Can you still do green and red days?

[lris]

Hello. I lost a couple of stone doing red and green days about 15 years ago. My weight has fluctuated in the meantime, and I now find myself back where I started, due to snacking and general bad habits.

I don't want to rejoin, never enjoyed the classes (image therapy, ugh), all the happy clappy nonsense. But I did do well on the plan.

Would I be successful going it alone, based on the information I can find online?

Typically, I would use HEXAs for milk in cereal, tea and coffee. HEXB for all bran or oats with fruit for breakfast. Lots of fish, lean meats and veg for lunch / dinner and syn alpen bars and muller lights if I needed a snack.

Does that sound okay? Is it within the current rules, as I know things have changed a lot over the years. I just don't want to be bothered with extra easy, as I never got my head around it. I need something quick and easy to follow for a few months to get me on track and back into better habits.

I do cook from scratch, and I don't drink alcohol, please tell me it's feasible.

I made a pan of Harcombe style risotto and have been having that for supper as it is free on green (if you don't count the stock cube). She adds wilted spinach and sun dried tomatoes as both have quite strong flavours. I don't cook the spinach and have been adding fresh tomatoes rather than the sun dried in the recipe and stirring through low fat soft cheese as a HEB.

225g brown rice cooked for 30 mins, in
600ml veg stock
2 finely chopped onions
Baby spinach

Cook the rice in the stock
Fry the onions then mix with the cooked rice

I put a dollop of that on my plate and then add chopped fresh baby plum tomatoes and finely chopped spinach, having first stirred the cream cheese through.

Reheats in the microwave either before or after the cheese is stirred through and feels less carby than pasta.

Your risotto sounds lovely, @NancyDrawed, I will try that.

I'm taking a couple of days off, going to have flexible syns for days 58 and 59, to give me a kickstart. I'll be back on plan later this week.

Some inspirational menus and also like the look of that risotto!
One pound down this week (basically back where I was before Easter) but feel I inspired after purchasing a few bits in my 'on a good day' dress size 😫 Yet to arrive but I live in hope that they'll fit!
I've been cheating far too much and need to focus on my incessant snacking...more water and fewer hot drinks too I think.
Today's plan ...
Breakfast - m&S buttermilk pancake. NOT a good choice, but Aldi's less calorific ones have disappeared and Im addicted... Coffee, tea.
Lunch: baked potato, beans, Quorn sausages.
Tea: homemade veg and lentil curry, half a naan.
Snacks- pear, apple, water.
Curly wurly if I weaken!

My menu pretty much for this week is:

Breakfast: HEA milk for coffe and Breakfast biscuits
Lunch: JP with beans and VLF cottage cheese or pasta pesto tomatoes and cheddar
Supper: Risotto with HE cheese or pasta (if it wasn't lunch!)

I know it is boring eating the same things, but it is also easy and requires minimal thought.

Enjoy your days off plan, Iris

Diege, snacking is my downfall too. I try to only snack on fruit sometimes only a bag of crisps will do!

Biscuits are my snack downfall nancy and working from home isn't helping...I'm a but meh about fruit, though better than nothing!

Hoping to keep on the straight and narrow today, and keeping my meals predictable seems to help...
Breakfast- buttermilk pancake (counting as combo of HEXB and a few syns 🤣)
Lunch- baked potato, beans, Quorn sausages.
Tea- veg curry and half naan (HEXB).

Plodding on here, desperately trying to resist the late evening sweet treats...As a daily weigher I seem to be on track fir another pound off on Monday, but have to get through a planned Indian takeaway first! So the plan is to keep 'on plan' until this evening but then just go for it (within reason) and mop up the damage tomorrow

Fingers crossed for Monday, then!

I am up today (daily weigher, too). I tend to have a carb-y breakfast, will make lunch and supper low carb to compensate

70.2kg

Gain of 0.4kg this week.
Total weight change since start : - 0.6kg

I've realised that my daily eating window is far too long. I wake up early (usually between 5 and 5.30) and start the day with a milky coffee. I pick through the day as well as having lunch and supper is late, 8 ish. I sometimes snack after that, too. It's no wonder I am so heavy for my height, I'm doing 16:8 the wrong way round!!

I'm meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow, so will make today a lean day.

Have a good week, all, and if I find anything exciting menu wise I'll let you know

I feel your pain Nancy; your day sounds similar to mine, with 5.30am start and late last meal. I've stayed the same this weekend - no predicted pound loss! 😫 I've got to get some control back this week. Im going to try inputting my meals into my fitness pal at the same time as continuing green days - hopefully I'll get a better grasp of what's going on. Not giving up!

