best tips after a weekend of eating unhealthy food?

cecile97

what do y'all do after you eat poorly over the weekend? usually, I get discouraged and let myself slide with cheats for the rest of the week, then fall back into old habits. but, i'm determined not to this time.

does this ever happen to you, if so what do you do to get back on track?

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cecile97

@Noel_57 alrighty, thanks. just looking for personal things - for example, my sister works out first thing Monday morning and then splurges on her favorite expensive smoothie afterward. she says that usually resets her for the week. some people do other things.

sometimes something special is involved after cheating for more than just a meal! but, depends on the person I guess, i'm just looking to try something new.

Alatariel75

I just... get back on track. A weekend of deviating from my good habits isn't helped by continuing to not act in accordance with those habits. I actually think that doing something special to get over it can be self-defeating as it kind of sets up another "blip" in what should just be... what you do from day to day.

When you decide that you need to do something special to get over going off track, you just add another thing that you risk not complying with, which can lead to making more excuses not to get back on track, if you know what I mean?

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Nony_Mouse

Thirding the just get back on track.

lynn_glenmont

Maybe the best thing you could is not think about it as "eating poorly." Think about it as something you allowed yourself to do (assuming it was at least a conscious decision, even if it wasn't planned ahead) within the context of your overall path. If you go for a hike in the forest, you may occasionally take a few steps down a side path to get a closer look at some flora, fauna, or interesting bit of landscape. Then you return to the main path. The sidetrip wasn't a mistake, and you knew you weren't going down that path forever, because it was the main trail that was going to get you where you were going.

cecile97

@Noel_57 yeah, that's exactly what I have done in the past! but it's two very different extremes- either I push myself way too hard, or I stop caring altogether. crazy business. i will just try to correct my behavior before it gets there, thanks for the advice!

cecile97

also thanks @Alatariel75, that definitely makes sense. why correct abnormal behavior with another abnormal behavior?

Ready2Rock206

Drink some extra water to help flush the extra sodium you probably consumed and just get back on track.

Blythmag

What above said.done now so just keep doing the things that work

Orphia

Is your weekly plan too strict? Allow yourself little treats within your calorie limit.

Did you go over your weekly calorie limit? If not, don't worry at all.

I never define any foods or meals as cheating. I just log all my food and stick to my calorie limit for the day or week.

The food pyramid allows 10-20% of treats. 100% boiled chicken and broccoli is not healthy.

rikkejohnsenrij

Thats why I borrow a fast day from the 5:2 diet:)
I Usually eat a lot in the weekends, but then i eat VERY little monday...and that seems to balance it out nicely according to my scale...done that for several months now, which showed that 1 fastday a week keeps my weight stable.

active_kate

My deficit is large enough that occasionally going over is factored in. Sometimes, I'm just hungry - I'll end up in the 2,000 to 2,400 KCal range.

I remember that weight loss is a journey, and that what I did yesterday doesn't affect what I do today. If I'm feeling particularly good, I'll go for walks or do other exercise to help get back on my desired timeline, but I'm careful to avoid the binge-purge(through exercise) cycle, since that leads to yoyoing and failure. It's better to be good because I can, rather than trying to "un-do damage". It's not damage - I made a choice yesterday to eat more, and today, I'm choosing not to.

It's faulty logic to think "I was bad before, so I might as well be bad now". Willpower varies, appetite varies, but each day is taken on its own. Let the past go, and let today's Calories be today's Calories, and yesterday be yesterday's Calories.

bec71

I just usually tighten my calories over the next few days or eat 200 to 300 less for a day or 2. Works for me

kommodevaran

Did you enjoy what you ate? Or did you eat just because everybody else were eating, or even compulsively, because you believed you couldn't stop, that you shouldn't be doing it but lost control? If you stop demonizing foods you like - referring to eating it as unhealthy, poorly, abnormal, slide, cheats, old habits, off track (you have quite a range of negative terms there), and just designate weekends as a time to eat a bit of "whatever", and let go of the idea that you somehow need to make up for eating what you like, a "reset", which actually makes "getting back on track" much harder - and investigate whether your chosen "track" is unnecessarily narrow - you might find that living a healthy life isn't that difficult after all.

Machka9

First of all, when I'm actively losing weight, I eat according to my plan every day.

However, if I've decided to take a diet break on a weekend, I return to normal on Monday.

displaced1

I try to analyze what's going on, somewhat. Did I binge on treats that should not have even been in the house? Did I go out to eat and choose 2,000 calorie meals at restaurants? Did I mindlessly eat snacks?

If there was something that can be tweaked, I allow it as a lifelong learning lesson - finding my trigger foods, setting myself up for success instead of failure, etc.

I also think about some idioms- if you have a tire pop on your car, don't cut the other three tires. If you fall down a few steps, don't throw yourself down the whole flight.

girlinahat

I'm usually a fan of loads of veggies and fruit salad, but there are weekends when it's all pizza and cookies and bread heavy. I've done diving liveaboards where it's been three course meals and not many vegetables and put on 7 lbs over the trip.

Not that any of that is BAD necessarily, but a full weekend of it make me feel 'heavy'. So I tend to make a massive bowl of fruit salad, or eat a tonne of veggies, and that gets my taste buds back into eating all the other good stuff. I tend to CRAVE fresh food when I've been eating a lot of processed stuff.

JeromeBarry1

If you are falling back into old habits, then you haven't actually learned the habits of eating as if you wanted to be slim and strong. Keep working at it. Each day is a perfect time to start fresh, with no need to do penance or fasting or cleansing as a consequence of a cheat meal, day, week, month, year, or life.

bebeisfit

I would make sure that I had foods prepared for the week. I wouldn't fast or restrict, but tighten up. I'm not sure how your normal day looks, but maybe go for a few extra vegetables and cut out a treat or two. If you normally have a drink or soda, maybe skip that. And I would add an extra workout or try to get in some extra steps - nothing crazy extreme.

As others have said, make that U turn to get back on track.

ladyhusker39

Nope. Yesterday was yesterday, today is today and tomorrow will be tomorrow. I just keep swimming.

Famof72015

Try and think of Saturday and Sunday like the other days of the week. Follow your goals all day everyday! Work what you consider “unhealthy” into your calories. If it’s a lot of stuff you want to consume, then change your mind set and just allow smaller portions.

nickssweetheart

The first thing I do if I've had a day of eating over my allotment is make sure I track everything to the best of my ability if I haven't done so already. Then I drink a couple of glasses of water and may exercise a little bit. Then I pre-log my next day's meals and ask myself why I went over.

This last time, it was because I wanted a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast but I'd already started cooking my oatmeal. So I stirred some peanut butter into my oatmeal which was good, but didn't quite do it...so later that day I ate two sandwiches after thinking about them all day. Whoops! Hundreds of calories in peanut butter. Lesson: next time, put the oatmeal in the fridge and eat the damn sandwich.

The time before, I concluded that I was just hungry, so I tweaked my plan to eat more fats and less bread and pasta, and that was the end of that problem.

I just try to be very aware of what I'm eating and what I'm feeling and thinking when I do it.