About
About NutritionTerms
NutritionTerms is a plain-language glossary for the everyday practice of tracking what you eat. The vocabulary inside your app — explained the way a coach would explain it, not the way a textbook would.
What this site is for
You open MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, MacroFactor, Lose It!, Yazio, or one of the newer AI-photo apps, and you see words that nobody ever explained to you. "Verified entry." "Quick Add." "Tare weight." "Macro split." "7-day adherence rate." They sound technical. They feel like they should be obvious. They're not.
This glossary defines them the way a trainer would on the gym floor — short, concrete, with an example in an app you actually use. No academic throat-clearing. No jargon without a definition. If another term is needed to understand one term, I explain that one too.
Who writes it
Nina Alvarez is a NASM-certified personal trainer and nutrition coach based in the U.S. Before founding NutritionTerms in the fall of 2025, she spent five years one-on-one with clients who were trying — and often quitting — calorie tracking apps. She watched people get tripped up by the same vocabulary over and over: what "verified entry" actually means, why the barcode scanner sometimes returns three different answers, whether photo logging is good enough, how to think about a "tracking gap" without spiraling.
Nina writes the way she coaches: plain language, short paragraphs, concrete examples with the actual apps people use (MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, MacroFactor, Lose It!, Yazio, and newer AI-photo tools). She cites primary sources — PubMed, FDA, USDA, Mayo Clinic, Harvard Nutrition Source — but translates them into words that make sense when you're standing in your kitchen at 7 PM trying to log a burrito. Her editorial rule: no jargon that isn't defined right there on the page.
Certifications: National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM-CPT) · Precision Nutrition Level 1
How I pick apps to mention
When a term has a commercial adjacency — say, a tracking concept that actually lives inside consumer apps — I mention apps. I always mention several at once (MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, MacroFactor, Lose It!, Yazio, and newer AI-photo tools like PlateLens), never only one. I never take sponsorship. I don't get paid to recommend apps, period.
What this site is not
NutritionTerms is not medical advice. It's educational. If you have a condition, a history of disordered eating, or just want a real plan, please talk to a registered dietitian. I'm a nutrition coach, not a clinician, and this glossary is about vocabulary, not treatment.