Barcode scanning & self-adjusting targets

Two add-ons that sit on top of the food & water diary: barcode scanning, so a packaged food takes a second to log, and self-adjusting targets, so your calorie and macro goals keep up with you without you having to think about it.

Scan a barcode

1. On the Add food page, tap Scan barcode.
2. Point your camera at the barcode on the pack. It beeps and buzzes the moment it reads one, then looks the product up.
3. Set how much you had and save. It goes into the day exactly like a searched food.

If the live viewfinder will not start, or your browser refuses a web page camera access, use Photograph the barcode instead. That opens your normal camera, and we read the code off the picture. It works on every browser and in the app.

Barcodes are looked up in USDA’s database of US products first, then Open Food Facts, and anything you have already saved to your own catalog is checked before either. A found product is kept, so the second time you scan it the lookup is instant.

No camera at all? The same box takes the digits typed in by hand, which works everywhere. And if a code isn’t in either database, search by name instead or add it as a custom food, and it’s yours from then on.

Building a custom meal? The meal editor has the same scanner. Tap Scan a barcode under its search box and the packet goes straight into the meal.

Targets that scale as you lose

Without this, a drifting calorie target is something you are asked about: every few pounds a prompt offers to re-calculate it, and you say yes or not now. With it, there is no asking. Tick Auto scale TDEE based on these settings on the targets page and save, and your calories and macro grams keep themselves up to date in the background from the activity level, weekly goal and macro split you saved.

While it is running you will see a ⚡ bolt next to Food & water in the menu and an Auto-scaling badge at the top of the Food & water page, so something quietly adjusting your numbers is never a surprise. Untick the box to stop.

It only ever works from a smoothed trend weight, never a single reading, and the two directions are deliberately not treated the same. Targets follow the trend down as soon as it moves, because that is the direction losing weight takes you. Going up is the direction water weight pushes, so a rise has to clear a bigger gap and hold for a couple of weeks before anything changes: a genuine regain is picked up, a bad weekend is not. Your fiber and water goals are never touched.

The switch can only be turned on once we have your sex, height, age and at least one weigh-in, since the calculator cannot run without them. If something is missing the page says which, and you can fill it in and tick the box in the same save.