

LoseIt has more of an “all or nothing” approach with exercise calories: it will either add all of the estimated calorie burn from activity to the daily calorie target, or it will exclude the estimated calorie burn when “exclude from total calories” is selected during exercise logging.

9. Price

MacroFactor

As mentioned, there is no free version of MacroFactor.  After a 7-day free trial (use code FEASTGOOD for 2 weeks free), the options for a subscription include:

• $11.99 US per month
• $47.99 US per 6 months ($7.99/month)
• $71.99 US per 12 months ($5.99/month)

LoseIt

LoseIt does have a free version, but the tracking and other capabilities in that version are very limited (can only track calories and cannot record body measurements other than weight)..  

The only membership options are:

• $39.99 US per 12 months ($3.33/month)
• $189.99 US for a lifetime membership

It’s uncommon to see that there are no shorter membership options since many users would not use an app for a year continuously.

On the other hand, a lifetime membership is less expensive in the long-run if you use the app for several years, even if it’s off and on.