Going deeper

7 min read

Nutrition, tracked simply

This guide covers the daily food log, finding foods fast, meal plans, the days and targets a coach can plan for you, the nutrition hub they plan them in, and the trends that tell you whether it is working.

The food log

The food log is one screen per day. At the top sit your targets for the day: calories and the three macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates and fat. As you add what you eat, each target fills up and shows how much room is left.

You don't have to hit every number to the gram. The point is a clear picture: are you roughly where you want to be on calories, and are you getting enough protein to support your training. The rest is detail.

Logging a day is quick once it becomes a habit. Add a food, set the portion, and it lands under the right meal with its calories and macros counted. You can edit or remove an entry any time, so a wrong guess in the morning is a two second fix in the evening. Miss a day and nothing breaks; you just pick it back up.

  • Calories2,140 / 2,600460 kcal left
  • Protein158 / 180 g22 g left
  • Carbs210 / 260 g50 g left
  • Fat64 / 80 g16 g left
A day in the food log: each target shows what you have logged and what is left.

Finding foods

Adding a food should take seconds. There are three fast ways to find one, and most days you'll lean on whichever is closest to hand.

Once a food is in your log, adjusting the portion updates its calories and macros right away, so a rough estimate is easy to correct. Custom foods are the real time saver: build your usual shake or your standard lunch once, and adding it later is a single tap.

  1. Search by nameType what you ate and pick the closest match from a large food database. Results show calories per 100 g; tapping one opens the portion view with full macros before you add it.
  2. Scan a barcodePoint your camera at the label on a packaged product and the scanner pulls its exact nutrition straight into your log.
  3. Save a custom foodFor a meal you eat often, save it once with your own numbers. It then lives in your list, ready to add in one tap.
  • Greek yogurt, plain
    59 kcal/100g
  • Chicken breast, cooked
    165 kcal/100g
  • Rolled oats
    375 kcal/100g
  • My protein shake
    Custom food
    112 kcal/100g
Search results with calories per 100 g, plus one saved custom food. Tapping a result opens the portion view.

Meal plans

A meal plan groups foods into the meals of a day, for example breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack. It gives your day a shape you can repeat, so breakfast is already decided and you can just make it and move on.

The plan is what you set out to eat. Swapping a food, changing a portion, or skipping a meal whenever real life gets in the way is expected, and the log still tracks what you actually ate against your targets, so the plan tells you what was intended and the log tells you what really happened.

Coach-assigned targets

If you train with a coach, they can set your daily targets or assign a full meal plan. From then on your food log shows their numbers, and you track your real intake against them. Your coach can see how the week is going and adjust.

Working with a coach on nutrition is optional. On your own, you set your own targets and change them whenever your goal shifts.

Either way the log works the same. You record what you actually eat, and the targets, yours or your coach's, sit alongside it. Nothing about the tracking changes; only who set the numbers does.

A plan from your coach

When your coach plans your week, each day arrives in your food log under Planned today, one card per meal, naming the recipe and what it costs you in calories and macros. Nothing left to work out while you are already standing at the stove.

Portion buttons sit on the card at 0.75x, 1x and 1.25x. Pick the one that matches the plate in front of you, tap Ate as planned, and the whole meal lands in your log with its macros counted.

Real days go sideways. If your coach approved alternatives for that meal, they sit on the card as one-tap swaps. If you ate something else, Something else opens the food search, and where your coach allowed a tolerance the card shows the calorie budget you have. The app then asks what was different, no time, travelling, no appetite or a digestive issue, and that one tap is what explains the week to your coach later.

  • Overnight oats with berries
    Breakfast, logged
    540 kcal
  • Chicken rice bowl
    Lunch, 2 alternatives
    710 kcal
  • Free choice
    Snack, up to 300 kcal
  • Salmon, potatoes and greens
    Dinner
    680 kcal
A planned day in the food log. Each card carries its portion buttons, the swaps your coach approved and its note.

How a coach builds it

Those planned days come out of the nutrition hub, the coach-side screen where the week is assembled. If you coach, this is where the time goes. If you are coached, it helps to know what your coach is working with.

The hub has three tabs.

  1. KitchenThe recipe library. A recipe holds its ingredients, a photo, dietary restriction tags and instructions, and the ingredient search takes nutrition values straight from the food database. Scaling adjusts every ingredient at once until the recipe meets a calorie or protein target.
  2. Week planA grid with the days across and the meals down. Drag a recipe from the drawer into a meal, or stack several when the meal is built from components. Every meal takes a portion factor, a fixed or flexible tolerance, approved alternatives and a note. A coach can scale one day or the whole week to a target, save a day or a week as a template, or copy a week that already works. Send to athlete is what puts it on your phone.
  3. OverviewThe roster in one table, with average calories and macros against target per athlete, next to a feed of the athletes worth a message: nothing logged for two days, a macro that keeps landing low, a plan about to run out.
  • Overnight oats with berries
    Used in 4 current plans
    540 kcal
  • Chicken rice bowl
    Used in 7 current plans
    710 kcal
  • Salmon, potatoes and greens
    Not used in a plan yet
    680 kcal
The kitchen: saved recipes with their calories and the plans they are already used in.

A single day tells you little on its own. Over a week or a month you can see your average calories and protein and whether your body weight is moving the way your goal expects. That average is what you steer by.

If the trend and the goal disagree, you have a clear next step: nudge calories up or down and check again in a week.

  • The weekly average calorie count, with single-day swings smoothed out.
  • Protein hit rate: how often you actually reached your protein target.
  • Body weight direction: slowly up, slowly down, or holding, matched against your goal.

Questions about nutrition

Do I have to hit my targets exactly?
No. Getting roughly close on calories and reliably hitting protein over the week is what matters.
Can I scan barcodes?
Yes. The barcode scanner reads the label on a packaged product with your camera and adds it to your log. You can also search by name or save your own custom foods.
Do I have to eat exactly what my coach planned?
No. Log the portion you actually ate, take one of the alternatives your coach approved, or pick Something else and search for what you had. Either way your log records the real day.
Can I build recipes and week plans myself?
The nutrition hub, with its kitchen, week plan and roster overview, is a coach feature. On your own you set your targets, log your food and build your own meal plans.
What if my coach set my targets?
Your food log then shows the targets or meal plan your coach assigned, and you track your real intake against them. Nutrition coaching is optional; on your own you set and change your own targets.

Start tracking your nutrition

Create a free account and log your first day. It takes a couple of minutes to set your targets and add a meal.

Create your account
Ironstead - Nutrition Tracking in Ironstead: Food Log, Targets and Trends