Nutrition Tracking
How Omnio tracks your nutrition — snap a photo, scan a barcode, describe a meal, or sync from MyFitnessPal. AI vision identifies foods, USDA validates macros, and your diet shapes training and recovery.
Overview
Omnio gives you multiple ways to log nutrition — snap a photo of your meal, scan a barcode, type a description, or sync from MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, and CSV imports. AI vision identifies individual food items and estimates macros, then an enrichment pipeline cross-checks the numbers against USDA, Open Food Facts, and a glycemic index database. Your diet data feeds into composite scores, training adaptations, and recovery forecasts.
Ways to log meals
Photo analysis
Take a photo of your meal and Omnio’s AI vision identifies each food item, estimates portion sizes and macros, and returns a confidence score per item. High-confidence meals are auto-confirmed; lower-confidence results are flagged for your review so you can correct any mistakes before saving.
The system uses perceptual hashing to detect near-duplicate photos — if you photograph the same meal twice, it reuses the previous analysis instead of burning another API call.
Text description
Describe your meal in plain text (e.g. “grilled chicken breast with brown rice and steamed broccoli”) and the AI returns the same structured breakdown as photo analysis.
Barcode scanning
Scan a product barcode and Omnio looks it up in Open Food Facts. You get pre-populated nutrition data scaled to your serving size, plus NOVA classification and Nutri-Score where available.
Traditional sources
Connect MyFitnessPal or Cronometer to sync logged meals automatically. You can also import CSVs from other tracking apps. See the Import Nutrition guide for setup.
What gets tracked
| Metric | Source |
|---|---|
| Calories | All sources |
| Protein (g) | All sources |
| Carbohydrates (g) | All sources |
| Fat (g) | All sources |
| Fiber (g) | All sources |
| Sugar (g) | MFP, Cronometer, AI vision |
| Sodium (mg) | MFP, Cronometer, AI vision |
| Saturated fat (g) | AI vision, enrichment |
| Micronutrients (10+) | Cronometer, MFP |
| Glycemic load | Computed after enrichment |
| NOVA group (1–4) | AI vision estimate + OFF enrichment |
| Nutri-Score (A–E) | OFF enrichment (packaged foods) |
Omnio also calculates derived metrics:
- Macro ratios — Protein/carb/fat as a percentage of total calories.
- Caloric balance — Estimated surplus or deficit vs. your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, calculated from BMR + active calories from your wearable).
- Adaptive calorie target — A learned TDEE fit from your weight trend vs logged intake, with a 14-day rolling training-load term. The target tracks sustained shifts in training (new block, deload, added volume) rather than single sessions — see the FAQ entry for why same-day refunds aren’t supported.
- Per-meal breakdown — Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks tracked separately.
- Eating window — Duration from your first to last meal of the day.
- Meal spacing — Average gap between meals.
Enrichment pipeline
After you log a meal, three enrichment steps run automatically in the background:
-
USDA macro validation — Each food item is looked up in the USDA FoodData Central database. If the AI’s calorie estimate deviates more than 25% from the USDA reference, the macros are corrected to match the USDA values scaled to your portion size.
-
NOVA and Nutri-Score — Packaged food items are looked up in Open Food Facts to get their NOVA processing classification (1 = unprocessed, 4 = ultra-processed) and Nutri-Score (A–E). Generic/homemade items keep the AI’s NOVA estimate.
-
Glycemic index and load — Each item gets a glycemic index from a reference dataset of 300+ foods. The per-item glycemic load (GI × carbs / 100) is summed into a daily total.
You can check enrichment progress on any meal. Most enrichments complete within a few seconds.
