If the universe had intended for you to drink whole milk it would have made you a cow 
Cronometer - it has a great UI and comprensive database, and makes this chore about as easy as it could be. I use the TR calculator to set the baseline calories and then sync activity data from Garmin to track active calories.
My mindset has shifted from “what is the least that I can eat to improve my performance” to “what is the most that I can eat to improve my performance”.
If I’m going to train my body hard, it makes sense to flood it with all the high quality nutrition I can to sustain the workload and improve body composition over time. Three months in and weight has not changed appreciably which is fine with me (BMI just under 20). Energy and life quality is much improved. TR predicts a 4% “FTP” bump this week which will put me close to an historic high. I’ll probably schedule a ramp test to see if I can hit the number …
Definitely interesting, but my personal anecdotal experience is that performance and carb intake share the same trajectory on the bike. Also, days where I skimp on carbs during training will generally leave me exhausted with an extended recovery period. I’m no scientist but I’m skeptical of these claims. Less carbs may be good for many people, but for endurance athletes hammering down on metabolic systems that rely on carbs, wouldn’t one think that keeping fuel in the tank is important?
Have you tried the “photo feature”? Is it accurate enough. Sometimes its hard to measure meals at work. I find that Garmin sucks at this job. Actually Claude do better job in recognizing food and scale of it than Garmin connect feature.
Does the calculator take into consideration the thermic effect of food? I have days where I hit 400 kcal just of TEF.
No, I haven’t tried it. I tend to repeat a lot of the same meals/foods so I don’t have much need for it. If eating something new and not in the library. I just pick something that look close enough. Mostly I’m simply trying to get macros and calories in the ballpark, and I don’t need every meal to be accurate.