Skipped Days

 

If you haven't logged onto Diet Power in a while and would like to start over with a clean slate, you can. But first, realize that a short lapse in your diet can be handled without starting over. Reason: Every time Diet Power notices a day when you haven't logged any foods or exercises, it automatically fills the gap with certain assumptions based on your recent history. (See "What Diet Power Assumes," below.) The assumptions may be false, of course¾you may have sat on the couch eating Slim Jims the whole time. But if the relapse lasted only a day or two (or even a week if your goals are long-term), then any error you've introduced will be small, and over time it will shrink to an insignificant fraction of your history.

 

Your best bet, then, may be simply to climb back on the bandwagon with your old records intact. But if you're a purist, there are three ways to begin anew. See "Starting Over," below.

 

What Diet Power Assumes When you Skip Days

Effects on Your Calorie Bank

 

The assumptions above are used mainly to update your metabolic rate and calorie budget. But Diet Power also applies them to your Calorie Bank balance. Thus, if Diet Power imputes a budget of 1522 calories for your "silent" day and your weight change suggests that you overate by 311 calories, the program will automatically subtract 311 calories from your bank balance that day.

 

Starting Over

 

If you have a long gap in your Diet Power records¾you haven't used the program in weeks or months¾the program will think you maintained your weight all that time while eating nothing, and consequently assign you a preposterously low calorie budget, or even a negative one. You may think that the only solution is to abandon your old records and enroll as a new user under a different identity. This has one great drawback, however: you'll lose your Favorites lists in your food and exercise logs. What's more, it isn't necessary.

 

The correct solution is to start a new diet under your current identity and simply tell Diet Power to "forget" what it has learned (or, rather, mislearned) about your metabolism:

  1. Open the Goal Setter by clicking Diet > Goal Setter or the Goal Setter button:
     

  2. Click the "Assume I'm a New User" radio button.
     

  3. Either set new goals or keep your old ones¾it doesn't matter.
     

  4. Click the Adopt Diet button and approve the new diet.

Diet Power will now begin relearning your metabolism, just as it did when you first enrolled.

 


 

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Last Modified: 7/1/07