Meal quality indicators
Each meal gets a traffic-light quality assessment across three dimensions:
| Dimension | Green | Yellow | Red |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole-food % (NOVA 1–2 share of calories) | ≥ 80% | ≥ 50% | < 50% |
| Protein adequacy (vs per-meal target) | ≥ 100% | ≥ 60% | < 60% |
| Glycemic load | ≤ 10 | ≤ 20 | > 20 |
The overall indicator shows the worst non-neutral dimension. This appears as a colored dot on each meal card — a quick signal for whether a meal is well-balanced.
Dietary pattern classification
Each week, Omnio analyses your logged meals and classifies your eating pattern into one of eight categories: Mediterranean, Ketogenic, High-protein, Plant-based, High-processed, Balanced, Low-carb, or High-carb.
The nutrition insights tab shows your current pattern with an 8-week colored timeline so you can see how your diet has shifted over time.
Nutrition score
Your Nutrition composite score (0–100) is calculated from:
| Component | Weight | Ideal range |
|---|---|---|
| Protein ratio | 25% | 25–35% of calories |
| Calorie consistency | 20% | Within TDEE ± 10% |
| Fat ratio | 20% | 20–35% of calories |
| Carb ratio | 15% | 35–55% of calories |
| Fiber intake | 10% | 25–45 g/day |
| Absolute protein | 10% | Higher is better |
The score requires at least 30% of its inputs to have data. If you’re only logging calories, you’ll get a partial score. Logging macros unlocks the full calculation.
How nutrition affects training
When you have an active training plan, Omnio uses your caloric balance to adapt workouts:
| Caloric status | Training adjustment |
|---|---|
| Severe deficit (< -500 kcal) | Volume reduced 30%, RPE capped at 7 |
| Mild deficit (-200 to -500 kcal) | Volume reduced 15% |
| Maintenance (-200 to +200 kcal) | No adjustment |
| Surplus (> +200 kcal) | No adjustment |
These adjustments are applied automatically when you request your next workout. The adaptation banner shows “Nutrition: Caloric deficit detected — volume reduced” when this is active.
How nutrition affects recovery
Your recovery forecast factors in caloric status:
- A deficit slows predicted recovery (longer estimated recovery time between sessions).
- A surplus does not accelerate recovery beyond baseline.
- The Bayesian nutrition impact model learns your personal sensitivity to deficits over time.
Streaks and daily completion
The nutrition page tracks your logging consistency:
- Logging streak — The number of consecutive days you’ve logged at least one meal. Resets if you miss a day.
- Daily completion — Shows which core meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) you’ve logged today, with a target of 3.
Smart reminders
If you’ve been logging consistently, Omnio learns your typical meal times and sends contextual reminders when you haven’t logged yet — for example, “You usually log lunch around 12:30 — log now?” These are based on your personal patterns, not fixed schedules.
Viewing nutrition data
- Dashboard — The Nutrition score tile shows your current score with a 7-day sparkline.
- Nutrition tab — Daily meal cards with quality indicators, streak counter, and B/L/D completion dots. The insights section shows dietary pattern, calorie balance, protein adequacy, meal timing distribution, and consistency metrics.
- Daily summary — A cross-domain view combining nutrition, training, sleep, and readiness for any given day.
- Grafana (advanced) — A dedicated Nutrition dashboard shows 9 panels including calories bars, macro splits, per-meal stacked charts, fiber/sugar trends, and sodium with clinical thresholds.
Tips
- Snap, don’t skip. A quick photo is faster than manual entry and surprisingly accurate. Even imperfect photos are better than missing days.
- Review flagged meals. When the AI isn’t confident, it asks you to confirm. A quick correction improves your data and helps the system learn.
- Log consistently. The nutrition score rewards consistency. Even rough estimates are better than missing days.
- Prioritise protein. Protein ratio has the highest weight (25%) in the nutrition score.
- Don’t stress about perfection. The score is designed so that “pretty good” eating (hitting macro ranges, consistent calories) scores 75+. You don’t need to be exact.
- Check your caloric balance. If your training is being adapted due to a deficit, your dashboard will tell you. This is the most actionable nutrition insight for training purposes.