Expenditure in MacroDiet is the app's estimate of your total daily energy expenditure — the calories you spend in a day — and the "3-of-7 rule" is the data requirement the app states for keeping it updated: at least three days of food logging and one weigh-in in every seven-day window. The starting number is a formula; the plan is for real logs to correct it. This guide separates what the page shows today from what is coming. MacroDiet is live at macrodiet.fit and evolving; screens change as features ship, and anything marked "coming" below is not in the app yet.
What it does
The Expenditure page (Dashboard → the Expenditure card) shows one number at the top, Average, in kcal, with the current Monday–Sunday date range under it. Below is a seven-day chart: each day's logged calories as a bar, an orange horizontal line at the current expenditure estimate, and a thin band around it at ±1.5%. Then an eleven-card tutorial you can page through, an Expenditure Changes table over 3-, 7-, 14-, 30- and 90-day windows, a Current Expenditure card, a Current Strategy card, two data-source rows (Nutrition Data Manager and Scale Weight) and a history list.
What the number *is* today: the TDEE onboarding computed, saved to your profile when the account was created. The adaptive engine that would move it is coming, so the strategy card reads Holding, every row of the change table reads Waiting with "-- kcal", and the top-line Difference shows 0. Nothing on this page is wrong; it is a dashboard built for a signal that is not flowing yet.
Step by step
- Open Dashboard and tap the Expenditure card (Insights & Analytics, left). The card's value is the same estimate.
- Read the chart against the line. Bars below the orange line are days you logged less than the estimate; bars above, more. Days without logs show as empty slots so the week always has seven positions.
- Page through the tutorial ("What is Expenditure?" through "Do I Need to Track Exercise?"). "Dismiss Tutorial" hides it for the session.
- Check Current Strategy. It states the rule: updating requires at least 3 days of nutrition data and 1 day of weight data per 7-day period.
- Keep the two data sources fed. Food goes in through the Food Log tab (search and barcode); weight through the Scale Weight page (weigh-ins). The dashboard's Habits row counts both out of 7 for the current week.
What the numbers mean
The starting estimate is the same calculation as the calorie calculator: TDEE = round(BMR × multiplier), where BMR is Mifflin-St Jeor and the multiplier is a training-frequency base (1.2, 1.375, 1.55, 1.725) plus a daily-activity adjustment (−0.05, 0, +0.10). For the 85 kg example that is 1,830 × 1.55 = 2,837 kcal.
The idea behind updating it is arithmetic: over a stretch of days, average intake − expenditure should equal the energy behind the weight change, at roughly 7,700 kcal per kilogram in the app's own constant. If someone logs an average of 2,400 kcal and their trend weight falls 0.5 kg in a week (≈ 3,850 kcal, or 550 a day), their expenditure was nearer 2,950 than 2,837. That is what the three food days and one weigh-in are for — enough intake to average and enough weight to see a direction. This is arithmetic, not a trial result.
| Element on the page | Live today | What it will do |
|---|---|---|
| Average (top line) | onboarding TDEE | rolling estimate refined from logs |
| Chart bars vs orange line | your logged calories vs the estimate | same |
| Expenditure Changes 3/7/14/30/90-day | "Waiting" | change in the estimate over each window |
| Current Strategy | "Holding" | Holding or Updating, by the 3-of-7 rule |
| History rows | one row per logged day, same value, "Holding" | one value per day as it moves |
The tutorial's own framing is the right one to keep: the starting estimate is based on validated equations but may be higher or lower than your true expenditure, and it takes 20–30 days of consistent tracking for a refined figure. Read how apps estimate energy expenditure for the general mechanism.
In plain terms: today the page is a formula plus your logs side by side. The maths that turns those logs into a better estimate is designed and described in the app, and coming.
Gotchas
- Difference shows 0 and the change table shows Waiting for everyone right now. That is the current build, not a sign that you have logged wrongly.
- The ±1.5% band is a drawing, not a confidence interval. It marks a small margin around the estimate on the chart.
- The time-range pills (1W to All) are present but the chart always draws the last seven logged days in the current build.
- The estimate is only as good as the inputs you gave. Weight and activity level are editable on the profile page — but note that saving the profile does not recompute expenditure yet (changing your goal and targets).
- Under-logging looks like a low expenditure. When the update engine arrives, forgotten meals will read as a smaller energy spend; a day you cannot log properly is better left blank than half-filled.
The short version
Expenditure is the app's estimate of your daily energy spend, currently the onboarding formula's TDEE. The 3-of-7 rule — three food days and one weigh-in a week — is the data the coming update engine needs to move it; until it ships, the strategy reads Holding and the change table Waiting. Keep the two data sources fed and treat the number as a nutrition estimate to be tested, not a measurement. Educational overview only — not medical advice.