This article provides a detailed breakdown of how the app calculates and updates your calorie target during your weekly nutrition check-in. If you want a simpler, high level explanation of how the feature works, see our General Overview of the Nutrition Check-In article.
The Nutrition Check-In is designed to continuously improve our understanding of your maintenance calories and adjust your calorie targets based on your selected fitness goal.
Unlike traditional calorie calculators that rely solely on your questionnaire responses, our system uses your real-world nutrition and weight data to estimate how many calories your body is actually burning.
What data does the app use?
To generate your recommendations, the app analyzes:
- Your nutrition logs
- Your weigh-ins
- Your selected fitness goal
- Your selected Weight Pacer setting
While recent data is weighted most heavily, the app can now consider up to 90 days of historical nutrition and weight data when estimating your maintenance calories (TDEE).
This allows the system to make more stable and accurate recommendations over time rather than reacting too aggressively to short-term fluctuations in body weight, water retention, travel, illness, or unusual weeks.
Why are some nutrition days excluded?
You may notice that some days are not included in your Nutrition Check-In calculations.
Generally, days where calorie intake falls below 80% of your assigned calorie target are excluded.
This is because these days often represent:
- Partial food logs
- Missed entries
- Incomplete tracking
- Unusual eating days that do not accurately reflect normal intake
In previous versions of the app, users could manually confirm these days for inclusion.
Because the system now uses a much larger historical dataset, including up to 90 days of information, these underreported days have a minimal impact on the overall maintenance calorie calculation and can often introduce more noise than useful information.
For this reason, days below the 80% threshold are now automatically excluded from the check-in process.
Why did my calories change if I was "on track"?
Your calorie recommendation is not determined solely by the previous week's results.
The system is continuously trying to move you toward the rate of gain or loss selected in your Weight Pacer settings.
For example:
- If your goal is to lose 1 lb per week and your progress is consistently slower than that, the app may recommend a larger deficit.
- If your goal is to gain muscle at a specific rate and your progress is consistently below that target, the app may recommend additional calories.
- If your progress is faster than expected, the app may recommend smaller adjustments to keep you aligned with your selected pace.
Because the system uses both recent and historical data, there may be situations where the recommendation appears different from what you would expect based on the most recent week alone.
What if the recommendations feel too aggressive?
The calorie recommendation is ultimately a recommendation, not a requirement.
If you're making good progress and feel that a new recommendation is too aggressive or unsustainable, you are always free to:
- Ignore the recommendation
- Override your nutrition targets manually (through your profile settings > Override Nutrition Targets)
- Continue with your current calorie target
Many users find that slower, more sustainable progress leads to better long-term adherence and results.
Understanding the Weight Pacer
One of the most important settings in the app is your Weight Pacer.
This setting tells the system how quickly you would like to gain or lose weight.
If you consistently fail to achieve the selected rate of gain or loss, the app will continue attempting to adjust your calories to move you toward that goal.
As a result:
- More aggressive fat loss goals generally require larger calorie deficits.
- More aggressive muscle gain goals generally require larger calorie surpluses.
If the recommendations begin to feel difficult to follow, consider selecting a more conservative rate of gain or loss within your Weight Pacer settings.
Many users find that slower rates are easier to sustain while still producing excellent results over time.
Calorie Floors for Fat Loss
To help promote sustainability and adequate nutrition, the app will not reduce calorie recommendations below certain minimum thresholds.
Current calorie floors are:
- Women: 1,200 calories/day
- Men: 1,500 calories/day
For most individuals, these represent the lowest sustainable calorie targets we would recommend during a fat loss phase.
If you are approaching these calorie levels and experiencing:
- Excessive hunger
- Fatigue
- Poor workout performance
- Difficulty adhering to the plan
You may want to consider:
- Using a less aggressive Weight Pacer setting
- Maintaining your current calorie target if you're already making satisfactory progress
Remember that consistency over time almost always produces better results than pursuing the most aggressive deficit possible.
How confident is the app in its recommendations?
The app assigns confidence ratings based on the quantity and quality of your logged data.
The more consistently you log your nutrition and body weight, the more accurately the app can estimate your maintenance calories and make future recommendations.
As always, accurate and consistent logging will provide the best results!
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.