If a client logs food, you can see it. Their profile shows the day's total, a breakdown by meal, and the macros against whatever goals you set.
Two switches have to be right
This is where most confusion starts. The two look the same from your side, and they do completely different things.
- Nutrition logging is yours. Off, and your client cannot log at all. Your view tells you that nutrition logging is turned off for this client.
- Nutrition sharing is theirs, set in their own Manage account. Off, and they can still log. You simply do not see it.
So an empty nutrition view does not mean a client has stopped tracking. Check which of the two is off before you ask them about it.
Nothing logged while sharing was off is ever shared retroactively, even if they turn it back on. Gaps in the history can be genuine gaps or private periods, and you cannot tell which from here.
What you see
A day at a time: total calories, the four meals with what was in each, and macros against goal. Days with nothing logged say so rather than showing zero. A day nobody logged is not a day nobody ate.
Alongside carbohydrate, protein and fat you get saturated fat, sugar, fiber and salt where the food carried them.
Read it as an estimate
Every figure came from a database entry, a photographed label or an AI estimate, and portion size is guessed more often than measured. A day logged at 2,100 kcal is an estimate of 2,100 kcal, not a measurement of it.
That does not make it useless. It makes it comparative. Consistent logging tells you this week against last week, whether protein is habitually short, and which meal the calories come from. It does not support conclusions drawn to 50 calories.
Being careful with it
A food diary is a more personal thing to hand over than a set of squat numbers, and clients know you are reading it. Comment on patterns rather than on individual meals. When single meals get picked out, people tend to log what they think you want to see rather than what they ate, and the record stops telling you anything.
If a client's logging suggests a disordered relationship with food rather than a tracking problem, that is beyond coaching. Refer them on to a healthcare professional.