Advanced Autopilot: the adaptive TDEE algorithm that learns your metabolism

Sergey Oreshko - Co-founder and CEO of MyNetDiary

Most calorie apps hand you a number at signup and never revisit it. Advanced Autopilot estimates your energy expenditure from what you log and what the scale does, then adjusts your plan every week. Here is how the adaptive TDEE app feature works, including how logged exercise is used. Available in Premium.

What is Advanced Autopilot?

Advanced Autopilot estimates your personalized total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) from logged food, logged exercise, and Trending Weight. At a weekly check-in it uses that estimate to propose updated calorie and macro targets for you to review and accept or decline.

A plan that produced a pound a week in January often produces a plateau by March, because the calorie number it started from came from a population formula. Some apps re-run that formula as your weight changes, which keeps it current but still describes the average person with your profile. MyNetDiary's Basic Autopilot does exactly that, automatically on each weigh-in. MyNetDiary's Advanced Autopilot is the adaptive TDEE algorithm that treats the formula's number as an approximation and works out your own from what you log and what your weight does. This page explains the algorithm and how logged exercise enters it.

The check-in screen: expected versus actual weight change, the proposed calories and macros, and the accept or decline choice.

If you know MacroFactor's expenditure algorithm, Advanced Autopilot belongs to the same adaptive TDEE category, with a different implementation that also uses logged exercise directly; the FAQ has the full comparison.

It is a Premium feature of the MyNetDiary iPhone and Android apps, and it manages your calorie plan the way a nutrition coach would. Every user starts from the same estimation method, the Estimated Energy Requirement equation from the Dietary Reference Intakes, a well-validated population formula built on age, sex, height, weight, and activity level. Its result is the app's first estimate of your TDEE, shown as your Weight Maintenance Calories.

The algorithm learns a personal metabolism adjustment on top of that starting figure, week by week, and your daily Food Calorie Budget, macro targets, and projected target date are recalculated from the result.

Advanced Autopilot is adherence-neutral: it learns from what you ate and how your Trending Weight changed, not from whether you hit the target it gave you. It works for any weight goal. The budget sits below the maintenance estimate for weight loss, above it for weight gain, and level with it for maintenance, where the algorithm's job is to keep the two matched as your body changes.

Why is a calorie formula only a starting point, even when you re-run it?

Population formulas are built to be right on average. For any one person they can be off by several hundred calories a day, and the formula cannot tell you which side of the average you are on.

Updating your weight and re-running the formula, by hand or with Basic Autopilot, keeps the estimate current as body weight changes, but it remains a population prediction. It does not learn whether your individual energy needs run above or below that prediction.

Individual energy expenditure can diverge from a population equation because resting expenditure, activity, and metabolic adaptation vary between people and over time. Weight loss in particular lowers energy expenditure by more than the lost body mass explains, an effect researchers call adaptive thermogenesis, and a re-run formula follows it only partway.

Recalculating the equation updates it for current body weight; it does not correct persistent individual prediction error. Advanced Autopilot automates a process experienced trackers sometimes build in an adaptive TDEE spreadsheet or calculator, comparing intake with weight change to update estimated maintenance calories, and adds Trending Weight, logged-exercise handling, weekly check-ins, and plan guardrails without the user building or maintaining the calculation.

How does the adaptive TDEE algorithm in Advanced Autopilot estimate your energy expenditure?

The estimate rests on energy balance. Over a week, the calories you logged minus the change in stored energy your Trending Weight implies equals the calories you burned. Each check-in compares the weight change your current estimate predicted with the weight change that occurred and moves the estimate by the size of the gap.

Adaptive TDEE means estimating your total daily energy expenditure from your own intake and weight data instead of from a formula. The starting estimate is an approximation, and each check-in narrows the gap between it and your actual expenditure. That feedback loop is what makes Advanced Autopilot adaptive and not a one-time calculator.

The weekly loop

1. Log your food and exercise every day.
2. Weigh in at least once a week, ideally on or just before your check-in day.
3. On your check-in day, the algorithm compares the weight change your current estimate predicted from your logged intake and exercise with the change in your Trending Weight.
4. It proposes a new maintenance estimate and, from it, a new Food Calorie Budget, macro targets, and projected target date.
5. You accept the changes or decline them. Nothing changes without your confirmation.

How Trending Weight smooths the scale

Scale weight is noisy. Salt, glycogen, digestion, hydration, and the menstrual cycle can move it by a few pounds in a day without any change in stored energy. Trending Weight smooths normal day-to-day scale fluctuations so Advanced Autopilot can respond to the direction of your weight instead of to individual weigh-ins; one unusually heavy weigh-in would not normally trigger a plan adjustment, while a real trend still shows within a week or two. You can also see Trending Weight on MyNetDiary's Weight screen.

