A tailgate is not a meal you plan. It's a parking lot, a grill, a cooler, and a folding table where somebody's dip has been sitting since two hours before kickoff.
Trying to track it is a losing battle. A couple of loose defaults work better than any app.
Pick one thing with protein
There's usually something off the grill — burgers, chicken, sausages, or a veggie option someone brought. Start there, then add whatever else looks good.
That's roughly how the calculator's macro split is built anyway: total calories first, protein as a floor, fat as a minimum, carbohydrates as the remainder. A plate with one anchor on it doesn't need further analysis.
The quiet calories are in the dips and the cup
Chips, dip, a second soda, a beer or two, and the handful of candy from somebody's truck. None of it arrives as a course, so none of it gets counted.
You don't have to refuse any of it. Alternating with water and noticing the second helping are usually enough. A 10–20% deficit is a range across weeks, not a score you settle at a folding table.
Don't save up all day
Skipping lunch to make room is the classic tailgate mistake. It tends to end with a hungry afternoon and a lot of grazing, which is a harder pattern to read than just eating normally.
Have a normal breakfast and a normal lunch. Then eat what you want at the game without any compensating on Monday.
Look at the week, not the tailgate
One Saturday doesn't move a trend. Two or three weeks of weekly weight averages do. If those drift in a direction you don't want, change one small thing by 100–200 calories and watch again.
Keep the good part
The point of the afternoon is the game, the people, and the ridiculous amount of dip. Nobody remembers the person who brought a food scale to the parking lot — and if they do, it's not for the right reason.