Food preferences are a list of what one trainee does not eat. Perform uses it to keep those foods out of that trainee’s menu and substitutes, without you editing their plan by hand. Preferences are per trainee. They do not change your food library or anyone else’s plans.

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Open a trainee’s preferences

1

Open the trainee's plans

Open the trainee card and go to the Training and nutrition plans tab.
2

Open the window

In the nutrition column, choose Food preferences. When foods are already excluded, the button shows the count, for example “Food preferences (12)”.
The window lists your food library grouped by category, with a search field and a line saying how many foods are excluded.

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Exclude foods

Everything is allowed until you mark it. The hint in the window sums it up: An excluded category removes every food in it. Tap a single food to keep it on the menu. Choose Save. You see Food preferences updated. Alternatives will follow.

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How categories and single foods interact

  • Switching a category off excludes all its foods, including foods added to that category later.
  • Bringing back every food in an excluded category one by one does not switch the category back on. New foods in it would still be excluded.
  • Switching a category back on clears its exceptions, but foods you excluded one by one stay excluded.

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Where preferences come from

A trainee’s preferences can come from two places. The top of the window tells you which one is in effect:
  • The form’s name and the date it was submitted, when the answer came from a form.
  • A note that the trainee has not submitted a preferences form yet and that you can set them here manually.
  • The badge Edited by the coach, overrides the form answer, once you have saved changes here.

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Which one wins

Your edit always wins.
  • Once you save preferences in this window, they stay in effect, even if the trainee later submits a new form with different answers.
  • This is true even if you save with nothing excluded. An empty list you saved is still your decision.
  • Until you save here, the newest form answer is used. If the trainee fills in the form again, the newer answer replaces the older one.
Forms that do not include the food preferences question are ignored. A weekly check-in without that question does not erase what the trainee answered in their intake form.

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What exclusions change

Preferences act when the trainee’s menu is shown. Your plan is not edited.

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Substitutes

An excluded food is never offered to the trainee as a substitute. This covers substitutes you picked by hand and automatic alternatives. If the trainee had already swapped to a food that you then exclude, their menu goes back to the plan’s original food.

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The main food of a meal

If the main food of a meal is one the trainee excluded, the app serves a permitted substitute in its place:
  • With substitutes you chose, the first permitted one in your order is used.
  • With automatic alternatives on, the best match is used, the same one that would top the trainee’s swap list.
  • If nothing permitted can stand in, the original food stays, so the meal is never left empty.
The description in the window says excluded foods are never offered as an alternative. In practice the app goes one step further and also replaces an excluded main food where a permitted substitute exists.

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What is not affected

  • Logging. A trainee can still search for and log any food they actually ate.
  • The shopping recommendations.
  • Your plan in the builder. You still see the original foods there.

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Categories matter

Excluding by category works on the food’s category in your library. For a food with several categories, the main category is used. This can surprise you. If many foods carry a diet label such as Vegan as their main category, a trainee who excludes that category hides all of them, including plain carbs like rice or oats. When a trainee’s substitutes look thin:
  1. Open their Food preferences and check which categories are off.
  2. Add exceptions for the foods they do eat, or switch the category back on and exclude single foods.
  3. In the food library, review which category each food leads with.

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Collect preferences in a form

To let trainees fill this in themselves, add the food preferences question to a form. The question always shows your current food library, so there is no list to maintain. When you build the form you can hide categories you do not want to ask about. All categories are on by default, and a new library category is included automatically.

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Tips

  • Check preferences before you build a new trainee’s first menu. It saves a round of corrections.
  • Preferences only help when the plan has room to move. Give meals substitutes, or turn on automatic alternatives, so there is something to serve in place of an excluded food.