Navigating and Editing Your Food Timeline
The most direct way to adjust entries for a previous day is by navigating backward in your food timeline. This method is ideal for adding specific foods, deleting a meal, or making small adjustments to an existing entry. The app provides multiple ways to move between days to accommodate different user preferences.
Method 1: Swipe Gesture
This is the fastest method for correcting the immediately preceding day. If you need to edit yesterday's entries, simply swipe the blank space on your food timeline from left to right. This will move the view to the previous day, where you can then perform any standard food logging workflow, such as adding a new food item or tapping an existing one to edit or delete it.
Method 2: Calendar Navigation
For navigating further back in time, the calendar icon offers a more precise approach. The steps are as follows:
- Tap the text at the top of your food timeline, which typically reads "Today" or "Yesterday".
- This action will bring up a full-screen date picker, allowing you to easily select any specific day you need to edit.
- After selecting the desired day, the app will display that day's food log, and you can make your changes.
Method 3: Calendar Week Banner
An alternative navigation tool is the calendar week banner located just above the daily calorie and macro bars. This allows for quick week-by-week navigation.
- To see a different week, swipe left or right on the calendar banner.
- To select a specific day within the visible week, simply tap on the day's oval icon.
Using the Nutrition Data Manager for Full-Day Edits
If you need to quickly edit the total calories and/or macros for an entire previous day, the Nutrition Data Manager is the most efficient option.
- From the main dashboard, scroll down and tap the "Nutrition Data Manager" tile.
- A list of previous days will appear. Tap the pencil icon next to the date you want to edit.
- Input your estimated values for total calories and macros.
- Confirm the changes by tapping the checkmark icon.
The "Quick Edit Day" Feature
This method is a shortcut for manually setting a full day's nutrition totals, similar to the Nutrition Data Manager but accessed differently.
- Tap the
+button located at the bottom of the screen. - Select "Edit Day" from the menu that appears.
- Enter the values for calories and macros for the previous day.
- Tap the checkmark to save your changes.
What Happens When You Edit Past Data?
MacroFactor's core strength lies in its dynamic expenditure algorithm. When you correct a previous day's food log, the algorithm recognizes this change and automatically adjusts your energy expenditure and coaching recommendations accordingly. This means you do not need to worry about disrupting your tracking progress. In fact, providing more accurate historical data, even retroactively, improves the app's ability to offer precise future guidance. The expenditure calculation adjusts in real-time with your edits, ensuring that your next check-in or macro recommendation is based on the most up-to-date information.
Impact of Editing
- Accuracy: Correcting past entries increases the overall accuracy of your long-term tracking and, consequently, your coaching advice.
- Adaptation: The algorithm adapts to the corrected data, providing better recommendations in the future.
- Stress-Free: Unlike other apps, MacroFactor's design prevents users from being penalized for inconsistent logging. It simply recalculates based on the best available data.
A Comparison of Editing Methods
| Feature | Timeline Navigation | Nutrition Data Manager | Quick Edit Day | Habits Tile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best For | Item-by-item changes, adding single foods. | Estimating or correcting an entire day's totals. | Quickly correcting a full day's totals. | Viewing and editing multiple tracking elements. |
| Precision | Highest (item-specific) | Lower (full-day estimate) | Lower (full-day estimate) | Highest (item-specific via calendar) |
| Ease of Use | Moderate (requires multiple taps) | Easy (direct total entry) | Easy (direct total entry) | Moderate (extra navigation step) |
| Flexibility | High (add, edit, delete specific foods) | Low (full-day totals only) | Low (full-day totals only) | High (add, edit, delete specific foods) |
Conclusion
MacroFactor offers multiple flexible options for editing a previous day's food log, from granular, item-by-item adjustments to high-level, full-day corrections. The most suitable method depends on your needs; for specific food item changes, navigating the food timeline is best, while the Quick Edit or Nutrition Data Manager are ideal for correcting total daily intake. Regardless of your chosen approach, MacroFactor's intelligent algorithm ensures that your edits will accurately inform future recommendations, making it a highly adaptable and forgiving tool for nutrition tracking. This design encourages users to log as accurately as possible, even retroactively, without fear of invalidating their progress or stressing over perfect, real-time logging.
For more advanced information on data correction, including resetting your expenditure calculation start date, you can visit the official MacroFactor help center.
