Food logging is the foundation of how the fatsecret app helps you understand your eating habits and lose weight. By logging what you eat, you can track your calorie intake and see how your food choices add up across the day. There are several ways to log food in the fatsecret app. In this guide, you’ll learn the core method for searching for a food and adding it to your Diary.

How to Log a Food to Your Diary

Step 1: Choose a Meal to Log Food To

To log a food, start on your Diary page. Find the meal you want to add food to, for example, Breakfast, and tap the green + button. This will open the screen where you can choose how you’d like to log your food.

Step 2: Select How You Want to Log Food

You’ll now see all the different ways you can add food, such as searching, scanning a barcode, taking a photo, using Smart Assistant, or choosing from My Food (which will be useful later).

For this guide, we’ll walk through the most straightforward option for beginners, searching for a food.

To continue, tap Search for food or recipes at the top.

Step 3: Search for a Food

Start your search by typing the name of an individual food into the search box. As you type, the app will display matching suggestions based on what you enter. If you see your food appear in the list, you can tap it straight away. Or, finish typing the full food name, then tap the search button on your keyboard to view all results.

Step 4: Confirm Your Serving and Save

Once you have found the food item you are looking for, tap on it to open the food info page.

Here you’ll see an overview of the food's nutrition based on the default serving size.

On this page, you can adjust both the serving size and quantity to match what you ate before logging the food to your Diary.

For example, if you’d like to log half a cup of cooked white rice, you might search for White Rice and see that the default serving is 100g.

To change this to match your portion:

1. Tap the portion field and switch from “grams” to “cup, cooked”.
2. Then adjust the quantity to 0.5.

As you update the serving size, the nutrition information will automatically update to reflect your portion.

Once everything matches what you ate, tap Save to log the food to your Diary.

Step 5: View Your Entry In Your Diary

You’ve now logged a food! You’ll be taken back to your Diary, where the meal will now include the item you added. Here you can see your updated calorie total, the macronutrient breakdown for that meal and the percentage it contributes toward your daily target.

Step 6: Add the Rest of Your Meal

To finish logging the meal, repeat the same steps to add the remaining foods or drinks you had so that the full meal is reflected in your Diary.

As the day goes on, continue logging foods in each meal category.

If you scroll to the bottom of your Diary, you’ll see a daily summary showing how many calories you’ve consumed, how many you have remaining and a breakdown of the macronutrients from everything you’ve logged so far.

Editing, Deleting and Backdating a Food Entry

Editing or deleting an entry

If you’d like to delete a food you’ve logged to your Diary, just tap the food and select the red Delete button. You can also swipe left on the item to remove it quickly.

If you notice you’ve entered the wrong serving size, there’s no need to delete and start again. Simply tap the food entry to reopen it, adjust the portion and save your changes.

Backdating an entry

If you forgot to log food on a previous day, you can switch between days in your Diary by tapping Today at the top of your screen. You can then select a date on the calendar to jump to. This allows you to backdate food entries you may have missed.

Important Suggestions to Help You Get Started

Progress, Not Perfection

When you first start logging food, it’s common to want to get everything exactly right. But in the beginning, your focus should be on building the habit, not being perfect. If you miss logging a meal, don’t let that stop you from continuing. Add it later if you can. If you can’t remember exactly what you ate or how much, that’s okay, too. Right now, the most important thing is getting used to logging consistently. Like any new habit, it takes time to remember to do it every day.

Understand the Basics Before Worrying About Accuracy

The fatsecret database of foods is enormous. While this helps with accuracy in food tracking, it can also be overwhelming when just beginning.

During your first week, focus on logging a food type (called generic foods) rather than a specific brand. For example, instead of searching for “Brand X Wholemeal Bread 9 Grain”, you could simply log “Wholemeal bread”.

This helps you get used to the process, understanding serving sizes and simply remembering to log your food, without getting caught up in choosing the exact product.

By week two or three, once logging feels more natural, you can begin selecting more specific branded items for greater accuracy.