Garmin has introduced one of its more consequential software updates in recent years by adding built-in nutrition tracking to the Garmin Connect app. The new feature, called Nutrition, is available through the Garmin Connect+ subscription and brings calorie and macronutrient logging directly into the same platform that already handles training data, sleep metrics, stress, and recovery. In effect, Garmin is attempting to reduce reliance on third-party food tracking apps by keeping diet, activity, and performance data under one roof.
The functionality itself will feel familiar to anyone who has used services like MyFitnessPal. Users can log meals by searching a global food database, scanning barcodes, entering restaurant meals, or building custom recipes. Garmin has also added optional image-based logging, where a photo of a meal can be used to initiate entry, a capability that echoes similar experiments seen on devices like the Oura Ring 4. These tools are designed to reduce friction, though accuracy will still depend on how consistently and carefully users log their intake.
Where Garmin’s approach differs is in how this information is presented and contextualised. Nutrition data sits alongside existing Garmin metrics, including daily energy expenditure, workouts, steps, sleep quality, and stress levels. Rather than treating food logging as a standalone task, the app frames it as one variable within a broader training and recovery picture. Users can view calorie and macro intake over daily, weekly, monthly, or annual periods, which shifts the focus toward long-term patterns rather than short-term fluctuations.
Garmin is also leaning heavily on its Active Intelligence system to interpret these relationships. Instead of generic reminders, the app highlights correlations between behaviour and outcomes. For example, consistently eating late may be linked to poorer sleep scores, or under-fuelling might be associated with declining training readiness. These prompts are positioned as suggestions rather than prescriptions, though their usefulness will likely depend on how precise and restrained the results feel in practice.
Targets for calories and macronutrients are generated automatically using factors such as height, weight, activity level, and average active calories burned, but all values can be adjusted manually. This flexibility is important, particularly for experienced athletes who already follow structured nutrition plans and may want to use Garmin’s tools for monitoring rather than guidance.
Nutrition tracking also extends beyond the phone. Compatible Garmin watches can display summaries and recently logged foods, and some models allow voice commands to open the feature. While this does not replace detailed logging, it reinforces Garmin’s aim of making nutrition part of the daily training loop rather than an afterthought.
The main point of contention is access. Nutrition is locked behind the Garmin Connect+ subscription, with limited trial periods offered. For users who value having training, recovery, and fuelling data integrated into a single ecosystem, the addition may justify the cost. For others, especially those already invested in established food tracking apps, it may feel like functionality that should have been included by default. How widely it is adopted will depend less on novelty and more on how reliable, unobtrusive, and genuinely useful the insights prove to be over time.
