Target, Burned & Remaining

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Target, Burned & Remaining

The Nutrition page shows four numbers: consumed, target, remaining and burned. They measure different things, and the most common question about them is why burned can be bigger than target while remaining barely moves. This page answers that.

What Each Number Is

Number What it measures
Consumed Everything you've logged today. Tap any entry to correct it.
Target What to eat today, for the day your plan asked for. Set in advance; it covers the whole day.
Burned Energy out so far — your baseline burn as the day elapses, plus what your activities added on top of it. This is a running total: small in the morning, largest at bedtime. Activity figures read lower than your watch's calorie total, deliberately: your watch counts the resting calories burned during the workout as well, and the baseline already includes those, so counting both would double-count them.
Remaining How much you still have to eat. Normally that's target − consumed. On a day where you burn more than the plan expected, the extra is added on top first.

Why Burned Can Exceed Target Without Unlocking Food

Two things are easy to miss, and together they explain almost every "this looks wrong" moment.

1. Burned is a running total; target covers the whole day. Comparing them mid-afternoon compares a part-day number against a full-day number. Burned passing the target at 6pm doesn't mean the day cost more than planned — it usually just means the day is nearly over.

2. If you're running a body-composition deficit, your target deliberately sits below what your day costs. That gap is the deficit. So burning past your target is expected — it's the whole mechanism. You only get extra to eat by burning past what the whole day was expected to cost, which is a higher bar than the target. (With a training plan that's your baseline plus the planned sessions; without one, your baseline plus your typical training for that weekday.)

A Worked Example

An athlete on a fat-loss goal, resting-plus-daily-life burn of about 2,050, with an easy run planned:

Number Value Why
Expected day cost 2,476 Baseline plus the planned run — what the day was expected to cost.
Target 2,076 The planned cost less a 400 kcal agreed deficit.
Burned 2,374 Above the target — but still below the 2,476 the day was expected to cost.
Consumed 1,985 What's been logged.
Remaining 91 2,076 − 1,985. Nothing is added on top, because the day hasn't cost more than planned.

Eat the remaining 91 and the day lands on 2,076 eaten against roughly 2,476 spent — a 400 kcal deficit, exactly as agreed. If instead the target followed burned, this athlete would eat 2,374, spend 2,476, and run essentially no deficit at all — every rest and easy day, invisibly.

When Extra Work Does Earn Extra Food

Push past the day's expected cost — an unplanned ride, a much longer session than prescribed — and every calorie beyond it is added to your budget. Remaining rises immediately. A deficit, if you have one, is preserved on top: extra work is funded, the agreed deficit isn't quietly spent.

The line under the four numbers always states which case you're in, in your own numbers, and each number has an ⓘ of its own.

The Sodium Line

Below the macro bars you'll see a daily sodium tally (and caffeine, when you've logged some). Sodium deliberately has no target and no good/bad coloring: your need is your sweat volume × your sweat's sodium concentration, and both vary — by athlete (real sweat tests range from ~200 to over 2,000 mg per litre) and by day (heat, intensity, acclimation). A number we can't defend doesn't get a bar to fill.

On training days where you've logged at least a litre of fluid, the line also shows your intake concentration — total sodium ÷ total fluid, in mg/L. That's the same arithmetic athletes use to mix bottles, shown as a description of what you did, never a judgment. If you've had a sweat test and told your coach the result, your tested concentration appears beside it for comparison. Rest days don't show the ratio — your kidneys regulate day-to-day balance just fine, and the number would be noise.

Remember the tally is a floor: described food under-counts hidden salt. If sodium strategy matters to you — cramping, long hot races, a known salty sweat — talk it through with your coach, who can see your logged intake. For actual dosing, a sweat test and a sports dietitian beat any app.

Over Target

Go past the budget and remaining flips to over, counting up. That's shown deliberately rather than clamped at zero — the size of an overshoot is the most useful thing about it.

Still doesn't add up? Ask your coach in chat. They read the same numbers you're looking at — the expected day cost, your target adjustment and today's burn — and can walk you through your specific day.