Plan My Day

Plan my day suggests meals that fit what’s left of your day. It picks from your saved foods, your own recipes and the KidneyPal recipe library, keeps them within the limits in your KidneyPal profile, and lets you log each idea when you eat it. It’s part of KidneyPal Pro, on your phone and in the web app.

The planner works on your phone with the numbers already in your diary. Those numbers are estimates, and a plan is a set of meal ideas, not a meal plan from your care team.

Opening the Planner

Open the Add Food sheet (the + on a meal section or the big + in the center of the tab bar) and tap Plan my day at the bottom. It plans the day you’re looking at in the diary:

Today — Rest of today: meals you’ve already logged food in are skipped, and the planner fills the empty ones. Drinks from the fluid tracker or Apple Health don’t count as a meal. Meals whose time has passed are skipped too: breakfast from 11:00 and lunch from 16:00 (your phone’s time). Dinner and snacks are never skipped by the clock. To plan a skipped meal anyway, turn its chip back on.
A future day — Whole day: all your meals.
A past day — the row isn’t shown. Past days can’t be planned.

On the free plan the row shows a PRO badge and opens the upgrade screen.

From a meal you just scanned

When you analyze a meal you’re about to add to today, the result shows What’s left today after this meal (Pro): how much sodium, potassium and phosphorus you have left, and how much protein you still need if your protein target is a minimum. A nutrient with no target is left out. If some foods you logged today have no value for a nutrient, it says Can’t check for that nutrient. The numbers are estimates from your diary and your KidneyPal limits.

Tap Log this meal and plan the rest to add the meal to today (you pick the meal, as with Add to Diary) and open the planner for the rest of the day. If the meal is already in today’s diary, the button reads Plan the rest of today and just opens the planner.

If the meal takes you to or over a daily limit (sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein when it’s a maximum, or calories when you have a calorie maximum), there is no plan button. The card says After this meal, a daily limit is reached, so KidneyPal won’t suggest more meals for today. You can still log the meal with Add to Diary.

The planner loads the KidneyPal recipes when it opens, so it needs a connection the first time. If you’re offline and none have been loaded on your phone yet, you’ll see Connect once to load KidneyPal recipes; your saved foods and your own recipes still plan.

On the web

In the web app, click Plan my day at the top of the Diary, next to + Add Food. It plans the day you’re looking at, with the same rules as the phone, and isn’t shown on a past day. A saved plan shows on the Diary as Your plan · 1 of 4 logged (your numbers): click it to see the items, Log one, Open the plan, or Re-plan the rest. Plans are shared: a plan made on your phone shows on the web, and the other way round.

How It Decides

Sodium, potassium and phosphorus stay within 90 % of what’s left of each today. The rest is a small reserve for drinks, condiments and estimates.
Protein and calories stay at or under what’s left of their maximum, when you have one. Fluid is checked only when your daily fluid number is a limit (CKD stage 3 and above or dialysis, or a fluid maximum you set yourself, as on the fluid tracker); a hydration goal is never a reason to leave something out.
It plans toward a protein goal if you’re on dialysis (protein is a goal there) or if you’ve set a protein minimum in Settings → Daily Limits, and toward a calorie aim only if you’ve set a calorie minimum (in the planner’s settings, below, or Settings → Optional Nutrients). Without one, a hint links to where you can set it. Apart from the dialysis protein goal, the planner never sets a goal for you.
For breakfast, lunch and dinner it picks a meal-sized dish first: a recipe, or a saved food made of two or more foods (like a scanned plate). A single food such as plain rice is used only when no dish fits what’s left. Your protein goal or calorie aim, when you’ve set one, comes before this preference.
For snacks it picks a snack-sized food first (not a garnish like herbs or a sauce), preferring snack recipes and saved foods you’ve logged as snacks.
KidneyPal recipes follow your Diet Preferences (a vegan recipe counts as vegetarian). Your own recipes and saved foods are always included.
A food or recipe missing its sodium, potassium, phosphorus or protein value is never suggested.

The top of the screen tells you what it couldn’t check:

Can’t check sodium (or another nutrient) — a food you logged that day has no value for it. Tap Check it to go back to that day in your diary.
A food you typed in yourself with calories but 0 sodium, potassium, phosphorus and protein is flagged in case you left those blank.
Your carbs limit isn’t checked by the planner — limits other than sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, calories and fluid (carbs, sugars and the like) are named here, not used.
When there’s no room left, it says so — for example You’re over today’s sodium, or that there isn’t room for another meal within what’s left.
When a daily limit is already reached today (sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, or a calorie maximum), it doesn’t make a new plan for today. A Daily limit reached card lists the limits and has a Plan tomorrow button. A plan you saved earlier today still opens, and you can still log from it. If the day frees up (for example, you delete an entry), the planner makes the plan.
When every meal is off for the rest of today, it says No meals selected for the rest of today and offers Plan tomorrow.

Below the notes, a strip shows sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein and calories (plus fluid when it’s a limit): what’s logged plus what’s planned, against your target.

Changing the Plan

Each idea shows its name, servings, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein and calories, and where it comes from (KidneyPal, My recipe or Saved food). On each one you can:

Swap — choose from up to 10 other ideas that fit in its place
Change the servings with − and + (a step that would go over a limit is refused, with a note saying which one)
Lock it, so it stays when you shuffle
Remove it
Log it when you eat it (see below)

The meal chips above the meals turn a meal on or off; turning one off removes its ideas. Shuffle gives new ideas and keeps the items you locked or already logged. Save plan keeps the plan and puts a Your plan card on your diary for that day.

Settings

Tap the gear at the top right:

Plan from — Saved foods, My recipes and KidneyPal recipes (all on to start)
Snacks — 0, 1 or 2 snacks a day (1 to start)
Always include — saved foods to put in every plan, like your vitamins. + My supplements adds everything in your Saved Foods Supplements category.
Calories — if you don’t have a calorie target yet, enter a Daily calorie aim. It’s saved as your calorie target (a minimum) in Settings → Optional Nutrients. If you already have a calorie target, it’s shown with Change in Settings.
Protein — Set a protein goal opens Daily Limits when you don’t have a protein minimum.

Logging What You Eat

Planned items are only ideas until you log them; nothing reaches your diary on its own.

Tap Log on an item, or Log meal on a meal to log all of its items at once. You can change the servings to what you actually ate.
If a recipe or saved food changed since you planned it, or logging it would now go over what’s left, KidneyPal shows you what changed first (Before you log). You can still Log anyway.
Logging works on the plan’s day or later, never before: a plan for tomorrow says You can log this on and the date.
A logged item shows Logged. Delete that entry from your diary and you can log it again.

The Your plan card on the diary shows how many items you’ve logged (Your plan · 2 of 6 logged). Tap it to see the items by meal, each with Log; Open goes to the planner, and Re-plan the rest (Pro, today or a future day) makes new ideas for what you haven’t logged, keeping logged and locked items. On today’s plan it also skips meals you’ve since logged other food in.

Shopping List

Add ingredients to shopping list at the bottom sends the plan to your shopping list. With recipes in the plan, you choose For the servings in my plan (multiplied by your Cooking for number when you’ve set one in Settings → Meals & Recipes) or Full recipe. Saved foods are added by name. It needs a connection.

If Your Pro Ends

A plan you saved stays on your diary and in the planner, and you can still log its items. Changing it (shuffle, swap, settings, new plans) needs Pro. A saved plan for a past day works the same way for everyone: you can log from it but not change it.