Special Days
Mark holidays, festivals, travel, weddings, and other events that affect your clients' diet plans — with contextual guidance and flexible tracking.
Special Days let you annotate your practice calendar with events that affect diet adherence — Diwali, weddings, travel, exams, or any life event. MealStack adjusts compliance tracking, sends contextual guidance to clients, and blocks follow-up scheduling on those days automatically.
Special Days is a differentiation feature — no other nutrition practice management tool handles festivals, travel, and life events natively. Indian dietitians deal with these weekly; now the tool handles it too.
How it works
- Mark a special day — from the Calendar page or a client's Follow-ups tab
- Set the parameters — calorie adjustment, compliance tracking, guidance text
- MealStack handles the rest — portal card shown to client, compliance paused, follow-ups blocked
Special days can be org-wide (applies to all clients — e.g., Diwali) or per-client (personal events like a wedding or business trip).
Creating a special day
From the Calendar
Click "🎉 Mark Special Day" in the calendar legend row. A dialog opens with:
- Quick templates — pre-built Indian festivals and common events (Diwali, Navratri, Holi, Eid, Christmas, Wedding, Travel, Exam, Ramadan)
- Type selector — emoji-based chips (Holiday, Festival, Travel, Party, Vacation, Wedding, Fasting, Exam, Custom)
- Date range — single day or multi-day (for vacations, travel)
- Calorie adjustment — Normal, Relaxed (+20%), Strict (-15%), Maintenance, or Custom target
- Client guidance — text shown in the portal (tips, encouragement)
- Toggles — skip compliance tracking, block follow-ups, recurring annually
- Send guidance — choose when to notify the client (day of, 1-3 days before, 1 week before)
From a client's Follow-ups tab
Click the "🎉 Special Day" button next to "Schedule Follow-up". The same dialog opens, pre-filled with that client's ID — creating a per-client event.
Applying templates
Click any template chip (e.g., "🪔 Diwali") and all fields auto-fill:
- Title, type, calorie adjustment, compliance settings
- Pre-written client guidance and tips
- Recurring annually (for festivals)
You can customize any field after applying a template.
Event types
| Type | Emoji | Color | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday | 🎄 | Amber | Public holidays, days off |
| Festival | 🪔 | Amber | Diwali, Holi, Eid, Christmas, Pongal |
| Travel | ✈️ | Sky | Business trips, flights |
| Party | 🎊 | Pink | Social events, dinners out |
| Vacation | 🏖️ | Teal | Multi-day leisure trips |
| Wedding | 💒 | Rose | Wedding ceremonies, related events |
| Fasting | 🙏 | Emerald | Navratri, Ramadan, Ekadashi |
| Exam | 📚 | Violet | Exam week, high-stress study periods |
| Custom | 📌 | Slate | Anything else |
Calendar integration
Special days appear on the calendar as colored event bands:
- Org-wide events show "All clients" with the event title
- Per-client events show the client's name
- Multi-day events (vacations) span across multiple calendar cells
- Color-coded by type (amber for festivals, sky for travel, pink for parties, etc.)
- Appears in all three views (day, week, month)
What clients see
Portal home card
When a special day is within 3 days, a contextual card appears on the client's portal home screen:
- Emoji + title with countdown ("Tomorrow", "In 2 days", "Today")
- Dietitian's guidance in a highlighted box
- Adjusted calorie target (if different from normal) with visual comparison
- Tips list — actionable bullet points for the event
- Compliance note — "Compliance tracking paused for today. Enjoy!"
The card appears between the practitioner note and the water tracker — high visibility without being intrusive.
Mark Event (client-initiated)
Clients can mark their own upcoming events from the portal:
- Tap the + (quick actions FAB) in the bottom navigation
- Select "Mark event" from the grid
- Choose a type (Party, Travel, Vacation, Wedding, Exam, Other)
- Set the date and optional end date
- Add a note for their dietitian (optional)
- Tap "Send to Dietitian"
This creates a special day with creatorRole: "client" and:
- Sends a chat message to the practitioner: "📅 I have a party coming up: 'Office Party' on June 5"
- Shows in the practitioner's calendar and client timeline
- Practitioner can then respond with guidance or adjust settings
Encourage clients to mark events ahead of time. This gives you a chance to send tips before the event and adjust the plan if needed — much better than finding out after the fact.
Calorie adjustments
| Setting | Effect | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | No change to targets | Events that don't affect eating (exam day) |
| Relaxed (+20%) | Increases target by 20% | Festivals, parties, social events |
| Strict (-15%) | Reduces target by 15% | Pre-event prep days ("earn your feast") |
| Maintenance | Sets target to TDEE (no deficit) | Travel, vacations where maintaining is the goal |
| Custom | Specific calorie number | When you know the exact budget |
The adjusted target is shown to the client on their portal home screen with a visual comparison to their normal target.
Compliance tracking
When "Skip compliance tracking" is enabled for a special day:
- The client's food diary for that day is optional — no logging pressure
- Compliance percentage calculations exclude that day entirely
- Weekly/monthly adherence reports skip the day in their denominators
- The portal diary shows a "Flexible Day" banner: "Compliance tracking paused. Enjoy your celebration!"
- Insights and trend reports annotate the day so practitioners can see context
This prevents artificial drops in adherence scores due to planned celebrations.
Follow-up scheduling
When "Block follow-ups" is enabled:
- The follow-up scheduling system avoids placing appointments on that day
- If a follow-up is already scheduled on a special day, a warning badge appears
- The calendar quick-create popover shows a "⚠️ Special day" indicator for blocked dates
- Auto-generated follow-ups (from package assignment) skip blocked dates
Pre-built templates
MealStack includes 9 pre-built templates for common Indian events:
| Template | Type | Calorie | Key tips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🪔 Diwali | Festival | Relaxed | Portion control with sweets, protein breakfast |
| 🙏 Navratri | Fasting | Maintenance | Sattvic foods, sabudana, kuttu alternatives |
| 🎨 Holi | Festival | Relaxed | Pre-play meal, thandai moderation |
| 🌙 Eid | Festival | Relaxed | Dates + water to break fast, plate half-salad |
| 🎄 Christmas | Holiday | Relaxed | One dessert fully enjoyed, roasted veg first |
| 💒 Wedding | Wedding | Relaxed | Pre-event snack, buffet survey strategy |
| ✈️ Business Travel | Travel | Maintenance | Pack snacks, grilled > fried, hydration |
| 📚 Exam Week | Exam | Normal | Brain fuel meals, no meal skipping |
| 🌙 Ramadan | Fasting | Maintenance | Balanced suhoor/iftar, hydration window |
Templates can be applied org-wide (for festivals affecting all clients) or per-client.
Recurring events
Toggle "Recurring annually" for events that repeat every year:
- Diwali, Eid, Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries
- MealStack creates the event for the current year's date
- Next year, you can regenerate or adjust the date (Hindu calendar dates shift annually)
For festivals with shifting dates (Diwali, Eid, Navratri), you'll need to update the date each year since they follow lunar calendars. Templates make this quick — just change the date and apply.
Best practices
- Mark org-wide festivals early — at the start of each month, mark upcoming national holidays and festivals for all clients
- Encourage clients to self-mark — when clients mark their own events, you get advance notice and can prepare
- Use "Strict" for pre-event days — a day of slight restriction before a celebration makes the relaxation guilt-free
- Always add guidance — even simple tips ("enjoy 2-3 pieces of mithai") give clients guardrails without restriction
- Review post-event — check if clients logged anything on special days — engagement even on flexible days is a good sign