Getting started with Cal.AI: your first day
Setup, targets, your first logged meal, the Home screen and Insights, in the order you will meet them.
How do you use the Cal.AI app?
You use Cal.AI in three moves: answer the setup questions once, log what you eat as you go, and check your diary and Insights to see how the day and the week are going. Setup takes a couple of minutes. Logging a meal takes seconds with a photo, a barcode or a search.
This guide walks through a first day in order. Each section covers one screen or task, so you can follow along with the app open.
Step 1: Answer the setup questions
When you open Cal.AI for the first time, it asks seven things: your goal (lose, maintain or gain), how fast you want to get there, your activity level, height, weight, age and sex. Answer honestly rather than optimistically. These answers set your daily calorie and macro targets, so an inflated activity level means a target that is too high.
Pick a pace you can live with. Common safe-rate guidance is 0.5 to 1 kg (1 to 2 lb) per week, or 0.5 to 1% of body weight per week. The slower end is easier to sustain and leaves you more food each day.
You can change any of these answers later. Your targets and your projected goal date update when you do, and the goal date also moves as you log meals and weigh in.
Step 2: Understand where your calorie target comes from
Cal.AI calculates targets with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, a standard formula for resting energy expenditure published in 1990. Here is the arithmetic for a sample profile so the number on your screen is not a mystery.
Take a 30-year-old woman who weighs 68 kg (150 lb), is 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) tall and is moderately active.
- Resting energy: 10 × 68 + 6.25 × 165 − 5 × 30 − 161 = 680 + 1,031 − 150 − 161 = 1,400 kcal.
- Daily expenditure: 1,400 × 1.55 (moderate activity) = 2,170 kcal.
- Goal of 0.5 kg (1.1 lb) per week: 7,700 kcal per kg × 0.5 = 3,850 kcal per week, or 550 kcal per day.
- Daily target: 2,170 − 550 = 1,620 kcal.
Your own target will differ because your stats, pace and activity differ, but the method is the same. Macro targets for protein, carbs and fat are set from that calorie figure, and the Home screen shows them as three rings.
Step 3: Log your first meal
Cal.AI gives you more than one way to log, and you will probably use all of them in the first week.
- Scan Food takes a photo of the plate and returns each item with calories, protein, carbs and fat. Best for cooked meals, restaurant plates and anything without a label.
- Barcode reads the packaging of a product. Best for packaged food, where the label is more reliable than a visual estimate.
- Search and manual entry let you find a food by name or type in the numbers yourself. Best for drinks, recipes you already know and foods the camera cannot see well.
- Library lets you pick an existing photo from your phone, which is useful when you photographed lunch and forgot to log it.
After a scan, the result screen lists each item with its calories and macros and a meal total. Use the − and + serving control if the portion is simply bigger or smaller than estimated. If an item is wrong, tap Fix Results to rename a food, swap an ingredient or adjust a portion. Totals recalculate instantly, and corrected foods are saved so you can log them again in one tap.
For a closer look at how photo logging works, see how to count calories with a photo.
Step 4: Read the Home screen and your diary
The Home screen answers one question at a glance: how much you have left today. It shows calories left, three rings for protein, carbs and fat, and your recently logged items. Below that is the daily diary with a week strip, so you can move to another day and see what you ate.
Using the sample target above, if breakfast was 420 kcal and lunch 560 kcal, the screen shows 1,620 − 420 − 560 = 640 kcal left for the rest of the day. That is the number to plan dinner around.
Log everything on day one, including drinks, cooking oil and the handful of nuts. Under-logging is the most common reason a calorie target seems not to work.
Step 5: Check Insights at the end of the week
Insights holds your weight trend chart, your calorie and macro charts, and your BMI. One day tells you little. A week of logged meals and two or three weigh-ins tells you whether your intake is landing near target and whether the scale is moving in the right direction.
Weigh in regularly, under the same conditions each time, and let the trend chart smooth the daily noise. A systematic review by Burke and colleagues found that more frequent self-monitoring of intake and weight is consistently associated with greater weight loss.
If you want nudges to log, set meal reminders at the times you usually eat. You can also switch between metric and imperial units whenever you like.
Common mistakes on day one
- Choosing "very active" because you plan to exercise, rather than the level you actually keep.
- Picking the fastest pace. A larger deficit means a smaller target, and most people cannot keep it.
- Skipping the result screen. Give the items a two-second check and fix anything that is off.
- Forgetting oils, sauces and drinks. They are easy to miss and add up.
- Judging the plan by one weigh-in. Water swings of 1 kg (2 lb) in a day are normal.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to weigh my food on day one?
No. Start by scanning or searching and let the app estimate portions. Use the serving control or Fix Results when an estimate looks off. If you later want tighter numbers for calorie-dense foods like oils, nuts and cheese, a kitchen scale helps, but it is not required to get useful results from the first day.
Can I change my goal or pace after setup?
Yes. Your goal, pace, activity level, weight and other details can be updated later. When you change them, Cal.AI recalculates your daily calorie and macro targets with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and updates your projected goal date, so your plan always reflects your current numbers.
How many meals should I log each day?
Log everything you eat and drink, not just main meals. Snacks, coffee with milk, cooking oil and sauces are the items people most often skip, and they are why a day that looks on target on screen can be over in reality. Meal reminders can help you log at consistent times.
Does Cal.AI work on Android as well as iPhone?
Yes. Cal.AI is available for iPhone and Android, and the iPhone version includes an Apple Watch app and Apple Health sync. Your diary entries sync through your account with Apple or Google sign-in, so you can sign in on a new device and keep your history.
Sources
- Mifflin MD, et al. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;51(2):241-247. PubMed
- Burke LE, Wang J, Sevick MA. Self-monitoring in weight loss: a systematic review of the literature. J Am Diet Assoc. 2011;111(1):92-102. PubMed
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