Special occasions make this feel impossible

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  • Rincewind_1965
    Rincewind_1965 Posts: 639 Member
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    Where is the problem?
    You (usually) know in advance that such an occasion is going to happen.

    The easiest way to solve your problem: Raise your calorie budget by sports.
    The way to go is not to avoid "unhealthy food" (for whatever that is) but to reach the point when you ask yourself "Is it worth it?"

    Example: A piece of cake X has (assumed) 800 kcal this would mean ~ 80 minutes of medium to high intensity workout ... Is it worth it? If the answer is "Yes", then by all means get the cake and have a decent run afterwards, or walk the long way home, or, or, or,
    Saying that you "Fell off the wagon" in fact is the easiest and worst possible way out.
    Granted, one ruined day will not ruin the whole project, but exactly knowing when this is going to happen and doing nothing about it is a lack of consistency, not more, not less.
  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
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    competecompetecompete wrote: »
    F it
    It won't kill you
    Don't worry about what you ate last
    Think about what you're gonna eat next

    I love this comment so much! Whether you succeed or fail totally depends on what you do next.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    Raise your calorie goal. If your calorie goal is so low you can't live a normal life that is not very sustainable. Choose to lose at a slower rate or start exercising more.
    Look at your weekly calorie goal instead of just daily. You can eat lighter a couple of days or exercise a bit more to have more calories for events that week.
    Have a maintenance calorie day once a week. If you have a deficit the rest of the days you can still lose. The more maintenance days the slower the loss will be though.
    Prioritize and make choices. Don't try to have it all in one day. If you want the cake then maybe you want to choose low calorie or no calorie drinks. If you want beer or wine that day you might need to eat lower calorie foods and/or only have one drink. Maybe you want to skip breakfast so you can have dessert later. Maybe you decide you don't have to go to every event you are invited to if it is every week and stressing you out. Maybe look for ways to be active at events like dancing, playing games, helping clean up, taking pictures.
    Don't sit or stand by the food table.
    If it is appropriate for the occasion bring a dish to share that you feel comfortable eating.
    Eat slowly and really savor whatever you are indulging in.
    Eat reasonable portions and then pop some mint gum in your mouth.
    Don't bring home party leftovers.
  • melissaulmen
    melissaulmen Posts: 123 Member
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    The weekends are always tough. You need to figure out a balance so you can still enjoy the weekend festivities.

    Come up with a plan that works for you, if it is not working, try again. This is a learning experience and you need to figure out what works for you. Eat healthy on the weekdays, but allow yourself some wiggle room on the weekends.

    You have to allow yourself to enjoy those extra moments or else it will be hard to stick with anything for long term.
  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    Something I had to learn to keep from blowing my deficit every weekend: occasions that occur every week are not special occasions. Also, some occasions that are special for someone else (friend's birthday) aren't necessarily special for me.

    This is a good frame of mind to have, OP, along with the advice to just eat a small portion, or take a bite to see if it's really worth it.

    If you have a "special occasion" every weekend, how special can it really be? I wouldn't see a housewarming party as particularly special. Get together with your friends and celebrate their purchase of a new home? Okay, but is that really an occasion for cake?

    Just like budgeting your calories for every other day of the week, you could just take smaller portions of the things you'd like to try. Or, you could bank calories for the weekend and have larger portions of those things. I typically bank 1,000 calories for the weekend, plus have a longer walk on Saturday and Sunday so that my calories both those days are higher than M-F. So, I can eat quite a bit on the weekends and still maintain my deficit.

    There are ways to work around the "special occasions" that are not painful or guilt-ridden.
  • abicuffyxx
    abicuffyxx Posts: 6 Member
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    Don't punish yourself! Try to limit the damage done (less cake, just drink water) and then balance it out with some exercise.
  • cefleischman
    cefleischman Posts: 46 Member
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    Thank you all for the helpful suggestions!!
  • BeachBaby_81
    BeachBaby_81 Posts: 62 Member
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    You need to break that mentality of good and bad foods, a good day or a bad day. Don't even get me started on 'cheat days' .. You will go through your life restricting and bingeing and doing your own head in. Don't get stuck in Monday to Friday mentality. I call special occasions 'Memories over Macros' days. Eat the foods, drink the drinks and move on. Look at a kid eating an ice cream. They don't sit around for hours afterwards wishing they didn't eat it. They eat it, enjoy the s**t out of it and get on with their day. It's what you do consistently that pays off. One or two (or even three or four) days out of a month aren't enough to cancel out all the other days you put in effort. Don't beat yourself up.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited September 2017
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    Special occasions are named that for a reason. They're special. They're not a daily occurrence. There are 365 days in a year, and even if 65 of them were special events 300 days have a much larger determining effect on your weight. Eat the cake. Don't consider it "ruining your diet". Consider it "complementing your diet" because it's keeping you sane enough to continue dieting. Once you treat these days as part of your diet, not a deviation from it, you will feel much better and do much better because you will be able to last much longer, which is the most important aspect of any diet.

    To manage your calories just do one or a combination of the following depending on what feels easier to you at the time:
    - exercise extra to earn the calories for that cake
    - bank calories when you know there will be an event
    - have lighter meals
    - eat up to maintenance that day (days not in a deficit don't ruin your diet since you aren't gaining weight in maintenance)

    Most importantly, try to teach yourself to not feel guilty about this. That's life. There is no need to feel guilty over living your life like you are supposed to. That's how you'll be eating for good if you're planning to maintain your weight. You better get used to just living your life with all its variations unless you are planning on losing weight then moving into a cave and living as a hermit.
  • milkywayward
    milkywayward Posts: 27 Member
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    Why do you think you're "missing out" if you refuse drinks or dessert? If these occasions are really that frequent, there will be another one soon enough — you're not missing out on anything, except food that in the long view you don't want to eat. On days where I know I have a party that I want to eat dessert and high-calorie foods at, I budget my calories early in the day and prioritise protein and fibre, and indulge a little. If I really go overboard it's just one day and not that big a deal. When I look back at my life I don't think what I will remember about any given party is whether I did or didn't have cake or dessert.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    I had this same problem, so I just started eating a couple hundred less calories per day during the week which gave me 1000 extra calories for the weekend but still the same net calories for the week.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
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    OP, one thing that really helped me was determining what my personal maintenance calories were (~2300). Now I know that as long as I am under 2300 calories for the day, I'm still technically losing. And if I go over, it's usually not by much.

    This is much more helpful to me than having a calorie goal of 1600, having a day where I ate 2000 calories and beating myself up because I "ate too much." Which I obviously didn't, but thought I did because I didn't know my maintenance calories.
  • Parabellum68
    Parabellum68 Posts: 15 Member
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    Everybody is entitled to time off, that is why we have rest days / treat days etc. I love going binge drinking like most people, it just means I do more time in the gym when my hangover goes

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