Some coaches do not want trainees counting calories. The portion system replaces calories with a simple count: so many protein portions, so many carb portions and so many fat portions a day. The tag shown for a portion is yours to choose. Until you set one it reads MBP. This page says “portion” throughout.

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Turn it on

The setting lives in Business settings, under General, in the card Portions instead of calories. Only studio admins can change it. Each kcal value has to stay inside the range shown under the field. The switch is off for a new studio. With it off, everything in Perform shows calories and grams.

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How a food is counted

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Each food has a macro type

Every food is a protein food, a carb food or a fat food. This is its Macro type, and it decides which kind of portion the food counts as.
  • Perform sets the macro type from the food’s macros: whichever of protein, carbs and fat contributes the most calories. Protein and carbs count 4 kcal per gram and fat 9.
  • In portions mode you can set the Macro type yourself in the food editor.
A food counts toward one kind of portion only. Chicken breast counts as protein portions, rice as carb portions, olive oil as fat portions.

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From an amount to a number of portions

For a given amount of a food, Perform works out the portions in this order:
  1. If the food has an amount per 1 portion set, the count is the amount divided by that. A food where 100 g is one protein portion gives 1.5 portions at 150 g.
  2. If the food has no such amount, the count is the calories of that amount divided by the kcal per portion of the food’s macro type.
You set the amount per 1 portion in the food editor, under the custom portion values. Most foods get it filled in for them.

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Foods that can count two ways

Some foods qualify as more than one kind of portion. When you add one to a meal, a Counts as: choice appears with Protein and Carb. Pick the role the food plays in that meal. The choice is stored on that line of the plan, so the same food can count as protein in one meal and carbs in another.

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Rounding

Portion values are rounded to steps of 0.05.
  • Values are shown as plain decimals with trailing zeros dropped: 1.5, 2, 4.25.
  • The day total is the sum of the rounded values of each food, so the lines of a day always add up to the total you see.
  • Household amounts are a separate thing. “1½ cups” or “2 units” still use quarter steps. Only portion counts use 0.05.
When you change an amount with the plus and minus buttons in the builder, each press moves by half a portion. To land on a finer value, type the amount.

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Automatic and manual values

A food’s portion values are either calculated or set by hand. The food editor tells you which. To send a manual food back to automatic, open it and choose Back to automatic calculation. The new values take effect when you save. That option is unavailable in two cases, and the editor says which:
  • A serving has no calories or macros, so there is nothing to calculate from.
  • The smallest serving and the food’s unit type do not match, for example one is in units and the other in grams.

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Changing the kcal per portion

When you save new kcal values in settings, Perform offers to update the portion values of the foods in your library.
  • Before you confirm, it tells you how many foods will change and how many will be left alone.
  • Foods with manual values stay as they are. Show foods with manual values lists them.
  • Choose Update and save to apply.
If some foods are still priced by the default kcal values rather than yours, the settings card shows how many and offers Update to my settings.
Existing plans keep their gram amounts. After you change the kcal per portion, the same grams are worth a different number of portions, so the portion counts shown in plans you already built may change. Review active plans after changing these values.

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What changes across the app

With portions on:
  • The food library shows macro type and portion amounts. See Food library.
  • The nutrition builder shows portion targets per day and portion counts per food. See Daily targets.
  • Substitutes are sized so a swap keeps the same portion count. See Substitutes.
  • Recipe macros show the portion equivalent under each gram field. See Recipes.
  • Trainees see portions in the app in place of calories.
Grams stay the stored value everywhere. Portions are always worked out from grams, so switching the setting off later does not lose anything.