When Green Suddenly Turns Red

do0rdiet.blogspot.com
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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Back In The Saddle

After a wonderful vacation and successful casting out of demons from my son (baptism) I am very glad to be back. The Great Smoky Mountains National Forrest is definitely a place everyone should visit, several times if possible. I fell off the diet wagon during the vacation, but I didn't fall as hard as I expected.

I learned a few things about my eating habits, metabolism, fitness, and activity level while I was away. My eating habits overall have certainly changed for the better. I generally don't eat so much anymore. I don't know if my stomach has shrunk or if my body is now better able to listen to it's full signals. But in general over the vacation, over-eating was not my biggest downfall.
My metabolism is normal, I think. I did eat more calories but I also had far more activity than usual. I did not gain any weight after falling off the wagon for 7 days.
I am impressed and inspired by my apparent overall fitness level. There were several days where I expected to wake up sore the next morning. Several days of the vacation incorporated far more walking than is normal for me. Two of the days included excessive cooking and cleaning in less than cool temperatures. I experienced no soreness and actually had the energy to push through the work without exhaustion.
The increased activity level and absence of exhaustion lead me to believe that my general activity level is higher than I had originally estimated (during the creation of My Diet Plan). This also would explain why I have lost more pounds than indicated by My Food Log.
So, all of these points are good. In what way did I fall off the wagon? Well, it was mostly in the type of foods I indulged on and in my beverage choices. I was a sucker for dessert. I was able to resist the homemade, freshly made, still warm, and smelling soooo sweet fudge. But, I had a few servings of ice cream and chocolate cake. I also grabbed a Coke at every opportunity instead of my requisite diet sweet tea. Had I cut those two areas out over the vacation, I could have probably lost at least 2 pounds given the increased activity, instead of maintaining the same weight. In other words, I could have probably reduced my daily caloric intake by about 600 calories, if I had skipped the desserts and sodas.
One other, very important lesson I learned.... although I did have the energy to push through some very trying days, I did notice that on the days where I filled up on desserts and sodas, I had a noticeable change in energy level at the end of the night. I guess what I'm suggesting here is that sugar and fat may give an initial energy burst with sustaining properties, they will eventually cause an energy depletion.
All in all I had a very relaxing, fun filled, purposefule trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Forrest. I would love to do it again. I miss living there but I am glad to be back to my current home.
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Updates

My Food Log links have been changed so that you can now view my entire log. following the link, first you are taken to the original sheet (created with Google Documents). That sheet is a good source for copying the format and starting your own log. To view July or August, just click on that tab.

McDonald's sucks. See post below.

Vacation coming soon. I will not be posting August 10-13. I will think about you while I relax in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Read more!