Back with an update.

Despite going totally off plan, my weight this morning is the same as last week. I'm still trying to get my head around that. Maybe I was being too strict before.

A Green day, but I'm doing a shop later, so not sure yet what's on the menu today.

On a positive note, I am starting to feel more comfortable in clothes which were far too tight a couple of months ago.

Hope everyone has a good week.

Hi Iris. I'm glad to hear your hard work hasn't been undone by going off plan and better fitting clothes is obviously a bonus.

I like being on this thread and putting my (too heavy) weight in weekly, but am not really in the zone for following this plan at the moment. I will be dabbling in Harcombe and trying to reduce my food window considerably this week. I am also walking twice daily instead of once to get my step count up.

I have some test papers to mark this week, which means I will mostly be sitting down at a desk. I'm toying with the idea of using a fitness ball instead of a chair (still here from when I was pregnant - youngest are 10, I'm terrible for hoarding!) I doubt it'll give me abs of steel, but it might do something.

Hi Nancy, I would say do whatever works for you.

There's no obligation to post every morsel or justify your food choices on here. I find that just reading of others' experiences, and getting some perspective, is so helpful.

Hi, do you do red ad green on the same day with the old book? i see you were having pasta lunch and roast chicken dinner or was that just syns you counted ?

i just found my book and after we return form a holiday next week i am to start red and green again. I mostly used free food in the past and kept my sins for drinks on weekend . Will start 16 May and hope to lose 10 kgs .

70.2 kg - no change this week.

Back to green days I think, as that was what worked for me earlier.

This week:

Pasta, pesto, tomato, cheese or JP, baked beans and cottage cheese for lunch
Harcombe risotto or two chubby cubs lasagne for supper.
Might throw an omelette and SW chips in there for variety

I might have to go back to posting daily as it was a good way of being a bit more focused!

Good morning everyone! A pound off for me, which puts me back to where I was pre-Easter binge-fest
It's starting to dawn on me that losing weight using the plan was far easier in my 30s/40s than at 50...I could still lose a pound a week (my usual) with some 'tweaking' and downright cheating, but now I so much as add a handful of prawn crackers to my on-plan menu and the scales don't shift. I started on hrt patches 3 months ago and while technically I have just squeezed into a healthy bmi, my clothes are uncomfortable and I am NOT buying the next size up! I have around 8 pounds or so to lose (getting married for the second time summer 2022, dress purchased, and it's pretty unforgiving!).
Hoping for a good week for us all

I made Harcombe risotto yesterday and two chubby cubs lasagne is currently cooking, so that's my free meals for a few days sorted!

I'm with you on the harder at this age diege I'm 51 (and a half!) although I suppose I am also less bothered by my appearance than I was in my 20s so don't really stick rigidly to the rules - no wonder it isn't working this time around!

No change here, to be expected after a weekend blowout (ok, 2 pieces of Colin caterpillar cake and a glass of bucks fizz). I have an order of clothes arriving tomorrow from boden/hush so please God let me keep 'on plan' so they have a chance of fitting!
Wishing everyone a good week (nancy 2 weeks of 50 here left so pretty much same ages!).

70.0 kg

So pretty much stayed the same, although dipped mid week.

I am going to try adding a bit of intermittent fasting into the mix this week to see if that gives me a bit of a kick start

69.8 kg

Annoying because mid week I was down to 69 kg two consecutive days last week! Reducing my eating window was what did that I think, but U have lapsed since then. At 200g a week this is going to take me FOREVER.

I have lapsed, not U!!

Freudian slip nancy as I have indeed lapsed 🤣 I was actually down a pound til Saturday but have actually PUT ON a pound today 🤦‍♀️ Its the weekend 'relaxing the rules' that is getting me into this mess.
Enough excuses, am going to make some one pot veggie dishes this week and ban choc til weekend only (has crept back to every day) though Im aware its the party of the year on Saturday - Eurovision!! 😅🎉

Hello, as you all seem to be doing the red and green days diet, could you tell me how many healthy extra A and B choices I can have? I vaguely remember it being 2 B's and 1 A but all the advice online relates to the Extra Easy plan (which I think is mixing red and green days). I haven't done the diet for about 12 years but I want to give it another go now.

Hi SlimmingGuru. On the old red and green days plan you can have 2 A and 2 B choices - part of the attraction for me as a veggie! 😅