Resting — Mifflin-St Jeor from sex, height, age, and weight, adjusted to match Apple Health’s Resting Energy definition. Typing a Resting value replaces Mifflin as the starting point — your number becomes the prior, and the calibration below still applies on top of it.

Calibration — the scale corrects the formula: your own ledger — what you ate, plus what the scale says happened — implies what you actually burn, and resting walks toward it. It speaks only once there’s enough real data, and it distrusts drama twice over: sudden scale movement is treated as water and glycogen, so only the believable part teaches; and each adjustment spends a weekly budget, so only trends that persist across weeks add up. Days already lived are scored at the burn in effect at the time — a new calibration never rewrites history into phantom credit.

Exercise calories — enter them, or enter minutes and let Neato estimate from an intensity (MET) matched to your description; “easy” and “hard” nudge it. Resting energy is subtracted first, since exercise adds on top of the daily-living baseline rather than replacing it. Estimates show with a ≈; typing a number always wins.

Active — your whole day of movement, matching Apple Health’s Active Energy: an assumed daily-living baseline plus your average logged session, tempered by watch or phone measurements as they accumulate. The same number drives the Exercise tab’s Activity column and the coach’s movement score. Typing a value pins your whole-day burn — an all-day watch’s own Active number fits as-is; Neato derives the daily-living share by subtracting your average session, so logged workouts never count twice.

Goal weight — underweight gets a build goal: lean mass at a healthy muscularity mark (FFMI — lean mass vs. height), arriving a few body-fat points above today, kept inside the healthy-BMI band. Body fat meaningfully above the goal cuts to the weight that keeps your lean mass; near it, or lean-and-heavy, holds maintenance — muscle is never treated as excess. Without composition data: the top of the healthy-BMI band, or a rolling milestone.

Rate & budget — an automatic weekly rate by direction (cut, bulk, or maintain) sets the week’s calories from your weight; each day’s budget = resting + active − the day’s share, pace-adjusted over the rolling week but held between rails — catch-up never demands a binge or a starvation day; what doesn’t fit rolls forward until it’s worked off.

Macros — protein tracks the body you’re building: it’s set from your current or goal weight, whichever is lower, so a heavy cut eats for the destination while a bulk grows with the scale. Fat takes a fixed share and carbs the remainder of the day’s target, on a basis clamped near a typical day so extreme days keep realistic numbers.

Marks — ≈ is estimated from your own data, ~ is an assumed default standing in until there’s data, 🏷️ is read off a product’s nutrition label.

The assumptions — every number Neato assumes, in one place:

• Resting adjustment — Mifflin ×1.1, matching Apple Health’s definition
• Energy per pound — 3,500 cal (7,700 per kg)
• Calibration needs — 14 days of trend, 3 weigh-ins, food logged on 80% of days
• Water/glycogen guard — scale moves beyond 1.5% of body weight per week don’t teach
• Calibration speed — at most 10% of the prior per week, always within 0.8–1.6× of it
• Daily-living baseline — ≈2× body weight (lb) in calories per day
• METs — walking 3.8 · lifting 5 · cycling 7.5 · running 9 · “easy”/“hard” nudge ±
• Auto rate — cut up to 0.75%/week, and a smaller goal simply arrives sooner · bulk up to 0.35%/week (slower as muscle nears its ceiling) · maintain 0. The cut is bounded two ways: every day’s target stays at or above the 1,200 (women) / 1,500 (men) minimum — or 85% of resting, whichever is higher — even when a heavy day has to be paid back, and the deficit never exceeds 25% of the day’s burn
• Daily budget rails — 80–120% of a typical day
• Exercise ask — 30 minutes a day, the same default as Apple’s Exercise ring and above the 150-minutes-a-week guideline, or your own two-week average when that’s more. It’s an ask, not a burn: the food budget counts only the workouts you actually do
• Protein — 0.8 g/lb (1.75 g/kg)
• Fat share — ≈28% of the day’s calories, carbs the remainder
• Macro basis clamp — ±20% of typical
• Goal body fat — 20% men · 25% women · +2 points from age 60; a cut starts 2 points above it
• Build goal — FFMI 19 men · 15.5 women (natural ceilings ≈25/21) · arrival body fat = current +5 · BMI 20–24 band
• No-composition fallback — BMI 24 (men) / 23 (women), or a rolling 10% milestone

Every derived number can be overridden by typing the field it feeds; clearing that field returns it to auto.

📚 Sources — the published work behind these numbers