To decide if your current setting is right for you, take our goal quiz here, or consider your priorities and current situation as follows:
If your goal is to gain muscle AND body weight, you should select one of the muscle gain options. You might still build muscle on other settings, but your results would be optimized by choosing a muscle gain goal and putting yourself in a substantial calorie surplus.
lower-calorieIf your goal is to lose weight AND you have a healthy metabolism and are able to stick to a lower calorie diet, select one of the weight loss settings. If you’ve never tracked your food before, we recommend starting with a slow, sustainable weight loss option and then choosing a more aggressive option if you want faster progress as you become more experienced with tracking macros.
If you’ve just finished a diet, are already struggling to stick to a lower calorie diet, or feel your metabolism may have been impacted by your diet history (for example, you’re eating very few calories to maintain your weight and/or have a recent history of long, extreme, or repeated bouts of dieting), consider choosing the reverse diet option. A reverse diet will train your metabolism to burn more calories (partly by giving you the energy to move around more). This can allow you to eat more food in order to maintain your body weight, while also giving you calorie targets that are easier to stick to and a mental break from dieting. Once your metabolism is in a better place and you’ve spent at least a few months on a reverse diet setting, you’ll probably want to switch to maintenance for a little while before attempting weight loss again.
If you’ve just finished a reverse diet or are simply happy with where your weight is now, you’ll want to select the maintenance goal. By switching your goal to maintenance for a while after a reverse diet, you’ll ensure your body has ample time to adapt to your new higher calorie intake. You’ll also give yourself a longer mental break from dieting and more time to efficiently build muscle, which together can increase your motivation and maximize your success when you do switch back to a weight loss goal.
If you aren’t eating a whole lot of food but want to build muscle efficiently WITHOUT gaining weight, you should select the reverse diet option. This will give your body extra calories to work with and put you in a better position to gain muscle without forcing you to gain scale weight. You may still gain some weight, but the system won’t REQUIRE that you gain weight.