A worked example

Say your maintenance estimate is 2,400 calories and your budget is 1,900 for a pound a week. You log about 1,900 a day, and over the week your Trending Weight drops half a pound instead of a full pound.
Using the simplified 3,500-calorie-per-pound assumption for illustration, the missing half pound is about 1,750 calories, or 250 a day, so the algorithm concludes your maintenance is closer to 2,150 than 2,400 and, once past the early damping, proposes a budget near 1,650. Had you lost a pound and a half, the estimate would have moved up and you would have been told to eat more. The numbers are illustrative; the mechanism is the same in either direction.

How Advanced Autopilot prevents overcorrection

Changes smaller than 100 calories a day are ignored as noise. In the first weeks after you activate it, a proposed change is applied at half strength, then at three quarters, which keeps an estimate built on only a week or two of data from swinging your budget by hundreds of calories. When there is nothing to improve, the check-in says your plan is looking good and changes nothing.

Expect the estimate to settle after about three weeks of consistent logging; after that, real changes typically show within one or two check-ins.

Keeping the estimate stable from week to week while still catching real changes is easier when the algorithm can see your exercise, which is the subject of the next section.

How does logged exercise make the estimate steadier when your training varies?

Advanced Autopilot incorporates logged exercise directly into its weekly energy-expenditure calculation. Exercise contributes at 50% of its logged calorie value, which reduces the risk that a temporary high-training week is read as a permanent change in baseline expenditure.

Adaptive TDEE systems built primarily from intake and weight trend detect activity changes after those changes show up in weight, and some now use activity modifiers such as step trends to speed up that response. Advanced Autopilot instead incorporates logged exercise directly into its weekly calculation.

Without an exercise input, a big training week can look like a faster metabolism and the rest week after it like a slower one, with targets lagging by a week or two in each direction; a single high-output event, a race week or a hiking trip, can push the estimate up and leave it too high after you get home.

Because Advanced Autopilot saw the exercise, it expected the extra loss. When the scale confirms it, the metabolism estimate does not need to move and next week's budget for a lighter week is right; when it does not, the shortfall is handled like any other gap between expected and actual.

Why exercise is not counted in full

Calorie-burn figures from watches and activity tables carry large errors, and a workout raises the day's total energy expenditure by less than the calories burned during it, an effect called energy compensation. Because both make logged exercise calories uncertain, Advanced Autopilot applies a conservative 50% weighting to them.

A 2021 analysis of 1,754 adults estimated average energy compensation at about 28%, larger in people with more body fat; that supports discounting exercise calories in general, not the specific 50% value, which is a MyNetDiary design choice. Whatever inaccuracy remains shows up in Trending Weight and is absorbed at the next check-in, and the weighting applies whether or not you add exercise calories to your daily budget.

Extra calories on training days, if you want them

If your activity varies a lot from day to day, turn on Add Exercise to Calorie Budget under your Exercise Plan. You choose the share of logged exercise calories, from 0 to 100%, that flows into that day's Calorie Budget, and which macros absorb them. Step Bonus does the same for walking beyond your activity level; the calorie-planning guide explains the accounting. People with a steady routine usually get a calmer budget with the setting off, which is what our dietitians recommend.

To avoid counting exercise twice, log only exercise beyond your normal daily movement, and set your Activity Level to sedentary if you log exercise.

The exercise input helps keep a temporary training increase from being read entirely as a change in baseline expenditure.

What does a weekly check-in look like?

On your check-in day the app shows a Time to Check in card on the Dashboard and, if you turned reminders on, a 9 AM notification. The check-in screen shows the proposed calories and macros, the date range, and your estimated and current Trending Weight. You accept or decline.

Expand the details to see how the week compared with your plan, including the weight change that was predicted and the one that happened. If the algorithm found nothing to improve, the screen says your plan is looking good and no changes are needed. A check-in you miss stays available for about three days, then waits for the following week; nothing is applied in the meantime. The plan history keeps an Adv. Autopilot column, so every adjustment you accept stays visible.

Do you have to hit your target every day?

No. The estimate is built from your actual intake and your actual weight change, not from how close you came to the target, so going over budget one week does not create a debt to repay the next.

Each check-in starts from last week's evidence and sets targets for the week ahead. If you went over budget and still lost weight at the planned rate, the algorithm concludes your maintenance estimate was low and raises your budget.

When you go over, the number on the screen changes and that is all; there is no warning and no penalty. What the method does need is complete logging on most days. Partial logging, breakfast and lunch recorded and dinner skipped, is the main source of error: a missing meal looks like a smaller intake, which pulls the estimate down and the budget with it.

If you cannot log a meal precisely, a good-faith estimate is far better than a blank. Fast logging tools make complete days easier: a free barcode scanner, voice logging, copy from a previous day, and Meal Scan from a photo.

