Question for those who have lost a lot of weight......

If you had an off-plan weekend, I suspect you went out, meaning you went over your sodium goals (restaurants are notorious for having a lot of salt), so you have likely retained water and refreshed your glycogen stores. Most of it isn't a real gain (some of it is, but hard to know how much). Most of us have gone off plan at one point or another (I know that I went way over during this past July 4th and even more so last St. Patrick's Day), but it hasn't hindered my losses long term. So long as you get back to what you were doing, the weight will come back off. I suspect a lot of what you gained will drop of in fairly quick order as you shed water and glycogen again. Don't let it worry you.

I've lost almost 40 lbs, and I've had plenty of "cheat days," on top of my planned high-calorie days.


ETA: Yeah, a good part of what you put on is probably water retention fronm sodium. Unless you actually ate however many lbs of food you gained?

I lost 135 lbs (before getting pregnant) and I allowed myself some "cheat foods" along the way. I never gave up my one vice...chocolate donuts. Not everyday, but once or twice a week. It's good to let yourself have something bad once in awhile, otherwise, you would never stick with it. That's my two cents.

People tend to add a moral quality to their diet by using terms like cheat days. Food isn't evil, and not following your "commandments" 100% isn't a sin. The language we use does matter, and can feed into the negative self-talk we have regarding food, our bodies, and our behavior. Like others here, I think "cheat day" is a terrible phrase.

What matters is your intake over a period of time, not one particular meal or one particular day (how much did you take in over the past week, say). And just as there are no "white magic" foods that will make you lose weight, there are no "black magic" foods that will make you gain weight.

There's a graph someone posted recently of his weight loss/gain over time; the overall trend was steadily down, but there were days where the weight fluctuated as much as 4-5 pounds. There are a lot of reasons for this: cheap scales, water retention, differences in bowel content.

You know that you aren't alone out there and many people have strayed and swerved. The key is to developing a skill set that will prevent or at least minimize this tendency. The best advice I ever received was to log before I eat anything because it forced me to stop, think, and choose. Do I really want this? So much of our eating patterns are mindless and a one key is to make eating mindful.

I have lost 183 pounds and no definitely not perfect I had many times were for even weeks or months were I struggled...you just have to persist. A lot of your increase on the scales is prolly water weight and will go quite quickly

I have lost 74 pounds now, a little over halfway to goal. I don't have or believe in cheat days. I do, however, indulge in certain things that I like best. A local Mexican restaurant, an occasional treat, but 99% of the time, I am at or below my calorie goal. It is still too scary to me to go full on back to old eating habits.

Thank you everyone for your words of wisdom. I guess I am just paranoid that it's going to demotivate me if I get on the scale of the 31st and have not lost the 5lbs. Truth is that no matter what the scale says I still need to keep on this journey. I can't quit. Bottom line.

I think what is more important is how do you feel? You've changed your habits these past few weeks - concentrate on those positive changes (higher energy level, clearer skin, feeling stronger from exercise). Don't watch the scale so much - it's stupid and it will make you paranoid.

Drink a lot of water to flush the sodium out of your system - that should help you out.

In with the sodium crowd. I travel a fair bit with my job and, when I was losing, noticed either a stall or gain after returning from a trip as I had to live mostly on restaurant/hotel foods (even if I kept within my calorie goals). That gain would generally drop off in a few days after resuming my normal eating patterns.

I often have cheat days... or cheat weeks :blushing: