I feel TERRIBLE about my cheat meal last night

rainbowbow

I would consider your current outlook as possibly unhealthy.

Everything in moderation.

You sound like you have been depriving yourself and then you had an uncontrollable binge. You keep saying "healthy lifestyle" and i dont think you know what that means. This should be something that you can do... well... forever.

This isn't the only time you're going to eat pizza. This isnt the only time you'll have a cookie. The key is to fit it into your diet/calories/macros and don't beat yourself up about it. You don't want to develop a hate filled relationship with food where things are "bad foods" and "good foods". This is setting yourself up for failure.

QuilterInVA

I see a cheat meal in the same light as telling an alcoholic he can drink on the weekend if he abstains all week. All they do is set back progress.

Siansonea

Never feel guilty about eating pizza and cookies. Feel guilty about murder, genocide, war crimes, etc., but don't feel bad about food. It's just a cheat meal. It's not the end of the world. Get back on the horse. And don't put yourself in a deprivation mindset to begin with. Eat what you want, just stay within your calorie limits. I eat Taco Bell several times a week. I don't feel the least bit guilty. OR fat! :drinker:

lynn_glenmont

Hi, everyone!

I am new to this community but have to say I've been a lurker for quite some time, haha : )

So I started my lifestyle change August 15th, 2013. I'd always been healthy/active but in January 2013 I just seemed to go WAY off course and stopped running and started eating EVERYTHING and gained 45 pounds in 6 months (I know, it's sick!).

But in August I said that was ENOUGH! So I started going back to my healthy lifestyle on August 15th, and today is October 31st, and I'm down about 31 pounds.

I still have 15 pounds to go for my goal, but last night I couldn't resist this crazy craving I had for pizza so I went out and ate 3 plain slices + a giant chocolate chip cookie (whatever you think a "giant" one is, consider it a little bit bigger, LOL!).

And now I feel so guilty. I feel like my body was in "weight loss" mode this whole time and I just kicked it out of it and now my weight loss will stop and I'll stay at this weight for a long time.

I hadn't had a cheat meal since September 10th, I've been eating VERY clean the rest of the time (no processed things, whole grains, veggies, some fruit, lean protein, etc.) and I do some form of cardio every single day for at least 35 minutes.

Do you think I messed up my regime or my weight loss efforts? I know I was WAY over my calories for yesterday but I had ran for 4 miles in the afternoon.... I don't know, I just feel so guilty! I don't want to be stuck at this weight, and I'm dreading that plateau that so many people seem to talk about.

Sorry about the long rant... I just feel like this is the only community I can get some support/advice because if I ask my friends or family they're just like "you've lost a ton of weight already, you deserve to cheat once in a while' and that's not what I want to hear until I get to my goal weight you know?

Ah!

Don't go off the deep end over this -- that emotional reaction is more likely to throw you off your plan than one meal is. If you've lost 31 pounds since Aug. 15, that suggests you are averaging a 1400-calorie-a-day deficit (which seems excessive for someone who's only 15 lbs from goal weight, BTW), so even the pizza and cookie pushed you 3000 calories over your target for the day (which is about a thousand more than I would think from the meal you described, but maybe that cookie was the size of a wagon wheel ), you should still lose weight for the week, just not as much as you have been. Get back on course, and you'll resume losing weight. Your body doesn't have some magic on-off switch that allows it to defy the physical need to burn stored materials (preferably fat, if you don't create a deficit so big that it outpaces the daily limits on your ability to metabolize your fat stores) as some sort of punishment because you were "bad." And to the extent that your body does have tactics to marginally decrease the need to burn stored fat, they are triggered by eating too little, not by eating too much.

MichMunchkin

I still have 15 pounds to go for my goal, but last night I couldn't resist this crazy craving I had for pizza so I went out and ate 3 plain slices + a giant chocolate chip cookie (whatever you think a "giant" one is, consider it a little bit bigger, LOL!).