Calorie-floor guardrails and professional oversight

Advanced Autopilot applies a calorie-floor guardrail. If a recalculated budget would fall below the app's minimum budget or below 80% of your estimated basal metabolic rate, the change is not applied and the app suggests a slower weekly rate.

The feature is available to users 18 and over. When you reach your target weight it congratulates you and sets your budget to your maintenance calories, and the same estimate carries you into maintenance without a reset. It cannot run alongside a Fixed Budget priority or with every macro fixed in grams; calorie and macro cycling are preserved, because cycling is defined in percentages.

For people working with a professional, Advanced Autopilot supports the plan without replacing it. Through Professional Connect, a dietitian can send a client a weight plan that includes the Autopilot setting and follow the weekly check-ins. The algorithm handles recalibration between sessions; the clinical judgment stays with the professional. MyNetDiary is used by dietitians and health professionals through this platform, with unlimited client connections at no cost to the practitioner.

Advanced Autopilot vs. Basic Autopilot vs. a formula

A formula on its own gives you the signup estimate and leaves it there unless you recalculate by hand. Basic Autopilot re-runs that formula after each weigh-in, which usually brings the estimate closer without personalizing it. Advanced Autopilot learns a personal metabolism adjustment, the adaptive TDEE approach, and applies it weekly. The table shows what each one reads and does.

Three ways to set a calorie budget, from least to most personalized:

Basic Autopilot changes the budget when your weight changes; Advanced Autopilot changes the estimate when your results say it should.

How the food database affects the estimate

Any adaptive estimate is only as good as the intake data behind it. The algorithm runs on MyNetDiary's staff-verified food database of more than 2 million foods, built on USDA and NCC research-grade sources, with up to 108 nutrients per entry.

A verified database reduces one source of error, the nutrition values attached to the food you select; the estimate still depends on choosing the right foods and portions and logging the day completely. Highly accurate nutrition tracking on the intake side is what makes the comparison with your weight meaningful. Weigh-ins can come from a connected scale through Apple Health or Health Connect, or through Fitbit and Withings sync.

The check-in needs about six complete logging days a week, which matches the tracking frequency associated with the best outcomes in our peer-reviewed study of 5,132 users (J Med Internet Res 2026;28:e98144); that study examined tracking frequency, not Advanced Autopilot itself.

Who is Advanced Autopilot for, and when is Basic the better choice?

Advanced Autopilot is best suited to adults who can log consistently, weigh in regularly, and want their calorie and macro targets to adapt to observed results instead of relying only on a formula. Four situations where that matters most:

• Stalled while doing everything right: the check-in finds the maintenance estimate that is no longer accurate and proposes the new number.
• Training that swings week to week: the exercise input keeps a hard week from being mistaken for a permanent change.
• Gaining on a surplus: the same estimate sets the surplus, and the weekly adjustment keeps a lean gain from becoming a fast one.
• Maintaining: it keeps budget and expenditure matched as they drift.

In each case the weekly check-in is what moves the estimate; the situation only changes what it finds.
If you are taking a GLP-1 medication, your intake and your energy needs can both shift over a few months, and the algorithm follows what your log and your scale show without needing to know why. Medication logging and dose reminders live in GLP-1 Companion, and decisions about the medication itself belong with your prescriber.

When Basic Autopilot is the better choice

Choose Basic if you want a budget that simply follows your weight without a weekly check-in, if you cannot log six days a week, or if the check-in keeps proposing a budget you cannot sustain. Our dietitians suggest about a pound a week; an aggressive target pushes any algorithm toward the calorie floor.

Where any adaptive estimate can be misled

Any trend-based estimate can be briefly misled by a weight change that is not an energy change, such as a new high-fiber or high-carb diet, starting creatine, or the glycogen swing at the start of a diet. Trending Weight smoothing and the gradual updates limit the effect, and a check-in you decline costs nothing. The other limit is partial logging, covered above.

How do you turn on Advanced Autopilot?

Open My Weight Goal & Plan (Me tab on iPhone, side menu on Android), tap Activate on the Advanced Autopilot card, read the three short intro screens, choose your check-in day, and tap Activate. From then on Advanced Autopilot manages your Calorie Budget.

1. Open My Weight Goal & Plan and tap Activate on the Advanced Autopilot card on the Overview tab.
2. Read the three intro screens (Starting Advanced Autopilot, How Advanced Autopilot Works, and Simple Steps, Remarkable Results), choose your check-in day, and tap Activate.

Settings > Autopilot Settings holds the mode (Advanced, Basic, or Off), the check-in day, and the reminder switch. While Advanced Autopilot is on, your Calorie Budget and the maintenance-calories method are managed for you; turn Autopilot off to edit them by hand.

Advanced Autopilot is included in MyNetDiary Premium: $8.99 a month, $59.99 a year, or $179.99 for a lifetime license (current US pricing, verified September 2026). Premium Plus is not required.

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