Strategy for Bad Days Ahead

robingmurphy

So, I've been consistently planning and logging my food in MFP for a month now, and I love it! I've lost about ten pounds, and I feel great! I'm not hungry, I like what I eat, my body feels good, and I'm achieving my goals. I'm motivated and energized! I get up every morning eager to do it again. One thing that's been really beneficial for me is that I now have data to tell me if I'm moving in the right direction. In the past, every time I'd eat I'd be asking myself if my decision to eat is moving me toward my weight loss goals or away from it, and it was just hard to tell. I can't easily tell whether I'm full enough or just eating for fun, and whether that's bad. Now, I know - I can go look at the data and tell if I'm still on track to meet my goals for the day, and if not I can still make the choice to eat that cookie with full knowledge of what I'm doing. I love it!

Anyway, things have been surprisingly easy for me. Like, easy enough that I feel like an idiot for not doing this and sticking to it before. I've lost a little weight with calorie counting in the past, but I've always ended up stopping when I lost motivation. I found myself losing motivation either when I hit some hard days and made some mistakes that took me significantly over calorie goal, or when I had a lot of life stress that cropped up. So far in this month, that hasn't happened. And I feel so good and happy planning and tracking what I eat that I'm kind of terrified of a storm like that knocking me off course. I'm trying to plan ahead to deal with it well. What are the best strategies for dealing with a bad meal or a bad day? I feel like I need to have a set of specific steps to take when that happens to make sure I get back on course. I want a emergency checklist to read and do when I feel my motivation and enthusiasm and focus slipping. I want to keep doing this forever. It makes me feel so good in body and mind.

elaineamj

I'm actually in about exactly the same boat! Will be piggybacking on this one for advice

I'm a little worried about Saturday as I am having friends over for dinner and am planning a spread. So i have been under-eating all week to save extra calories. I will also be eating a low cal breakfast and lunch that day. I have actually pre-logged all my food into Saturday to see the damage and since I am planning to cook skinny versions of everything I serve, the calorie count isn't as bad as I was fearing. Just under 800 calories if I stick to small servings of everything. I feel so much better and more confident about what handling Saturday in a way that won't derail me.

ilex70

Know idea if this will be helpful.

IME sometimes life just happens, things get hard and it isn't the right/easiest season to focus on weight. Be kind to yourself.

OTOH, weight loss/maintenance is a journey that only ends when you die or give up. I really wish that it was easy, that you could just be "finished" and done with it. You could take off the weight and then go on with your life, no longer devoting energy to CICO.

But the lack of an ending also means that you can ALWAYS start up again. Barring some serious physical/mental health problems or real financial distress you can do better tomorrow. And even if you do have those kinds of problems, hopefully they are temporary in your life.

vivmom2014

Congrats on your strong start and enthusiasm. And your weight loss!

I wouldn't try to anticipate storms/bad days. They will come, they will go. Your commitment to staying the course is what's going to see you through. We just don't know what's coming. So work on the whole balance of things - consciously deciding to stay even, not rigid. Sometimes the scale will be up. It happens. It will likely be water weight and it will resolve.

samgamgee

I'm glad you're feeling so good! My broad advice would be that you should face any setbacks with a pragmatic attitude - 'so I went over today, this isn't going to make much of a difference in the long run, I'll continue sticking to my plan'. It's not the end of the world if you eat more than you intended to - you won't suddenly have negated all of your hard work with one day's mistake.

HOWEVER! In order to stop one day's mistake from turning into weeks of overeating and ruining your progress, also ask yourself 'what can I learn from this?'. Recently I've gone over my calories a bit because I've been really hungry in the evenings. Instead of beating myself up about it, I looked at it like this: 1. What's the problem? I'm hungry at night time and it doesn't seem to correspond to how big a dinner I have eaten. 2. How can we tackle this problem? By eating less in the daytime so I have a few hundred calories saved up to eat when I get hungry at night. Sorted.

One suggestion I'll make is this: Prepare (or buy) a dinner that you like and that fits your calorie goals, and pop it in your freezer. If the life stress hits and you don't have the time nor inclination to cook and feel yourself reaching for the takeaway menu, then you can just open the freezer, pop the dinner in the oven/microwave and thank your past self for planning for this stress.

You've got this!

