Meal Logging
Meal logging lets a client record what they eat from the client app — either by adding the foods, or by sharing a photo or note. You get a simple meal journal in their dashboard, plus one bundled to-do when they have new meals to review.
What your client does
In the client app, the client opens Meals, chooses which meal it is, and logs it one of two ways:
- By its foods — they search for each food and set an amount, in grams, ounces, cups, spoons or a portion like a scoop. This is the main way to log, and it gives the client their own calorie and macro totals for the day.
- With a photo or note — a quick photo, a short note, or both, for when they are not sure of the exact ingredients (eating out, a friend's cooking, a dish they can't break down).
New to logging by foods? Send your client this 1-minute video. It shows how to log a dish by its ingredients: the oil, the raw rice, the flour in a chapati, and a meal they eat often saved for one tap.
If the client has an active meal plan, the meal choices use the meals from that plan. They can also choose Outside a meal when it is not part of the plan.
Clients see their own running totals from the meals they log by foods. Your assistant's estimates for their photo and note meals stay private to you unless you choose to show them (see Using assistant estimates); either way, they see the reply you choose to send.
Scan packaged food
On Starter and Pro, your clients see a barcode icon beside Search foods. They can:
- Tap the icon and point the camera at the pack's barcode.
- For a new food, check the filled-in details against the pack and correct anything that differs.
- Tap Add to [meal], choose how much they ate, then Add to meal. Log the meal when it is ready.
A food already in the library opens straight at the amount. If its saved details are wrong and Doesn't match your pack? appears, the client can correct them. Their changes update the shared food for everyone; meals already logged keep their original numbers.
If the barcode is not found, they can switch to Label at the bottom of the camera and take a photo of the nutrition table, or add the food themselves. Took the photo earlier? Photos in the camera lets them choose it. A label photo fills in the same food form for the client to check; it does not log the meal by itself.
Scanning and label photos use no assistant actions and have no daily limit. If camera access is off, clients can allow it in their browser settings, choose a photo instead, or carry on searching by name.
Product details come from Open Food Facts or the shared food library. Checking against the pack matters: products and serving sizes can change. You review the resulting meal in the usual place, with no extra approval step.
Want to show your client how it works? Send them Scanning packaged food from their help page. It has a 50-second video.
Several photos, one meal
Clients can choose up to 3 photos before sharing a meal, whether they log foods or use Add a photo or note. For a meal out, they can photograph each course, then log the meal once at the end. Photos cannot be added or replaced after sharing.
A +1 or +2 badge on the meal photo means there are more photos. Open it and use the arrows or swipe to see the rest. The same photos appear when you open a day from the nutrition chart or a check-in.
An estimate considers all the photos together as one meal. When an estimate uses an assistant action, it still uses 1 action, however many photos the meal has.
Where you review meals
You can open a client's meals in two ways:
- From Home, click the meal to-do.
- From the client's dashboard, open the Nutrition tab. Their meal plan sits on one line at the top (click the arrow to open it), and their meals are right below.
Under the weekly chart, the meals read like one list, a day at a time, newest day first:
- Each day starts with a band: the date, how many meals the client logged, how many are still waiting for you, and the day's calories, protein, carbs, and fat. Their targets sit at the top of each column, and a small bar under each number shows how close the day came.
- Under the band, each meal is a row, breakfast first: what they ate (the foods they logged, or their note) and its numbers in the same columns, so you can see which meal moved the day.
- The tick at the end of a row marks that meal reviewed.
The line above the list tells you how many of the client's meals still need review, across all their days.
Days you've finished fold away. Once every meal in a day is reviewed, that day shrinks to its band, so the days that need you sit at the top and older days take one line each. Click a band to open the day again. The newest day always stays open, so even when you're all caught up you land on what the client ate most recently. A day you finish while you're working stays open until you next come back to the tab, so nothing jumps while you're reading.
Older days load a week at a time with Load 7 more days at the bottom.
Opening a meal
Click a meal to open it. Each food they logged gets its own line under the meal, with its calories, protein, carbs, and fat in the same columns, so you can see which food moved the meal. For a photo or note meal, you'll see where the estimate came from and the foods it's built from. Then comes the reply box, or your reply and theirs if you've already written one.
