# Every log lands on Today: fixing meals filed on the wrong day September 29, 2026 · From the Lab · 8 min read · https://burnweek.fit/blog/every-log-lands-on-today/ > Recall accuracy fades by the hour, yet meals were landing on whichever day was open. New logs now go to Today; backfilling is a deliberate one-shot unlock. **Key takeaways** - Every new entry now lands on Today by default, even while you are browsing another day, and the day strip jumps to Today to show it. - Relative labels mean the app opened the next morning says Today instead of staying on the date you last viewed. - To backfill, tap Add to Yesterday: the dock turns amber, the receipt says "Logged to Yesterday", and the unlock resets after one entry. - Shorter recall windows cut forgotten items by about a third and invented items by about half in observed-meal studies (Baxter 2004), so the default points at the present. - No control is hidden on past days; the change is the default destination and how visibly the app shows it. ## A log should land on the day you ate it, which is almost always today Since September 21, 2026, every new entry in BurnWeek lands on **Today** by default, no matter which day you happen to be looking at. Day headers use relative labels, Today and Yesterday, so the app you left open overnight greets you the next morning with Today rather than with the date you were last browsing. If you are scrolling through Yesterday and log a coffee, the coffee goes on Today and the day strip jumps there so you can see it arrive. And when you really do want to fill in yesterday, there is a deliberate way to say so: tap **Add to Yesterday**, the composer dock turns amber, the entry lands on Yesterday, the receipt reads "Logged to Yesterday", and the unlock resets as soon as that entry is in. Nothing was removed to make this work. Every control that existed before is still on screen; the change is in where a log goes when you have not said otherwise, and in how obvious it is when you have. ## The problem: meals were landing on whichever day was open Before this release the rule was simple and wrong. A new entry went to the day on screen. Most of the time that was today, so nobody noticed. The cases where it was not today are exactly the ones people do not think about: you glance at last night's dinner to remember what you ate, get distracted, and log breakfast twenty minutes later. Or the app sat open overnight on the previous day, and the first entry of the morning quietly joined a day that was already over. The result was a meal that existed but was filed in the wrong place. Today looked light, yesterday looked heavy, and neither was true. Because nothing was lost, nothing looked broken; the error only surfaced later, as a day total that did not match memory. A tracker whose job is to reflect what you ate cannot have a default that depends on where your thumb last scrolled. ## Why the default matters: recall decays by the hour The broader case for logging close to eating is well established, and it is the reason the default points at the present rather than the past. Dietary recall is a memory task, and memory for meals degrades on a timescale of hours, not days. The clearest evidence comes from observation studies that compared what children were seen eating at school with what they later reported. In one study of 60 children, shortening the recall window cut omissions by about a third, cut intrusions (foods reported but never eaten) by about half, and cut total inaccuracy by about a third ([Baxter et al., 2004](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15246326/)). A larger follow-up with 374 children across six combinations of recall window and time of day found that accuracy for each meal was best when the recall happened soonest after that meal: breakfast in morning recalls, lunch in afternoon recalls ([Baxter et al., 2009](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19756033/)). Retention interval is a property of each meal, not of the day. Adults behave the same way when the method lets them. In a crossover of 33 UK adults, a "progressive" recall split across the day, with each meal reported shortly after it, shortened the average retention interval by 15.2 hours compared with a single next-day recall ([Osadchiy et al., 2020](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32012055/)). The [guide to the best time to log meals](/blog/best-time-to-log-meals) works through those numbers in detail. These are small samples and, in the Baxter work, children, so the exact percentages should not be carried over to adult app users. The direction, though, is consistent across designs: the closer the record is to the meal, the fewer items fall out and the fewer phantom items wander in. A default that lands on today is a default that assumes you are logging in the moment, which is the behavior the recall evidence rewards. A default that lands on whatever day is open quietly turns a timely entry into a misfiled one. ## What changes on screen **The morning after.** Open the app after leaving it running overnight and the header says Today. It does not stay pinned to the date you were last looking at, and it does not show a calendar date where a relative word would read faster. **Browsing a past day.** Open Yesterday to check a portion or copy a meal. The screen tells you plainly that you are viewing Yesterday and that new logs go to Today. Log something, whether by typing, by voice, from a photo, or from a shortcut, and it lands on Today; the day strip moves to Today so the new entry is in front of you rather than on a day you are not looking at. **Backfilling on purpose.** Sometimes you do need to add a forgotten snack to yesterday. On Yesterday, tap **Add to Yesterday**. The composer dock turns amber, a color that means "not today" everywhere it appears. The entry lands on Yesterday, and the receipt says "Logged to Yesterday" so there is no doubt where it went. Then the unlock resets. The next log goes back to Today unless you unlock again. **Shortcuts and quick entries.