How Your Budgets Are Calculated

How Liverly sets your daily added sugar, saturated fat, calorie, fiber, sodium, and protein budgets — and how to override them with your care team's numbers.

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Every score, ring, and piece of advice in Liverly is measured against your personal daily nutrient budgets. This page explains which nutrients the app tracks, how your budgets are calculated, and how to override them with the numbers your doctor gives you.

The Core Budgets

Liverly tracks these for everyone, on every meal. Two things to know up front: added sugar, saturated fat, calories, and sodium are ceilings to stay under — fiber and (for some conditions) protein are targets to reach.

NutrientWhy it matters for your liver
Added sugarThe most concentrated driver of liver fat, especially fructose from sugary drinks and sweets. It hides in sauces, dressings, and “low-fat” products under dozens of names.
Saturated fatPromotes fat build-up and inflammation in the liver. Found in fatty and processed meats, butter, cream, and fried food.
CaloriesGradual weight loss of 7–10% is the most powerful treatment for fatty liver, so most profiles get a gentle calorie budget. With cirrhosis the app never sets a deficit — keeping weight and muscle on becomes the priority.
FiberA target to reach, not a limit. Fiber from vegetables, legumes, and whole grains supports a healthier liver and helps weight loss.
SodiumMatters most with cirrhosis, where fluid retention is a concern, and with high blood pressure.
ProteinWith cirrhosis and alcohol-related liver disease, protein becomes a daily target (to protect muscle), calculated from your body weight.

This is general education, not medical advice — your situation may differ. Always follow the numbers your care team gives you.

How Your Personal Budgets Are Calculated

When you finish setup, Liverly calculates your daily budgets from three things in your profile:

1. Your liver condition

Your diagnosis sets the baseline. For fatty liver (MASLD/NAFLD) the defaults are roughly 30g added sugar, saturated fat capped at 10% of calories, a 28g fiber target, and a gentle calorie deficit to support weight loss. MASH and liver fibrosis tighten that to 25g added sugar and 7% saturated fat, with a 30g fiber target. Cirrhosis flips several rules: protein becomes a target of about 1.35 g/kg, sodium drops to 2,000mg, and there is no calorie deficit by default. Alcohol-related liver disease also uses a protein target, because malnutrition is common. If you chose Not Sure or are tracking preventively, Liverly uses general healthy-eating defaults. The baselines are informed by AASLD and EASL-EASD-EASO clinical guidance.

2. Your body weight

Your calorie budget and any protein target are calculated from your body weight, so entering it makes your numbers meaningfully more accurate. If you skipped the weight question, you can add it anytime — see Settings.

3. Your health conditions

Comorbidities adjust your budgets automatically: type 2 diabetes tightens your added-sugar budget to 25g, high cholesterol or heart disease lowers saturated fat to 7% of calories, high blood pressure or heart disease tightens sodium (never below a sensible floor), and obesity turns the weight-loss calorie deficit on.

Fluid is different: your daily fluid number is a hydration goal, not a restriction — see Water & Coffee. If your care team has given you specific fluid guidance (common with decompensated cirrhosis), follow their instructions.

Tip: Your care team’s numbers always win. Liverly’s calculated budgets are sensible guideline-based defaults — if your doctor or dietitian has given you different targets, enter those as custom limits.

Custom Daily Limits

Open Settings and scroll to Custom Limits. Each nutrient — Added Sugar, Saturated Fat, Calories, Fiber, Sodium, and Protein — shows its current value tagged either auto (calculated by Liverly) or custom (entered by you).

The Custom Limits section in Settings with added sugar set to a custom 25 g and the other nutrients on auto

To set a custom limit:

  1. Tap the nutrient.
  2. Enter the daily number from your doctor.
  3. Save. The new number immediately replaces the automatic one everywhere in the app.
The Added Sugar editor with a custom value entered, the auto-calculated budget shown below, and a Reset to Auto-Calculated button

To go back, open the same nutrient and tap Reset to Auto-Calculated. Leaving the field empty also keeps the automatic budget.

Tip: Changing your liver condition in Settings resets any custom limits back to auto-calculated values for the new condition — so re-enter your doctor’s numbers afterward if they still apply.

Optional Nutrients (requires Liverly Pro)

Beyond the core budgets, Pro users can track more. Go to SettingsOptional Nutrients and toggle on what you want on your daily dashboard:

NutrientWhy you might track it
Carbs & SugarsImportant with type 2 diabetes — total sugars show as a subset of carbs
Total FatThe bigger picture around your saturated-fat budget, including trans fat
CholesterolWorth watching with high cholesterol or heart disease
ProteinShown as a target with cirrhosis; informational otherwise
SodiumOn by default for cirrhosis; optional for everyone else
The Optional Nutrients screen with Carbs and Sugars, Total Fat, and Cholesterol toggled on, each with a daily limit row

The AI already analyzes all of these on every scan — toggling a nutrient on just shows it in your diary. Each one can have an optional daily limit: set one to get a progress bar and percentage, or tap Track without limit to see totals only.

Where Your Budgets Are Used

Your budgets aren’t just numbers on a settings page — they drive the whole app:

  • Diary dashboard — the Nutrient Budget shows how much of each budget you’ve used today. See Your Daily Diary.
  • Liver Scores — the same meal scores differently for someone with early fatty liver than for someone with cirrhosis. See Scanning Meals.
  • AI answers — meal and recipe chat answers are framed around your remaining budget for the day.
  • Trends and insights — weekly charts and AI pattern insights compare your intake to your budgets (requires Liverly Pro). See Progress & Insights.
  • Doctor report — your budgets and adherence appear in the PDF you can hand to your care team (requires Liverly Pro). See Doctor Report.

Ready to Start Tracking?

Download Liverly and start managing your liver diet with AI-powered meal scanning and personalized nutrient tracking.