A food logged in cups, ounces or a portion like a scoop reads the way your client entered it, with the grams or ml beside it: 1.5 cups (360 ml), 6 oz (168 g), 2 scoops (62 g). Every number is worked out from the grams or ml. For drinks, cups and spoons use standard US label sizes (1 cup is 240 ml). For a solid food, a cup or scoop is that food's own measure, like 160 g for a cup of chopped onion. A food logged in grams or ml shows once, as before.
If a client is new to cups, a quick word helps: a cup means a level measuring cup, not a mug.
If a meal is still being estimated, its day says the meal isn't counted yet, so you know the total isn't final.
Looking at one day
Click any day on the nutrition chart, either on the client's Nutrition tab or in the Nutrition section of a check-in, to see that day on its own. It opens in a window with the same rows, the day's total first, and arrows next to the date to move to the day before or after.
Replying to a meal
Click any meal where you want the client to see a note from you, write it in the reply box, and click Send reply. Assistant Coach sends it to the client and marks that meal reviewed.
Good replies are usually short and coaching-focused:
- "Good choice for a busy travel day."
- "Next time, add the planned protein portion here."
- "This works well before training."
The client sees only your reply under the matching meal.
Adding a voice note
On Starter and Pro, click Voice in the meal reply box, allow microphone access if your browser asks, and speak to your client. Click Pause if you need a moment, Resume to carry on, and Stop when you are done. Voice notes can be up to five minutes.
The note uploads automatically after Stop. You can listen before sending, and Send reply becomes available when the upload finishes. Send the voice note on its own, or add written text and the existing optional image. Your client plays it under the matching meal in their client app and can download it.
If uploading fails, keep the reply open and click Try again. To start again, remove the unsent note with ✕ and confirm Discard. Cancel asks before discarding a recording you have not sent.
To change a sent note, click Edit. You can keep the note while updating the text, replace it, or remove it and send a written reply instead. A reply needs text or a voice note, so add text before removing a note that was the whole reply. Recording a note does not use assistant actions.
On Free, Voice has a lock. Click it to see the plans that include voice feedback. Written meal replies remain available.
See Voice and video messages for microphone troubleshooting and recording tips. Video messages are available on check-in replies; meal replies support voice notes.
Showing, not just telling
For a meal with a photo, portion size and plating are often quicker to show than to describe. Alongside your note you can add one image, in one of two ways:
- Draw on photo opens the client's meal photo so you can circle a portion, ring the vegetables they skipped, or mark the half you'd swap out. If the meal has several photos, choose one from the thumbnails above the drawing. Switching photos clears any unsaved marks. Pick a pen colour, and use undo or clear if you need to. Your marks are saved onto a copy — the client's original photo is never changed.
- Add image attaches a picture from your device — a reference plate, a portion guide, or an example of the swap you have in mind. It can be a GIF too, for a bit of fun. See ideas and how to add one.
A reply carries one image. If you change your mind, remove it with the ✕ and add a different one before you send. Once sent, a drawing can't be reopened to tweak the lines, but you can always replace the whole image later.
Your note is still the main message — the image just makes it concrete. "Half this much rice" circled on the client's own plate lands faster than the same sentence on its own. For most replies, a line of text is all you need.
Your note and the image arrive together under the matching meal, and your client can add one short reply back.
Using assistant estimates
When a client logs a meal by its foods, you already have exact calorie and macro numbers — there is nothing to estimate and no assistant action is used.
For a meal shared as a photo or note, your assistant can estimate its calories and macros.
On the Pro plan, this happens automatically. As soon as a client's photo or note meal is finalized, the assistant reviews it on its own — no button to click, and no assistant action spent, however many clients you have.
Below Pro, click Ask assistant to estimate in the meal's row, where its numbers would be, to create one yourself. This uses 1 assistant action. You can also turn estimates on for a client going forward: click the settings icon next to Create Meal Plan on the Nutrition tab for Meal log settings, and switch on Estimate their photo meals. Once it's on, that client's future photo and note meals get an estimate automatically, at one assistant action each — you no longer need to ask on every meal. If you run out of actions, automatic estimates pause and pick up again for today's and yesterday's meals as soon as you have actions again.
Whether your client sees the estimate is up to you. The same Meal log settings switch decides whether their app shows the estimates for their photo meals and counts them in their day; see Logging your meals for what that looks like on their side. The estimate line in the opened meal tells you which it is: Coach only, or {client} sees this.
