Green and Red Light Foods, and I Wish I Believed in Yellow Light Foods

When I first started coming to Overeaters Anonymous in August of 2015, I thought it was a crazy cult, and I was terrified . . . but I also knew the people in that room had something I wanted.

The people in those meetings talked about having peace with food and peace with their bodies, which I'd never, ever heard in a Weight Watchers meeting. What I heard in WW meetings was that if I found an ice cream sandwich with a low enough point count (Skinny Cows, natch), I could eat six instead of one.

In the rooms of OA, I heard people laughing with genuine mirth at the things they used to believe--things I still believed, like, "if I lose 50 pounds, my life will suddenly be great."

One day after my favorite meeting, a young woman in her mid-twenties told me one way to get started was to make a list of red light, yellow light, and green light foods.

Red light foods are foods that always give me trouble, yellow light foods are sometimes a problem and sometimes not, and green light foods are always fine.

You take an honest look at those categories and then your first abstinence is just cutting out your red light foods, or even just cutting out one of your red light foods while you work the steps and pray for willingness to let go of more things that cause you trouble.

My very first attempt looked something like this:

Green light: lean meats, all veggies, most fruits, beans and legumes, fish, unsalted nuts, potatoes, rice, pasta, whole grain bread, milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, low-sugar cereal

Yellow light: salted nuts, potato chips, popcorn, crackers, white bread and rolls

Red light foods: candy, cookies, ice cream, cake, basically anything sweet.

That was my very first stab at it, and it worked for a really long time! Over the years and months since, many of my yellow light foods have moved over to red.

Today, I don't have yellow light foods, but it was a really important part of my process to have them for awhile!