Willpower???

awesome_paws

Hi all
So I have been a member of MFP since January 1st of this year. I have logged my food every day since then (except 1 week when I was on vacation). However I wasn’t trying too hard to stick to under my calories, and until mid April, most weeks I went over my calories for the week.

I always find it hard to stick to the whole healthy eating thing. I am very strict for a few weeks – this usually coincides with the weeks where I have few social events (I have a lot of work functions that involves lunches/dinners/drinks – as well as my regular social life), then these events come up and I lose motivation, decide it is too stressful to so carefully monitor my food/drinks when I go out and throw caution to the wind. So say 4 days a week I am under calories, then 3 days I am over (with 1 of those usually way over). So while I haven’t gained weight, I have not lost either. I went back through my diary and found that the days I went way over were always drinking days – lots of booze calories plus eating out/bad food choices due to the alcohol.

5 weeks ago, I began regularly exercising, 4 days a week (2 days spin, 2 days strength training), and 5 days walking to/from work ~6km/day as well as doing weekend workouts/activities (yoga/biking/hiking/stair climbing). This has helped a lot, because I like to eat and now I get to eat a lot more. I try to net ~1200 calories per day, which gives me a total of usually 1800-2000 calories per day. I have not really been drinking either (1 or 2 max if I do). I still can eat out here and there and stay within my caloires. So I have ate under my week’s calories for 3 weeks and lost about 5 pounds. So super motivated.

The next 5 weekends I will be out of town (so eating out, potential drinking and potential to not be as active). And it stresses me out to go to these things, I know I can eat healthy while away and fit workouts in, but it is so stressful and makes me so anxious I kind of want to say screw it again, work hard and eat well 4 days a week and let it go those other 3 day - not crazy eat whatever I want, but not kill myself over staying under calories. In this case, I will probably not gain weight, but not lose either. I often plan and plan when I know I’ll be in these situations, but when everyone else is eating/drinking, sometimes I just break my resolve.

How do I keep myself focussed in these situations? I know it’s all about willpower/mind over matter, but how do you guys stay on track in these situations?