Reading the estimate
The estimate's calories, protein, carbs, and fat fill the meal's row, as ranges based on the available details. A reported planned portion can use the plan's nutrition values; uncertain foods or amounts need a wider range.
One meal landing a little light on protein usually isn't worth a message. The same gap showing up across several meals in the week is a pattern worth a gentle note or a small plan tweak, and the day bands help you spot it without doing the maths yourself.
What's on the plate
When a client refers to their selected meal plan in the note, the estimate can use that meal's ingredients and portions. For example, “my usual breakfast, but half the oats” can keep the rest of breakfast as planned while adjusting the oats. The estimate can also use planned portions when the photo supports a match, and account for reported swaps, skipped foods, or extras.
Read the explanation to see whether an amount comes from the client's note, the plan, or an estimate from the photo. A plan-based amount is not a measured portion. Photos can still be misidentified, including as an ingredient listed in the plan, so check unexpected ingredients before relying on the estimate.
When you open the meal, the main things the estimate is built from sit under it, each with a rough amount (like ~150g or ~1 tbsp) and its own calorie and macro ranges in the columns. This is where swaps show up — a planned chicken breast that looks like tofu, or an extra topping that wasn't in the plan. Click the Assistant estimate line above them to read how the estimate was worked out, with a short note on each food.
Some foods are marked Less certain. That's usually hidden oils, a dressing, or a portion size the photo can't settle. Treat those as a prompt for a quick question to the client — "was that a full or half portion?" — rather than something to guess at. Check the explanation even when a row uses a single number: a value calculated from the plan still depends on the client having eaten that portion.
Turning it into a reply
Use the estimate to spot what's worth mentioning, then write your own reply in your own words. The estimate's foods are there whenever you open the meal again.
Fixing an estimate
Under the foods, the opened meal asks Is this estimate right? When your assistant wasn't sure about a food, the question names it, like Cooking oil is a guess. That's usually the one thing worth a glance: you often know how your client cooks.
- Looks right records that the estimate was right. Nothing else changes.
- Fix it lets you correct the estimate in place:
- Type a new amount for any food. Its numbers, and the meal's, update as you type.
- Click a food's name to swap it for one from your food library.
- Click the bin to remove a food that wasn't there.
- Click Add a missed food to search your food library, then set its amount.
Click Save changes and the meal and the day's totals use your amounts straight away, in your client's app too when they see their estimates. Fixing an estimate doesn't mark the meal reviewed; tick it when you've handled it. Foods you changed or added are tagged, and the next time you open the meal it says You corrected this estimate, with Fix again if you want to change it.
You never have to fix an estimate: the day's totals are useful without it. But when you know a portion was off, a quick fix keeps your client's numbers honest, and we read every correction coaches make to make estimates more accurate.
If your assistant can't produce a useful estimate, no assistant actions are used. If a draft already exists for that meal, opening it again does not consume another action.
When your client replies back
Your client can add one short reply to your note — a quick bit of context like "swapped rice for potato, I was out" or "this was right after my morning session." It's capped at a single reply on purpose: it's there to give you the missing detail, not to open a back-and-forth.
When a client replies:
- Their reply appears right under your note on that meal when you open their meals.
- You get an in-app notification that opens the right meal log and takes you to the reply. Once the reply is on screen, it is marked as read automatically.
- There is no email or push notification for this reply.
You don't have to reply again. Read it, let it shape your next note or plan tweak, and move on.
Clearing the to-do
If you have looked through the current meals and do not need to reply to each one, click Mark all reviewed.
That clears the current bundle for this client, including meals on days you haven't loaded yet. The meals stay in the list, and a new to-do appears if the client logs more meals later.
One day at a time. When you open a single day from the nutrition chart or a check-in, the tick at the end of the Day total row marks every meal on that day reviewed in one click. Meals on other days stay as they are, so you can work through a client's week day by day with the arrows at the top.
Good to know
- A client can edit a meal — its tag and note, or the foods they added — until you review or comment on it. After that it is locked, so what you reviewed is what stays.
- A client can delete a meal they logged.
- Clients see estimates only if you turn that on in Meal log settings.
- Meals are included in your coach data export.