The mindset
Some meals can't be measured, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. The goal on those days isn't precision — it's keeping your data honest enough that the algorithm draws the right conclusions.
The playbook, in order of effort
- Estimate reasonably. A photo or a described meal gets you a sane approximation; explicit hints ("large plate", "fried") sharpen it. A reasonable estimate is far better data than nothing.
- Quick Add the ballpark. Restaurant published its numbers, or you can gauge the ballpark? Type the totals directly.
- Mark the day incomplete. If a real chunk of the day went unlogged and guessing feels wrong, mark it incomplete — it's excluded from the math instead of reading as a low-calorie day.
The one thing to avoid: logging only half a day and leaving it unmarked. That's the case that quietly skews your averages.
Will one odd day hurt?
No. The algorithm works on multi-week windows and changes are dampened — a single unusual day, logged or excluded, is noise it's built to absorb. Eat the birthday dinner; be honest with the diary; move on.