When Green Suddenly Turns Red

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When a good run of green days suddenly turns red... what do you do?*** Last week I was determined to get back on track with my diet after having had a few weeks of events and vacation. I incorporated the use of mini-goals. Instead of just striving for the large progress markers, I focused on the next few days. This was a tremendous success as I ended up with 5 days in a row with green results. But then...

I got busy again, had company come to stay for the weekend, a festival to attend, and an outdoor catering venue to work at. All of these events are out of the ordinary for me. I was completely off schedule. As a result I logged 3 red days in a row! It's like I take 2 steps forward and 2 steps back because on at least 2 of the red days I also consumed more than I burned... this equals weight gain. Actually overall, I have not seen a weight gain, even though I was over eating. I attribute this to the increase my level of activity. I normally have a sedentary day. I work at a computer/phone and I love watching TV. Over the weekend I did lots of walking, standing, lifting, and in general saw a huge increase in my activity level. But none of this explanation answers my question... what do you do when green suddenly turns red? I could try the mini-goal of 3 green days again. I could also concede slightly and strive for 5 days of yellow. I'm wondering if green day goals are putting too much pressure on me and therefore at the first change in schedule or activity I am more likely to fail. This weekend will also be filled with out of the ordinary events. I will be traveling to the Charleston area on Friday. Back home on Saturday. Then I have another outdoor catering event to work Sunday and Monday. Knowing that I may be setting myself up for failure, I am going to strive to have green days for the rest of the work week. Then I'm going to try hard to have yellow days (and I may push all the way up to 1800) all weekend. This is an obvious concession to my overall goal, but even at 1800 calories, I am still having some, albeit slower, forward progress. Should this idea not work out, I will be better prepared for next time, and I will have a better understanding of how to set those short term goals for stressful periods.

***If you're not familiar with my system, visit My Food Log for a better understanding. I color code my dieting success on a log of my daily calories. That way, when it's time to get on the scale, if the results that I'm expecting are not there, I can quickly scan back to my eating history and see why I was disappointed. Green days are days where I met my goal, currently 1200 calories per day (I still call it a green day if I was over the goal but by less than 50 calories). Yellow days are to represent days where I did not meet my goal, but I still was able to burn a significant amount of calories. Yellow days are from 1250 calories up to 1800. Anything over 1800 is a red day. Red days also cover days when I consumed more calories than I burned.

I am pleased to announce that I have had 3 official takers for my offer to develop free, personalized, diet plans. I am looking forward to hearing back from these folks. I am more anxious to see if I've actually helped. I still have 22 slots left for free plans. One aspect of creating these plans that I wasn't quite prepared to deal with is the time it takes away from my blog. My post rate has been low as of late because I have a limited amount of time each day to devote to internet/computer/blog work. So, I apologize for not having fun fresh material every day. I am working on ways to resolve this issue. I am currently "pre-writing" this article. I am hoping that this method will make it so I can get a good archive of articles that are relevant and ready to print while at the same time make my evening work hours more productive.

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I have just a couple of hours before bed time and I feel confident in saying that I accomplished my Mini-Goal. Now I need to make another one. So what will it be???
Also, I want to help you! I will personally make a new lifestyle eating plan for you, for free. All you have to do is ask.

Three cheers for me on accomplishing my three day Mini Goal! If you didn't want to scroll down I will summarize... three days green. For me, that means three days eating no more than 1200 calories (with a 50 calorie grace area). So really I could have eaten 1250 and still had green days. As it was, only yesterday did I actually go over the 1200 mark.
The new Mini-Goal will be to go 2 more days at or under 1200. This is supposed to be my goal all of the time, but, if you have read my other posts then you know I have been on vacation. I am also feeling overwhelmed at the moment. Over at The Middle Aged Shed, there is a great article, Losing A Large Amount of Weight - 5 Tips. In that article they discuss the importance of setting small goals. I think this is a great way to combat that feeling of being ovewhelmed that I am experiencing.
Now I know some of you may say, "eee gads, 1200 calories is not enough." But I will refer you to My Diet Plan and my Mission Statement Explanation. Please read these before you deem my diet unreasonable. I will also point out that there are several professionally marketed diets that promote the same low calorie premise, at least in the beginning. And for those of you who don't have time to read both of those articles, let me reiterate that this is My Diet Plan, a plan designed specifically for me.
I will be glad to help you specifically design and tailor your own new lifestyle diet. This is basically the same kind of service offered by many marketed diet centers, but mine does not cost anything but your time. I would also ask that you stay in touch after the plan is created so we can harbor good group energy and motivation.
Hope this post finds you in a happy, healthy, and progressive weight loss mode! We can do it!

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