** Entries made without the app in front of you, such as from a shortcut or the lock screen, follow the same rule and land on Today. The [lock-screen logging post](/blog/log-from-lock-screen) covers that surface. ## Why the unlock resets, and why nothing is hidden Two alternatives were on the table and both were rejected. The first was to hide logging controls on past days entirely. That would have made misfiling impossible, but it would also have made deliberate backfilling impossible, or pushed it behind a menu, and it would have made the app look different depending on which day you opened. A control that disappears is a control people stop trusting. So every control stays visible on every day, and the difference is a label and a default, not a missing button. The second was to let the unlock persist, so that once you chose Yesterday you stayed there. That recreates the original bug in a new form: an unlock set at 23:50 would still be silently active the next morning. Making it one-shot means the unusual state never outlives the entry it was meant for. The amber dock is there so the unusual state is also visible while it lasts; the receipt confirms the destination after the fact. This matters for the same reason recall matters. The value of a food log is that it is a record of the day, made close to the day. Backfilling is legitimate, and the [guide to handling untracked days](/blog/how-to-handle-untracked-days) argues for doing it rather than leaving gaps, but it should be an act you choose, not an accident of navigation. ## Timely logging is a habit, and the default protects it Self-monitoring is one of the more consistently supported behaviors in weight management, and how often and how completely people do it tracks with outcomes. In a randomized trial of paper diaries, a personal digital assistant, and a digital assistant with daily feedback, adherence to self-monitoring was associated with weight loss across all arms ([Burke et al., 2011](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20847736/)). That is an association, and the logging may be a marker of engagement as much as a cause. It is still a reason to design for the logging to stay easy and accurate. Adherence also drifts in predictable ways. In a six-month technology-supported trial, recording declined as the study went on and fewer foods were reported on weekends than on weekdays ([Pellegrini et al., 2018](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29325663/)). A log that files entries on the wrong day adds a third, silent kind of drift on top of those: a day that looks incomplete when it was not, and one that looks excessive when it was not. People who see an overfull yesterday they do not recognize have one more reason to stop trusting the numbers. The default does not make anyone log more. It makes each entry count where it belongs, which is the precondition for the day view being worth reading at all. It fits the evening routine the [Finish Today redesign](/blog/finish-today-redesign) built around, where the goal is to close the day you are in. ## What did not change Editing a meal already on a past day still works as before: open it, change it, and the change stays on that day. Deleting and moving meals, the day strip, planned meals, and all logging methods behave as they did. The only differences are the default destination for new entries, the relative day labels, the viewing notice on past days, and the amber one-shot unlock. The wider idea that numbers in a food log are a form of attention rather than judgment is the subject of the [pillar on mindful eating with numbers](/blog/mindful-eating-with-numbers). ## FAQ ### Where does a new log go if I am looking at yesterday? To Today. The screen says you are viewing Yesterday and that new logs go to Today, and after you log, the day strip moves to Today so you can see the entry. ### How do I add something I forgot to log yesterday? Open Yesterday and tap **Add to Yesterday**. The composer dock turns amber, your next entry lands on Yesterday, and the receipt says "Logged to Yesterday". The unlock then resets automatically. ### Why does the unlock reset after one entry? So that an unusual state never outlives its purpose. If it persisted, a backfill started late at night could silently capture the next morning's breakfast, which is the problem this release fixes. ### Does logging soon after eating really improve accuracy? The evidence points that way. Shorter recall windows cut both forgotten and invented items in observed-meal studies ([Baxter et al., 2004](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15246326/)), and accuracy for each meal was best when recalled soonest after it ([Baxter et al., 2009](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19756033/)). Those studies were in children and were small, so treat the size of the effect as approximate. ### Were any buttons removed on past days? No. Every control stays visible on every day. What changed is the default destination and how clearly the app shows it. ## Sources - [Baxter SD, Smith AF, Litaker MS, et al. Recency affects reporting accuracy of children's dietary recalls. Ann Epidemiol. 2004;14(6):385-390.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15246326/) - [Baxter SD, Guinn CH, Royer JA, Hardin JW, Mackelprang AJ, Smith AF. Accuracy of children's school-breakfast reports and school-lunch reports (in 24-h dietary recalls) differs by retention interval. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009;63(12):1394-1403.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19756033/) - [Osadchiy T, Poliakov I, Olivier P, Rowland M, Foster E. Progressive 24-hour recall: usability study of short retention intervals in web-based dietary assessment surveys. J Med Internet Res. 2020;22(2):e13266.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32012055/) - [Burke LE, Conroy MB, Sereika SM, et al. The effect of electronic self-monitoring on weight loss and dietary intake: a randomized behavioral weight loss trial. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011;19(2):338-344.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20847736/) - [Pellegrini CA, Conroy DE, Phillips SM, Pfammatter AF, McFadden HG, Spring B. Daily and Seasonal Influences on Dietary Self-monitoring Using a Smartphone Application. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2018;50(1):56-61.e1.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29325663/) Source: BurnWeek — "Every log lands on Today: fixing meals filed on the wrong day", https://burnweek.fit/blog/every-log-lands-on-today/. Licensed CC BY 4.0: free to quote or reuse with a link to this page.