EASTER EATING

NikonPal

More than happy with my Easter eating – thought I was going to chow down, so I left myself 1419 calories remaining yesterday (that included 499 extra calories from treadmill exercise).

Easter morning I hit the gym and burned another 253 calories - so I could hit the buffet table with negative calories.

As it turned out, I just wasn’t in the mood for most of the food. It all boiled down to – “do I REALLY want xyz? or would I rather leave those calories open for later in the day? “

I only made one (1) trip to the buffet table (except for an additional couple ounces of lean ham with all fat removed).

I certainly didn’t eat the $25.00 pp cost.

Tomorrow is my "official" weekly weigh-in so I'll see where things end up.

alphabetsoup2013

Great job planning ahead AND making good decisions in the moment. Well done! PS We're having sweet potato chili for dinner here. The Easter Bunny only brought chocolate for one person in our family this year (our teenager). The Easter Bunny is being very supportive of my/hubby's fitness goals. ;-)

BRaye325

We had a brunch for the family here so it was nice because then could have some good low cal options. We are following it up with broiled tilapia for dinner.

nikkib0103

You all did great! I did not. I could have done much worse, mind you, but I could have done better. Tomorrow I am back to exercise and eating right. By the end of this coming week it will be like today did not happen. I will not let today trigger a downward spiral.

CrazyMermaid1

I didn't do well either. Too much candy and bad food choices

alphabetsoup2013

nikkib0103 wrote: »

I will not let today trigger a downward spiral.

Avoiding the downward spiral is all that matters. (I've gotten off track for years at a time after being sucked into the vortex of one of those downward spirals.) :-)

lynnstacey2

I ate plenty of great foods that I planned to eat, didn't go over my maintenance calories which was also planned and today it's back to normal eating. This "plan" isn't a diet, it's a way of eating everyday for life, so there ARE going to be days where you need to be able to make the choice to eat things you don't normally eat without feeling like you blew the whole thing! Holidays are going to happen, birthday cake is going to happen, vacations and food choices not entirely in your control are going to happen! What is NOT going to happen is letting those choices send you spiraling downward and out of control of the other days of your year.

jlcase0000

I went into a four day spiral of eating way too much. i was doing great for a few weeks, tracking all my food, staying within my goals, walking every day then BAM, I have a bad day and lose all the ground I've made. Any suggestions? I'm 52 and losing weight had become a mystery to me. Nothing that worked in the past works anymore. I can work at it for weeks and see no results whatever so I lose my motivation. it's depressing. Help!

csteuter

Also have been in a spiral of eating too much the past few days. Told myself I would get on track yesterday, then didn't ... went over calorie limits by about 250, but worse than that, just bad food choices. Hope today is the day to re-claim my determination!

BRaye325

We should all remember that when we go off the rails for a day or several days, the scale does not accurately reflect how much true weight change has occurred. We will have more food in process in our system and likely went over our sodium intake which will be additional water weight. So don't freak out when the scale shows pounds of change, just get back on track to what you were doing and most of the new weight will pass within days. It takes 3500 calories to make up a pound, so five pounds would need to be 18,500 calories. While a binge can be substantial, our overeating will take a while to add up that high. Best thing to do afterward is to analyze why, learn, forgive ourselves, and move on. The sooner we get back on track the better.

lynnstacey2

BRaye325 wrote: »

We should all remember that when we go off the rails for a day or several days, the scale does not accurately reflect how much true weight change has occurred. We will have more food in process in our system and likely went over our sodium intake which will be additional water weight. So don't freak out when the scale shows pounds of change, just get back on track to what you were doing and most of the new weight will pass within days. It takes 3500 calories to make up a pound, so five pounds would need to be 18,500 calories. While a binge can be substantial, our overeating will take a while to add up that high. Best thing to do afterward is to analyze why, learn, forgive ourselves, and move on. The sooner we get back on track the better.

This exactly! Also remember figuring out how many calories you can eat and continue to lose weight is very individual. You can use the tools here as a starting point but if you aren't seeing any results after a few weeks, then something needs to change. The older you get, the slower your metabolism gets so you MAY have to cut more calories than you've been doing. Also make very certain that you are accurately tracking your calories. That's always the very first suggestion made when someone is not having success. Weigh and measure everything going into your mouth for at least a month and see if that makes a difference. In fact, if you aren't weighing everything, do that first before starting to cut more calories, it's very very easy to underestimate what you're eating if you aren't weighing. And if you have been eating back your exercise calories, either only do half or don't eat any of them until you can figure out what it's going to take in order to get that scale moving in the right direction.

nikkib0103

BRaye325 wrote: »

We should all remember that when we go off the rails for a day or several days, the scale does not accurately reflect how much true weight change has occurred. We will have more food in process in our system and likely went over our sodium intake which will be additional water weight. So don't freak out when the scale shows pounds of change, just get back on track to what you were doing and most of the new weight will pass within days. It takes 3500 calories to make up a pound, so five pounds would need to be 18,500 calories. While a binge can be substantial, our overeating will take a while to add up that high. Best thing to do afterward is to analyze why, learn, forgive ourselves, and move on. The sooner we get back on track the better.

Thank you, BRaye, for being the voice of reason. Because I had a meltdown moment. No way in heck did I eat 18,500 calories but the scale, aye, she is a cruel mistress. It did overeat. Being Italian, we started lunch with antepasto. prosciutto, salami, mortadella... I did not eat my usual amount (a shocking number) but the sodium in this stuff is really, really high so even a little goes a long way. Plus we had lasagna with all those cheeses. This is a once a year meal since Mom only makes her lasagna at Easter. Well, twice since I had some leftovers - a much, much smaller amount - the next day. But I have been beating myself up. Today, I am drinking a lot more water and have two workouts planned. I will be all right by the weekend, I think. I have to stop beating myself up for not being perfect. There is always room for improvement but I need to NOT throw in the towel after some screw-ups.

jlcase0000

Thanks everyone for the sanity to balance the (sometimes) insanity that goes on in my head after losing control. I think it's good advice to weigh my food since I've been eyeballing it and guessing amounts. Also good to take a deep breath and keep trying

nikkib0103

jlcase0000 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the sanity to balance the (sometimes) insanity that goes on in my head after losing control. I think it's good advice to weigh my food since I've been eyeballing it and guessing amounts. Also good to take a deep breath and keep trying

I had been eyeballing my salad dressing. Then I measured out an actual tablespoon. I was very surprised to see that what I THOUGHT was 2 tablespoons was actually just 1. Now I am used to less dressing and am pleased to save myself some calories and fat and be able to apply them to something else. It rarely works out that I had been eating less of something than I thought! Unheard of!

PaytraB

Weighing my food was a real eye opener when I first joined MFP and, over time, it taught me a lot about portion size. I highly recommend weighing food.
I found rice to be a pleasant surprise when I started measuring/weighing it. I could eat more than what I was eating. It's one of the rare items where that happened. LOL!
My husband was sick with a cold on Easter weekend. As a result, we had home-made pea soup for dinner on Monday. Very tasty; just not Eastery.