Last night I went to KFC for dinner and had a three-piece meal. Usually on Wednesday I have pizza for dinner (about the same amount you had), plus I usually have potato chips and a chocolate bar.[/quote]

Do you think I messed up my regime or my weight loss efforts? I know I was WAY over my calories for yesterday but I had ran for 4 miles in the afternoon.... I don't know, I just feel so guilty! I don't want to be stuck at this weight, and I'm dreading that plateau that so many people seem to talk about.

I have been actively losing weight since January 2011. I ALWAYS have a day each week where I don't even bother tracking my calories (my weigh-in day; I weigh in every Wednesday morning.) I don't feel one bit guilty and I don't look at it as "cheating". Don't look at it as cheating. Look at it as you not depriving yourself. Depriving yourself of the things you love, in my opinion (and in my personal experience) only leads to ridiculous binges. I know that for me, when I say to myself, "Well, I can't have [x]...." it always ends up with me pigging out totally on [x].

It will take more than a cheat day to put you in a plateau. One cheat day a week will not make you fat. It won't. If you eat well 80% of the time, then why not treat yourself the other 20%? Life's too short to feel guilty about food.

Francl27

I'm 15 lbs away. 2 weeks ago I went 1100 over my goal one day... lost weight that week. Today I'm going to be over by 300 because hubby ordered pizza and I'm not hungry but I've been craving some... Yeah I'm a bit guilty about it but I realize that it happens. It's a lifestyle change and it doesn't mean you'll never be allowed to have a treat night.

suziepoo1984

Weight loss is not linear and should not be either. Everybody else has pretty much covered everything else you need, but how i have lost weight this time around is in bunches:
I workout, i eat well(everything in moderation)- i lose weight as expected. I get a feeling i need more of things i love to eat, i do it, again in moderation. In this phase, i pretty much maintain my weight. That gives me the push i need to continue.
I again go back to phase 1- rinse and repeat

jonkay85

I would consider your current outlook as possibly unhealthy.

Everything in moderation.

You sound like you have been depriving yourself and then you had an uncontrollable binge. You keep saying "healthy lifestyle" and i dont think you know what that means. This should be something that you can do... well... forever.

This isn't the only time you're going to eat pizza. This isnt the only time you'll have a cookie. The key is to fit it into your diet/calories/macros and don't beat yourself up about it. You don't want to develop a hate filled relationship with food where things are "bad foods" and "good foods". This is setting yourself up for failure.

Thank you for the response! I keep saying "healthy lifestyle" because that's what I've always lived, my whole life, so I do know what it means. I was never overweight up until this year. So when I say "healthy lifestyle" I mean my lifestyle before I gained all this weight, when I didn't have a fear of having what ever I wanted in moderation. It wasn't until I gained this weight over the last several months that put me in this mindset of "I can't eat anything too bad until I get to my goal weight" because my whole I was at my goal weight, and I'd eat whatever I wanted, in moderation, so I'd just work out and get over it.

But I do know that it's bad that I am *NOW* thinking of food like this while I'm trying to lose this weight. It's all new to me because I never had to lose so much weight.

Losingthedamnweight

One meal isn't going to destroy you or you would never have bounced back to where you are. And tbh I have heard of wayyyy worse meals...like...entire pizzas plus a 2L and breadsticks plus dessert :P

You wanna feel bad about having an extra couple thousand calories? I just got out of a 3 day binge where I probably ate 6,000 calories a day and my maintenance is only about 2500. So an extra 3500 a day for 3 days? Yep. That's 3 solid pounds. Now THATS a bad cheat to recover from. But I'm doing it

MeanderingMammal

I see a cheat meal in the same light as telling an alcoholic he can drink on the weekend if he abstains all week. All they do is set back progress.

What a ridiculous comparison.

mumblemagic

in my opinion...when you do an elimination type diet, you're more likely to have large binges. Why not consider allowing treats normally in your calorie allowance to that you won't be faced with cheat meals where you feel bad afterward?


oh and one meal doesn't ruin months of work....

food is food, don't demonize it.

