My personal HabitCal modification

[gratefuldeb67]

Hi Reinhard and friends
Well I have decided that for me personally I am truly satisfied if I only do NoS with 80 percent success, give or take.. What does that mean?
Well if say I have three meals for the day and they are not gargantuan, and lets say I mess up a bit by having a fruit in the evening, or perhaps a slice of cheese or bread, I am still doing pretty well I'd say.
That method, when combined with exercise, kept me sane (haha relatively so!) and motivated to keep going here without much frustration.
I ended up losing 17 lbs the first year that way, and 12 lbs the next.. So I'm *personally* fine with it.
I realise some have incredible resolve and can do this nearly perfectly (ie *you* Rein! LOL) but I feel I'm better off giving myself a bit of leeway if I am to stay upbeat and stick with this long term..
So from now on, I am counting successes on my HabitCal when I stay within approximately 75-80 percent in keeping with the rules.. If it's a really big deviation, or an out and out failure, and for me that means, eating candy or soda (the sweets rule is non negotiable for me) or I have seconds of *everything* at a meal (I'm allowing seconds on salad if necessary) then I'll mark it as a red box.
I hate the fact that I'm eating at night at times again, but I'm not even going to include that as an objective yet, because I truly feel I want to just do my best to adhere to the rules and cement good habits of three meals a day.. I know it's not great, but if I eat one of my meals at 11 oclock (I know I know, not good) and there hasn't been any other problem with the day, I'm gonna put a green box.

I can be extremely strict about the No Sweets rule, so I'm glad I'm not fighting urges to polish off boxes of cookies..

I tried quite hard yesterday to be good, and then at the end of the day I found myself really wanting to have a slice of good bread in the wee hours.
Well I am just going to mark it as a success day for me, because from here on until further notice, success will allow for small deviations..
It will help encourage me to use the HabitCal in conjunction with my own thread and keep an account of the month. I will definitely put a red box if I have less than a 75% good day or if I go and buy a 7/11 slurpee and a donut

Hope this all made sense.
I encourage all to be as strict as you can be with the rules and am not advocating that this is right for all.. Just for me.
Sorta like the people who in past posts have said they struggle with needing an extra fourth small meal or a glass of juice to get through the day..

Peace and Love,
Debs

[reinhard]

Deb,

I have no problem with people "modifying" the habitcal and tweaking the systems however it seems best to them. They're just tools, not ends in themselves. If my rules don't quite work for you out of the box, by all means change them -- especially since you've experienced that similar mods worked well for you in the past. I am very, very happy to play any role, even just a loosely inspirational one, in helping people improve their diet and exercise habits.

That being said, I'd be careful to keep a sense of clarity about whatever you decide. It's one thing to say, "these rules are too strict, so I need to add another exception or two" and saying "these rules are too strict, so I'm going to make them less clear." Both give you more leeway, but the latter can get quite slippery....

Here's an idea, just off the top of my head: you say that "no sweets" is easy, so leave that rule as is: no sweets on N-days. But sometimes you have a salad second or an irresistible but small "snack" and you don't want to have to count that as a failure because it would be demoralizing. So maybe say: you can have at most one such exception (snack or second) per N-day and still count it green. Or something along those lines.

Or you might consider instead just officially adding the 4th mini-meal as others have done. It's at least as generous, and even clearer and easier to habitualize.

Anyway, just suggestions to consider.

Best wishes on making it to the next level, however you decide to get there -- I'm sure you will.

Reinhard

[gratefuldeb67]

What you wrote is what I meant to say!
LOL!
Thanks Rein for understanding my attempt at explaining my idea!
And in no way are you playing a loosely inspirational role in my self improvement. You are completely inspirational! Most especially for the reason that you have kept these rules in play for years now, and not gone back!
A real life hero in my opinion! And there couldn't be a nicer diet guru
I will always think of the day I found your site on Google as a Godsend!

Yep, if I made more than one exception for the day I would count it as a failure..
I'm not trying to give myself unlimited license to break rules, just loosen up a tad
Have a wonderful weekend! Hope your daughters are great
Debs