Over-ate by twice my calories on Saturday, do I cut back or

sazziecee

Hi

My husband surprised me with a night away for Valentines (but we went on Sat)

I usually only have approx 200 cals for breakfast but as I was struggling to eat all my calories I had purposely had a 400 cal breakfast that day, before he told me of the surprise! (typical)

Anyway we went for a meal and I had a pretty healthy meal really, mussels in tomato sauce to start, half a roast chicken with roasted root veggies (skin removed) and then we shared a dessert of pancakes and fruit.

However we did have approx 7 cocktails each. I was shocked when I got home to discover that I DRANK approx 2100 calories in alcohol. My daily calorie allowance is 1250! so even though I had exercised that day my overall intake was 2783 cals!

I also went over my calories the next day my approx 500 by mistakenly believing that a chicken wrap was the most healthy option at Nandos when in fact it was the beef burger! this was also a no exercise day.

Yesterday and today I have tried to keep under my 1250 cals by about 3-400 calories and haven't eaten my exercise calories to attempt to balance it out. Is this the right thing to do? or should I just be eating my 1250 cals as normal?

My weigh in is on thursday and it's been about 3 weeks since I had a "real" loss (gained 0.5lb cos of TOM and then lost the same 0.5lb last week) despite me logging everything and also exercising at least 5 times per week. Although some days I was taking in less than 1200 cals and was getting told off on here so I have been trying to eat more, but obviously not to the extent of Saturday!!

By the way I am 5ft 4.5 inches and weigh 152lb, would like to get down to 140lb to start with and then eventually 126lb

thanks in advance.

mschelle

Your 1250 limit is at the bottom edge; I would highly suggest not going under that in your *net* calories - which includes your exercise calories!

So you ate an "extra" 2000 calories this weekend..consider this:

If you have yourself set up to lose 1lb/week, your allowed calories are already 500 under where you would begin having true excess (gain). At 1250, I suspect you're set for even higher weight loss goals, but let's go with the 1lb/wk assumption.

So on VDay you really only had an extra 1000 calories, and the next day you had 0 extra calories. Burn an extra 150 calories or so a day and it's all a wash. If you are set higher than 1lb/wk, you have even less "extra" to do.

Don't stress it. We've all done it and it's not the end of the world, nor as bad as you think.

sweetbn

It really isn't too healthy to restrict your intake drastically by a large number of calories. Your body needs a certain amount just to do the basics.

I find when I overeat one day, than undereat I really just have no energy to get up and do other things (like exersizing).

Remember - fitness is a journey not a destination. Its important to have overall good habits over a long period of time - hey It was Valentine's Day - you deserved it. Now you know for next time how many calories are in those drinks.

KariM

Agreed - dont worry about it and move on! Over the past 6 months I have been pretty dedicated, but we all burn out at times and we all have big weekends, parties, holidays -- still need to live and have fun! I find when I go off for a few days ( I stay at 1400-1600 cals) - not eat crazy, but know I have eaten more than I should over a few days -- I seem to lose more that week. I think our bodies appreciate the break, but exactly why this is I dont know. If you go back to what you were doing I bet no harm was done.

psyonix

No you don't want to put off eating. Let your body balance out over time, not all at once. You can't make up for 1 bad day by not eating very much for 1 day...just like you can't lose all the weight you want to lose in 1 day when it took years to put it on! If your calories get too low your metabolism will go into starvation mode and start storing fat rather than burning it. The object is to keep the metabolism going in burn mode. I went nuts on V-day on purpose and didn't even bother logging the calories, I don't care, it was a day off. I weighed in this morning and I actually lost weight from the last time I weighed in last week, the v-day binge didn't even hurt me!

Use this as a learning experience and stay on track, you'll do fine.

LETIN1

This helps me too. I overate this weekend and only exercise last night because I felt really guilty. I was thinking of not eating all my cal but now I will and also exercise. What's done is done. I guess we just have to move on.

nolan_84

Don't worry about going over or 'splurging' one time... sometimes it will actually benefit you that week because your body isn't used to having all that food & it speeds up the metabolism momentarily. KEY WORD: Momentarily! A couple days at most.

In any case, it's not a big deal at all for a one night binge so to speak... just move on, keep with the plan and it won't have and long term affects.