Lextmg86

I have stumbled along the way on various meals/days over the years but you have to remember, it is just one meal/day and as long as you get right back to it the next day, everything will continue on track.

FaithfulJewel

I struggle with a few things and, while it wasn't while I was recording as accurately as I used to (and am now doing again), I found them helpful...

Simple things, that take a bit of time, like cooking dinners. Do you have freezer space? Try and double up a recipe or two, that you know you like and can freeze, and shove them in the freezer with a date and, importantly, calorie count on them. That way if you're working late or ill or can't be trusted not to set yourself on fire one day, you can grab the frozen "ready meal" and have that. Worked wonders for me when I spent a month doing 12 hour days, as the previous month I had frozen enough to last us about 2 months!

When it comes to going over your calories, be it a "there's so much cake and it all needs to be eaten by me right now", just record it. It's disheartening to see that you've taken in more than you intended, but it's a blip. You're human, and it happens, so just keep tracking to keep your diary accurate and move on. Don't try and make up for it another day, as it'll just demotivate you - just try and figure out what caused the blip in the first place (a celebration? enjoy yourself next time but don't go too nuts if food is a major hurdle) and go from there.

Self improvement of any kind is a long, hard journey, where you need to break habits and make habits. It's not a straight road and life often gets in the way! Figuring out "cheat" methods of being able to sidestep issues, or pick yourself back up afterwards, is part of the process.

Best of luck and feel free to throw a FR at me if you want some advice on planning for busy/low motivation weeks!

richardgavel

When I started, I used that initial high motivation to develop good habits. Eating within my goals, no soda cold turkey, some type of workout every day. That's because I knew my motivation would have ebbs and flows. So 5 months later, when it's freezing and I don't want to walk to gym, I still do because of the habit. I can have a soda once a week or so because the habit is not to have them. Change what your mind considers "normal".

KatEmmaMarie

I always plan my days the night before. This is really helpful in staying on track because you know ahead of time, before you eat those calories, exactly what you're putting into your body. This especially works for when you're eating something new that you don't necessarily think the calories will be that high and they end up being a bigger portion of your day than you originally thought. By logging all of (or most of) your day the night before you can better gauge and make better decisions. "Is that piece of cheese you're putting on your sandwich really worth the extra 110 calories, if it puts me dangerously close to being over?" I find it really helps in staying on track when I know exactly what I'll be eating and how much extra calories I have to splurge on some desserts or treats before I even wake up for the day!

I also find it helpful to write myself a letter or a simple note that I read when I'm having a bad day. I try to remind myself that it's one moment, that completely derailing all the progress I've made because something bad has happened isn't worth it in the long run. I also remind myself that it's okay to have set backs. Such is life! Don't let the tiny setbacks cause for falling completely off the wagon. Just dust yourself off after a not so good day and move forward.

Toronto6fan

don't beat yourself up for a bad day, just start fresh when it happens.

Ninkyou

If you go over your calorie, log it and move on. There are going to be occassions, parties, holidays, etc that you will go over. Realize that those are a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the year. You could always eat a bit less the week before/after an event to "save" calories up for those days you do go over.

Life happens. Don't let trivial things get in the way of what you want. For bigger things, it's okay to take some time to yourself and have a good cry. Just don't let it turn into a permanent thing. Remember what it is you want and keep going.

And log, everyday, no matter what (unless you really really can't or there's a planned "off" day, just get back to it asap).

oolou

When bad days come, I look at them in the context of the amount I went over and the context of the week.

I try to maintain a deficit of 500 cals.
So if I've over eaten by 500 calories, I'll know that this means for one day this week I will make no loss or gain. Not a big deal if this is only once in a while.
If I've over eaten by 1000 calories, I'll acknowledge a potential one seventh of a pound of fat gained, but then will check to see if I've undereaten my calories during the week and so have some calories 'banked'.
If I don't have calories banked, I think about whether I can fit in some extra cardio over the next few days to mitigate the extra calories eaten.
And so on.

Basically ... stay calm, stay sensible, look at the big picture.

Meganthedogmom

Log it and move on. Get back to your usual. Realize that one bad day or bad meal doesn't have to define you.

robingmurphy

I am going to bookmark this thread and come back and read it when I need it. I am travelling next week, so I'm expecting to have some challenging situations soon.