This!!! I'm at goal weight, and I still have pizza at least once a week. Just work it into your calorie allowance. And if you're over one day, just balance it out the rest of the week. The more you obsess about it, the more your body won't do what you want it to! lol

^^ This

Chill out dude, you're doing well. It's good for your mind to relax and have a good time and have food that's not perfectly healthy, and what's good for the mind is good for the body. Also, it isn't bad for your body if you do it once in a while. I think you're very restrained going 6 weeks without having a chill out meal full of naughty goodness.

mumblemagic

I see a cheat meal in the same light as telling an alcoholic he can drink on the weekend if he abstains all week. All they do is set back progress.

What a ridiculous comparison.

Lol! This too.

wrench_girl

As a recovering alcoholic who just joined this site earlier this week, I have to agree it is an extreme comparison to say that a cheat meal is the same as a relapse, or an alcoholic drinking on the weekend. The obvious reason is that I must abstain from drinking alcohol, but I must eat every day. I thought I'd share my thoughts with you all on this. I've been sober for 110 days, and just started to lose weight in the last two weeks. Now even though I did lose a few pounds in my first two weeks I was in a treatment center, I quickly hit a plateau when I began craving sweets. I ate whatever I wanted to in my first few weeks of sobriety because: 1. I thought I could because I wasn't drinking 1000 calories of beer a day, and 2. The emotional rollercoaster I was on was somewhat relieved by substitution (ie. chocolate cake). I don't have an eating disorder, but I do reach for comfort foods often, I love pizza, mac n' cheese, ice cream.

I am in no way an expert on this subject, but I do believe that there are some things that I am doing as a recovering alcoholic that I can also apply to healthy eating. I'm more aware of my moods now. I always ask myself if I'm feeling angry, irritable, resentful, bored, sad, anything... what is this feeling? Anger might be insecurity or resentment at something I have no control over. Sadness might be self-pity at something I can control. When I was drinking, I would always try to "fix" my feelings by ignoring them and getting drunk, just as it is also easy for me to eat half a large pizza (nom nom nom) after a frustrating day. I decided to apply the things that I learned in treatment to my healthy eating goals. There are two days I can do nothing about: yesterday and tomorrow. Also the "just for today" quote is helpful. I could get drunk tomorrow, or next year if I wanted to. I could go to McDonald's tomorrow and order a large meal. TODAY I'm not going to drink. TODAY I'm going to make healthy food choices. I'm not giving myself a freebie to relapse, but it's much easier to think of it like that. Yesterday I ate a donut, and it put me 200 calories over. No problem, I still lost 2 pounds this week, and the donut was yummy. I didn't eat it to alter a mood, I ate it because I wanted to and I thought being under 1200 calories 2 days in a row was counter-productive for my weight loss goals. I don't want my body to think its starving. Today i will make decisions about whether to eat leftover Halloween candy at the office or a piece of fruit. The choice is mine. One thing I will not do is worry about the donut I ate yesterday, or the pizza I might eat tomorrow. If you read all of this, thanks! I had a lot to say ;-)

Suzanuh

Last night I went out to eat with my family. It's a tradition for us to go out to eat on Halloween because the trick or treaters used to scare my kids when he was little. I ate a cheesesteak and fries and followed it up with a big brownie at home. I weighed 1.5lbs more this morning than I did a couple days ago, but I'm not fretting. I know it's probably just the sodium (they had delicious salty fries!) I probably ate about 1500 calories over my allowance, but that's okay. For one, we don't go out to eat often, I hadn't been out since August. Second, it's a tradition and I wasn't paying 10 bucks for some lettuce on a plate. I enjoyed every last calorie and now I'm going to finish out my week eating clean and healthy.

It's life, it happens. You will be okay. One meal does not a diet break. Just drink lots of water and try not to max out your calories the next couple of days. Enjoy yourself when you go out, but just don't let it become a habit to eat over every day.

nomorebingesgirl2014

Great post