Nutrition & Macros

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Evening close runs every day · 9pm and keeps the Nutrition dashboard fresh. Every evening — asks once about a meal you skipped, then the day in one line.
• What is captured lands in the Food log dataset, which lives at Data/Food Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Nutrition targets dataset, which lives at Data/Nutrition Targets in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Usual meals dataset, which lives at Data/Usual Meals in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Nutrition dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: log a usual meal · the day's calories · macro split, all logged meals · the week, day by day · fibre, drinks and timing that day · protein that day · carbs that day · fat that day · meals logged · protein, the last two weeks · what you are aiming at · days you logged · beside the scales.

The wiring, in one breath: Meal logging writes to Food log · Food log shown by Nutrition · Nutrition kept fresh by Evening close · Evening close run by Fern · Fern holds Target setting · Target setting writes to Nutrition targets · Fern holds Usual meals and recipes · Usual meals and recipes writes to Usual meals · Usual meals feeds Food log · Fern holds Planned week · Planned week reads Nutrition targets.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Say meals the way you would tell a friend — "two eggs on toast and a flat white" — and let the estimate be an estimate. Consistency beats weighing. When describing it is a chore, show Fern a photo of the plate: the estimate says what it assumed, and a picture never tells Fern what is in a sauce.
• Keep the meals you have again and again as usual meals ("save my porridge as a usual breakfast"), then log them from "Log a usual meal" on the board: tick what you had, one meal time at a time, and each goes on the log with its saved figures.
• Give Fern a recipe once, with its ingredients, the amounts and how many it serves, and it works out a serving with a source for each figure. If you keep Meals & Groceries, ask how the week's plan adds up against the budget. Both are arithmetic: Fern never says what fits.
• Read the day against the budget in the evening, after the close has asked about anything you skipped. The week view is where the pattern is. Mention water, a coffee, a drink or the time when you want them counted; "Fibre, drinks and timing that day" adds up only what you said.
• Set the budget and macros with Target setting once, with the method shown, or give it the numbers you already work to. When your weight has moved, ask Fern to work it out again: the method is shown again and the old row stays as history. The evening close mentions it once, on its own, when your weight has moved a few kilograms since the budget was set.
• Correct an estimate when you know better — "that was a large portion" — and Fern corrects that row; the next estimate still starts from what you describe. Ask Fern for the week in a sentence rather than counting it yourself.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• The budget and the macro split — or clearing the budget entirely and just keeping the log.
• When the evening close arrives, or turning it off and just keeping the board.
• How much it says back when you log a meal — the estimate and the running total, or the estimate alone.
• Whether it asks about a missing dinner at all.
• Which meals are on your usual list, and the meal time each comes up under on the board.
• An eating window, if you keep one, or none at all.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends with "Meet Fern" — a short conversation, not a form. Before it asks you anything, Fern looks at what 1Presence already knows, and at any food diary, export or sheet of targets in your vault, and offers what it finds for you to confirm, so it only asks for the gaps. If you already work to a calorie budget or macro targets, say them and that is the whole setup. Otherwise Fern works out a maintenance estimate from your details and what you want the budget to do — hold where you are, or move gently — and records the figure with its arithmetic beside it. If you keep Weight & Body, it reads your goal from there and never asks twice.
2. From then on there is nothing to open. Say "two eggs on toast and a flat white" in any conversation and it lands on the log with an estimate that says it is one — about 420, never 417 — and the day's running total against your budget. A figure from a pack or an app beats the estimate every time, and "that was more like 600" corrects the row.
3. Skip the conversation, or stop part-way, and the door quietly stays open: until a budget is set and a meal is on the log, what is still missing waits on the kit page, the board and Fern's chat, each with a way back to Fern, and Fern offers it once the next time you talk. Want only the log, with no budget? Say so, and it stops asking for one; say you have finished setting up, and the invitations stop. The macro split and the meal count fill from the first meal regardless, and the evening close stays silent until the log has its first line.
4. At nine each evening, on a day you logged, Fern asks once about a meal you skipped mentioning and gives you the day in one line of arithmetic. A day with nothing logged gets no card at all — a day off is a day off, and nothing here has an opinion about it.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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