How to not kill your calories after being good all day

One trick that's been helping me recently is if I go over, even several hundred calories, I am still below my TDEE, so while I am "over", I am still at a deficit which means I would still be losing weight at a slower rate. For me, that nips the "oh well I already blew it" mentality before it gets out of hand.

The other thing I do in that case is make sure I leave 300 calories the next day for some after dinner snacking (a snack pack of almonds/cashews/dark chocolate at 260 calories is my never fail), just in case. I can usually do one day's worth of light dinner/no snack, but it takes too much out of me to do that day after day.

But if you don't log it, then you don't go over! Simple!

Seriously though, if you use the spreadhsheet from in place of road map thing on here, it lets you see how you are doing over a week and a month, in the bigger scheme of things if this still points the right way you are doing okay.

Hi all,

The only way I found to fight this is to only arrive home at 7. So diner time! I give myself 15min to order the house and then i can start cooking!

I don't get out of work until 7 pm ....... then a 45-minute drive .....sometimes will stop off at the gym first. Either before I leave work, or perhaps in the car, I'll eat some combination of apple, almonds and/or cheesestick & drink 8 ounces of plain water. That keeps my energy up for a session at the gym ...... or the devil at bay while I make dinner, cuz my hubby's usually too busy playing FarmVille to start dinner :grumble:

Best of luck :drinker:

you have MFP on your phone? Make sure you log everything immediately after it goes in your mouth. That way you can see how quickly its stacking up. Also, if seeing your calories "go red" in the negative (calories left) and think that its all ruined, consider what your TDEE is.

I'm guessing that your TDEE is close to or over 2000 calories. So say your calorie limit on your diary is 1600, and your picking brings your calorie level up to like 1750. You're still 250 below your TDEE, so you're going to lose weight.

If you keep eating because you've already "ruined" it, you're likely to exceed your TDEE and actually ruin it by eating more than you've burned.

Make sense?

I ate everything I wanted all weekend with no excercise and also crappy yesterday. Down 1.5 lbs today. Now I need to figure out how that happened! LOL!

Before dinner is usually the only time I get hungry, but because for me, it's generally a small window, I find I can just willpower it through until I serve dinner.

My big issue is that I'm greedy in the evening- it's the time of day when I really want to eat! The only thing that works for me is to budget calories for it and embrace it.

I plan my dinners ahead...Well all meals really .....I make a menu then shop for that menu for the week....then I prep that days meals ahead of time.....as in my dinner for tonight is all ready to go into the pan .....that way I can get it done quickly and with not munching the whole time I am preparing because I am hungry..........

If I do go over and I do.....I try to let it go....it's done I can not fix it but I can try to prevent it from happening again

I still have days like this on a regular basis. Even when I'm good and I know I have a ton of cals left for the day, I still have guilt. or I have something that I KNOW is going to blow my weigh in out the window (ie: high sodium, like Chinese). Then I'm sitting here looking at the weight I have lost compared to the weight I COULD have lost and it's Guilt City. Ugh!

Plan for it. I try to leave 300 calories for after-dinner snacking. Typically it's a protein shake since I'm having a hard time hitting 200g, but it also helps to keep me full.

I leave calories for snacking. If you feel like you have to snack, go measure it all out and then munch on it.

I make sure that I eat enough protein during the day. I usually eat the most before lunch. After lunch I'll usually have a snack of almonds or beef jerky, so when I get home I'm not starving. Keep an apple on your desk, and right before work is over, eat it. it's not bad that you're snacking while you're cooking, what's bad is the choices you're making for the snacks. Last night I munched on the cauliflower and broccoli I prepared for supper, but I wasn't super hungry because I ate my face off all day.

I used to have this problem. My solution: LOTS of water and a good distraction from food (usually video games). I also happen to be far from the kitchen so I am not constantly grabbing snacks. It helps that I have small hands so that I if I do go for snacks, I can't hold very many. XD I usually just stay upstairs in my room enjoying my distraction until bed time.

Psychologically most people have less will power at the end of the day when your brain is fatigued.

Some things that work for me:

- I eat the best I can all day long. At night when I'm tired and the cravings kick in, I can look back at a great day and resist the desire to "wreck" it. If I have an indulgence earlier in the day, I am more likely to say, "Aww F it" at night.
- Workout in the evening after work. Not always the easiest time to fit it in - or the best temperature to be outside during the summer - but it burns cals and gives me less time to eat.
- Space meals further apart in the morning and closer together in the evening. I eat about every three hours. In the morning it is 3-4 hours and in the evening it is 2-3 hours. I can't tell you whether eating more at night has had a negative impact on my weight loss but I know I'm losing weight where if I was bingeing every night I wouldn't be.

So I have a bad tendency to be so hungry when I get home from work that I start picking while I'm making dinner. I did good yesterday, but then started eating some crackers, some croutons, and some olives that we were adding to our meal. I also started to fish through the cupboards and had a damn devil dog (yes bought some before Hostess went out of business) because thats when I developed a taste for em.

Mind you, I ate that after dinner, even though I knew I wasn't "allowed" anymore calories, but had the stupid mentality well you went over anyway, you already ruined it, this isn't gonna make a difference.

Ugh, now I sit today with guilt. Anybody have days like this?

A lot of people do that. Maybe the best place to start is with how you look at things. Maybe try not to look at things as "being good" and "being bad", good foods & bad foods, being naughty, being "allowed" calories etc. there's nothing wrong or bad about being hungry, or eating. Food is not bad, and neither are calories. Obviously, to lose or maintain weight, you need to be eating the right amount, but I've found it really helpful to take the judgement out of the equation. You shouldn't be spending the day wracked with guilt because you ate more food than you had intended to. Think of all the crap that goes on in the world, that people do to each other. Leave the guilt for things that actually warrant it. Looking at things in extremes can really make things more difficult. When people are either "good" or "bad", or "on a diet" or "fallen off the wagon" etc, then it's so much easier to end up really sabotaging yourself. Try to be more flexible. If you go over your goal be a couple of hundred calories, you're probably still eating at a deficit. Even if you go over your TDEE for one day, it will be balanced out by other days. Having one day where you eat more than you planned is no reason to give up for the rest of the week. (Not saying you did, but that's where it can head).

As for practical solutions - I realised at some point that I actually prefer to eat more later on in the evening. I like to have quite a big dinner, and to snack later on. So, I plan my day that way. I eat lighter earlier on in the day and save calories so that I can eat most of my intake for dinner and after dinner snacks. That might be something you could try.

Also, try to look at what's making you want to exceed your intake. You have identified that you feel hungry when you get home, so try planning a snack for that time, or before you leave work. Or, if you're determined not to eat before dinner, then try distraction techniques such as chewing gum while you're making dinner. Or cut up some raw carrots or broccoli in a set portion, and eat those. If you plan for it, you're less likely to just grab whatever's in sight.